Matthew 27

Matthew 27:1

Judas, one of the twelve, came. Judas knew the place where the Lord would go to pass the night (John 18:2). Compare Mr 14:43-50 Lu 22:47-53 John 18:3-12. A great multitude. Roman soldiers (John 18:3,12), the temple guard, “the captains of the temple” (Lu 22:52), and possibly some priests and scribes. With swords. In the hands of the soldiers. Staves. Clubs. The rabble with the soldiers carried these. The chief priests and elders. The Sanhedrin.

Matthew 27:2

Gave them a sign. A kiss; a common method of salutation among intimate friends. A sign was needful to point Jesus out to the soldiers. Such a traitorous kiss was the depth of depravity–enmity under the guise of friendship.

Matthew 27:4

They . . . laid hands on Jesus. And bound him (John 18:12).

Matthew 27:5

One . . . drew his sword. Peter (John 18:26). Struck a servant of the high priest’s. As we learn from John, his name was Malchus (John 18:10). The Lord healed his wound (Lu 22:51). Peter asked, “Shall we smite with the sword”? and without waiting for an answer, struck the blow (Lu 22:49,50).

Matthew 27:6

They that take the sword shall perish with the sword. A general law. The violent usually die violent deaths.

Matthew 27:7

Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father? The Lord needed no human defenders, had it been the Divine purpose that he should not die. More than twelve legions of angels? A Roman legion contained from 6,000 men upwards. The idea here is a mighty host. He and his eleven disciples are twelve. There is more than a legion for each one of them. He could have evaded the enemies had he chosen; the angels would have come to his rescue, if he had willed it, but he gave himself unto death.

Matthew 27:9

Are ye come out as against a thief? Not a thief, but a robber, a brigand. Among all the indignities heaped upon Jesus by his enemies, the only one that he complains of is that he should be bound like a robber.

Matthew 27:10

Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled. The eleven apostles who a little while before thought they never could forsake the Lord. As soon as the Lord was seized they fled into the darkness.

Matthew 27:11

Led [him] away to Caiaphas, the high priest. He was first examined by Annas, the former high priest, the father-in-law of Caiaphas, probably while the Sanhedrin was assembling in the darkness of the night (John 18:13). For the trial of Christ, compare Mr 14:53-64 Lu 22:54-71 John 18:13-18. The scribes and the elders were assembled. Mark says the “chief priests” (Mr 14:53) also. It was a gathering of the Sanhedrin. Those who were favorable to Jesus, like Joseph and Nicodemus, were probably not called.

Matthew 27:12

Peter followed him . . . to the high priest’s palace. The enclosed area, open to the sky, around which the palace was constructed, was called the court. The building extended all around this.

Matthew 27:13

All the council. The Sanhedrin. Sought false witness. No one could be condemned legally without at least two witnesses who agreed (Deuteronomy 17:6 19:15). “One witness”, it was said, “was no witness”. As there was no true testimony to a charge that could be punished with death, they sought false witness.

Matthew 27:14

But found none. That is, witnesses who would testify to a capital offense and agree in their testimony. At the last came two. These two gave a perverted version of what Christ had said concerning his death and the resurrection of his own body under the figure of a temple. See John 2:19. But even their testimony disagreed (Mr 14:59).

Matthew 27:16

Answerest thou nothing? Under the false charges Jesus maintained an impressive silence. “As a sheep before the shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7).

Matthew 27:17

I adjure thee, etc. This was the formula for an oath. The High Priest, contrary to the principle of law which forbids that a prisoner shall be compelled to criminate himself, called on Jesus to be a witness against himself. To answer yes, or no, to such a question, was to answer under oath.

Matthew 27:18

Thou hast said. That is, thou hast said the truth in thy question. The Lord only breaks the silence to affirm his divinity under oath. It insured his death at their hands, for he was immediately condemned for the declaration. “At the very crisis of his history, when denial would have saved his life, he asserts his claim to the Divine Sonship and to a Godlike power.

Matthew 27:19

Then the high priest rent his clothes. A sign of mourning or indignation (Acts 14:14). It was a form that was always used then about to pronounce a judgment. He hath spoken blasphemy. He did, if not Divine; he did not, if Divine. Either he spoke the truth, or the wicked Caiaphas spoke the truth and Jesus was false. If he spoke falsehood, the purest lips that ever formed human words spoke falsehood on the eve of death, when he knew that the falsehood would send him to death. Such an affirmation, from such a prisoner, at such an hour, can only be reconciled with a consciousness of divinity.

Matthew 27:20

He is guilty of death. This is the formal decision of the Sanhedrin to condemn the Lord to death for blasphemy. This was the second trial, the first examination being informal before Annas, and is mentioned only by John (John 18:13,24). There was a third, named only by Luke, at the dawn of day, because a decision by the Sanhedrin in the night was illegal (Lu 22:66). This meeting only confirmed the decision reached in the night before three o’clock. It is also referred to in Matthew 27:1.

Matthew 27:21

Then did they spit in his face. The maltreatment recorded occurred between this meeting and the one called to meet at daybreak. Spitting was considered among the Jews an expression of the greatest contempt (Deuteronomy 25:9 Numbers 12:14). Even to spit before another was regarded as an offense, and treated as such by heathen also. Buffeted him. Struck him with their fists.

Matthew 27:22

Prophesy to us, . . . Who is he that smote thee? We learn from Mark that his face was covered, as a mark that he was a condemned man (Mr 14:65). The age was a cruel one, and Jewish bigots could not be too rough to the condemned prisoner.

Matthew 27:23

Now Peter sat without in the palace. While the preliminary examinations were being held before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, Peter and John entered the court of the palace. This court was an open square, enclosed by the palace which was built in a quadrangle all around it. From it doors and windows opened into the rooms built around it, so that Peter was “without the palace”, yet in the interior court, where he could see and hear through the open door the proceedings in the hall. Oriental houses are still built with this interior court. And a maid came to him, saying. John speaks of her as “the damsel that kept the door” (John 18:17) of the porch, or passage into the court. We are not told why she suspected him. He was at this time in the interior court, and is said by Luke to have been standing “among them” (Lu 22:55) by the fire that had been kindled in the courtyard on account of the chilliness of the night.

Matthew 27:24

But he denied before [them] all. Denied that he “was with Jesus of Galilee” (Matthew 26:69). But a few hours before Peter had asserted that though all others deserted the Lord he would not, and that he would die with him, and when Judas led the band into Gethsemane, Peter, refusing to consider the odds, flung himself upon them, valiant as a lion, struck and wounded Malchus, and would probably have slain him had he not swerved. He was a brave as a hero then–now is timid as a deer. The explanation is that his faith had failed when he saw his Master apparently helpless in the hands of his enemies. See Hebrews 11:32-35.

Matthew 27:25

When he had gone out into the porch. Alarmed by the accusation, he withdrew into the porch, an arched passage that led from without into the inner court. This [fellow] was also with Jesus of Nazareth. It is another maid that follows him and makes the charge. In both cases the charges were based on conjecture.

Matthew 27:26

He denied with an oath, I do not know the man. Peter’s second denial. He even denied knowing him, and that, too, with an oath. He had entered upon the downward road, and each step called for a deeper one. So it is always with sin.

Matthew 27:27

Thou also art [one] of them; for thy speech bewrayeth thee. Matthew says, “After awhile”; Luke says, “About an hour after” (Lu 22:59). John says that the third charge was made by a kinsman of Malchus, who asserted that he saw Peter in the garden (John 18:26). Mark says that they accused him of having a Galilean brogue (Mr 14:70). As most of the disciples of Jesus were Galileans, this draws attention to Peter. Different districts had their dialects, as in England, or the United States.

Matthew 27:28

Began he to curse and to swear. Peter’s “third” denial. He not only, with an oath, repeats what he had said in the second, but he affirms it with imprecations of divine wrath on himself if he spoke not the truth. The gradations of guilt in the denials of Peter: (1) ambiguous evasion; (2) distinct denial with a false oath; (3) awful abjuration with solemn imprecations on himself. Immediately the cock crew. This was at the opening of the fourth or morning watch, at about three o’clock. The cock often crows about midnight, or not long after; and again always about the third hour after midnight, or three o’clock. This shows that the second trial of Jesus took place before the dawn.

Matthew 27:29

Peter remembered the word of Jesus. It was at this point that the Lord turned and looked at Peter (Lu 22:61). The hall where Jesus was being tried was probably open toward the court, and Jesus may easily have heard all the denials of Peter. Now he turns and looks at Peter, and brings to his mind what he had few hours before foretold. He went out, and wept bitterly. The look of Christ broke his heart. As the cock crew, his own confident assertions and the word of the Lord, “Before the cock crow twice (before the second cock crowing) thou shalt thrice deny me” rushed upon him (Matthew 26:34 Mr 14:30 Lu 22:34). He rushed out into the darkness of the night to weep. Judas sinned, betrayed and sold the Lord from covetousness. Afterward he was sorry, but it was the sorrow of this world that worketh death (2 Corinthians 7:10).

It was remorse, not repentance, and he went and hanged himself. Peter’s repentance was attested (1) by the bitterness of his tears; (2) by his humble submission to his Lord’s subsequent rebuke (John 21:15-17); (3) by his subsequent courage in confessing Christ in the face of threatening danger (Acts 4:8-12,19). THE ORDER OF EVENTS, after the prayer at Gethsemane, for this night were as follows: After the arrest, and its incidents, (1) Jesus was taken first to the house of Annas, ex-high priest (John 18:13). (2) Next, to the palace of Caiaphas, Peter and John following (John 18:15). (3) Here was a preliminary examination before Caiaphas (John 18:19-24). (4) The trial before the council illegal, because held at night–before three o’clock, the cock-crowing (Matthew 26:59-65 Mr 14:55-64). (5) Peter’s three denials during the trial (Matthew 26:69-75 Mr 14:66-72). (6) After the Sanhedrin had pronounced him guilty it suspends its session till break of day (7) During this interval Jesus is exposed to the insults of his enemies (Matthew 26:67-68 Lu 22:63-65). (8) At the dawn of day the Sanhedrin re-assembles (Matthew 27:1 Mr 15:1 Lu 22:66). (9) After hearing Christ’s confession again, he is formally condemned to death for blasphemy (Lu 22:66-71). (10) He is bound and sent to Pilate (Mr 15:1). ON THE ILLEGAL CONVICTION OF CHRIST, Prof. Greenleaf, a distinguished jurist, says: ``Throughout the whole course of the trial, the rules of the Jewish law of procedure were grossly violated, and the accused was deprived of rights belonging even to the meanest citizen. He was arrested in the night, bound as a malefactor, beaten before his arraignment, and struck in open court during the trial.

He was tried on a feast-day, and before sunrise. He was compelled to criminate himself, and this under an oath of solemn judicial adjuration; and he was sentenced on the same day of conviction. In all these particulars the law was wholly disregarded.''

Matthew 27:31

Jesus Crucified SUMMARY OF MATTHEW 27: Christ Delivered to Pilate. Judas Hangs Himself. Jesus Before Pilate. Barabbas and Christ. Pilate’s Wife’s Intercession. Pilate Acquits Jesus, but Yields to the Clamor. Jesus Scourged, Mocked, Taken to Golgotha, Crucified. Mocked on the Cross. Reviled by the Thieves. It Is Finished. The Veil of the Temple Rent. The Centurion’s Confession. Pilate Yields the Body of Jesus to Joseph. Buried in the New Tomb. The Tomb Sealed and Guarded. When the morning was come. Jesus had already been condemned, but another meeting of the Sanhedrin after daylight was necessary to give its legal effect, as condemnations to death could not be made in the night. That was the object of this meeting. For a fuller account of it, see Lu 22:66-71. For account of Christ before Pilate and the crucifixion, compare Mr 15:1-47 Lu 23:1-56 John 18:1-38.

Matthew 27:32

Delivered him to Pontius Pilate. The first mention of the Roman procurator by that name. He was both military and civil commander, usually dwelt at Caesarea, but came up to Jerusalem at the passover feasts to preserve order. The Sanhedrin could not put Jesus to death, as the Roman rulers demanded that all cases of capital punishment be referred to them. The governor. The whole province of which Judea was a part was called Syria, and was ruled by a “proconsul”. The divisions of one of the great proconsulships were ruled by “procurators”, translated “governors”. Pontius Pilate, Felix (Acts 23:24) and Festus (Acts 25:1) are examples of the latter.

Matthew 27:33

Then Judas . . . saw that he was condemned. The annals of men record no sadder history than that of Judas, impelled by avarice and resentment to betray his Master for money, and only to awake to the nature of his awful crime when it was too late. The language here suggests that Judas had hoped that the betrayed Jesus would deliver himself from his enemies. Repented. Not, in the Greek, the word used for “repent” in Acts 2:38 and elsewhere, but one that means, rather, “remorse”. The first, “metanoeo”, means “to change the mind or purpose”; the other, “metamellomai”, “to carry a burden of sorrow over the past”. One promises a change in the future; the other is born of despair; Peter repented; Judas regretted.

Matthew 27:34

I have sinned in that I have betrayed innocent blood. The Jewish law demanded that if new testimony was offered after condemnation the case should again be heard. Perhaps Judas thought his testimony to the innocence of Christ might, under the circumstances, be heard. What [is that] to us? No words could more emphatically declare the utter disregard of the Jewish rulers to justice. They concerned themselves not in the slightest concerning the innocence or guilt of Christ; they cared only to procure his death.

Matthew 27:35

Cast down the pieces of silver in the temple. Where he had this interview with the Sanhedrin. Went and hanged himself. So have done, since, thousands of criminals when the blackness of their crime had revealed itself to them. How often a man after the committal of a murder shoots himself!

Matthew 27:36

It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury. These men were not too scrupulous to send the innocent to death, to shed the blood of the innocent, but were too scrupulous to put blood money into the treasury. They could pay blood money, but could not take it back.

Matthew 27:37

The potter’s field. A field that had been used for the purpose of making pottery until it was worthless for other purposes and could be bought cheap. Potters’ fields are still found in the Kedron Valley south of the city. To bury strangers in. A burial place for the poor. The Jews usually provided their own tombs. Peter, Acts 1:18, says that Judas fell down headlong and his bowels gushed out. The common explanation is that he hung himself on a tree overlooking the valley of Hinnom, that the rope gave way, and that he fell headlong upon the rocks below, a distance of forty to sixty feet.

Matthew 27:39

Then was fulfilled. The prophecy is found in Zechariah 11:12. Albert Barnes shows that a change of a single letter in the original would transform Zechariah into Jeremiah, and it is supposed that some early copyist made the mistake. Another explanation is that Jeremiah, in the Jewish arrangement of the prophets, stood first, and that his name was given to the whole book of prophecy.

Matthew 27:41

Jesus stood before the governor. In the judgment hall (John 18:28), which the Sanhedrin did not enter for fear of defilement. It was probably about seven a.m. that they presented themselves to Pilate, hoping that he would order their condemned prisoner to death without inquiry, but on his demand for charges they accuse Jesus of seeking to make himself King of the Jews. This charge causes Pilate to ask: Art thou the King of the Jews? They had condemned Jesus for blasphemy, but now make a political charge, and Pilate’s question is whether Jesus is claiming a temporal kingdom. Thou sayest. Jesus was King, not of the Jews only, but men, and he admits the charge. He was King, however, in a spiritual sense, as he explained to Pilate (John 18:36).

Matthew 27:42

He answered nothing. He made no defense, just as he had done when before Caiaphas (Matthew 26:62-64).

Matthew 27:44

He answered him to not a word. To their charges of seeking to establish a worldly kingdom and of stirring up sedition he returned not a word. His impressive silence moved Pilate deeply.

Matthew 27:45

At [that] feast. The passover. How the custom of releasing a prisoner at the passover arose is unknown, but such customs are common under arbitrary rules.

Matthew 27:46

A notable prisoner. A leader in an insurrection in which he had committed murder (Mr 15:7 Lu 23:19). Barabbas. The word means “son of a father”. Some have made him a type of the guilty human race which is released from punishment by the substitution of the innocent Christ.

Matthew 27:47

Therefore when they were gathered together. After the first examination, Pilate, finding that Jesus was from Galilee, sent him to Herod, tetrarch of Galilee, then in Jerusalem, to be tried by him as belonging to his jurisdiction. Herod, however, after trying to induce him to work a miracle and mocking him, sent him back (Lu 23:6-11). Now they had gathered after his return. Barabbas, or Jesus? Pilate, desirous of releasing an innocent man, afraid to oppose the Sanhedrin, adopted this expedient in the hope that the increasing multitude of people would demand Christ rather than a blood-stained robber.

Matthew 27:49

When he was set down on the judgment seat. Probably while the people were deciding for which one to ask. The judgment seat was a kind of lofty official throne, placed on the pavement (John 19:13). His wife sent unto him. On this sad day the voice of a Gentile woman was the only one that interceded for Christ. That she should speak of Jesus as a “righteous man”, shows that she knew much of him and that he had already made a wide and deep impression. A dream. It may have been entirely natural. She was probably already deeply interested in Jesus and knew that he was to be seized in the night. Her waking thoughts would be reflected in her sleep.

Matthew 27:50

Persuaded the multitude. To call for the release of Barabbas, instead of Christ. It is likely that few of the Galileans, so favorable to him, yet knew of his arrest. “The multitudes” were such as the authorities would summon at this early hour.

Matthew 27:51

They said, Barabbas. Pilate’s artifice had failed. The Jewish nation had not only rejected its Messiah, but chosen a robber instead.

Matthew 27:52

Let him be crucified. This is the decision of the Jewish people. He shall suffer the fate which was due the crime of Barabbas who had been released in his stead.

Matthew 27:53

What evil hath he done? Pilate’s struggle between his desire to be just and to please a body demanding a crime at his hands is pitiable. He repeats the question three times and offers to appease their rage by chastising the innocent (Lu 23:22). He had, however, lost his power when he began to parley with a mob. They, utterly unreasonable, only demand the move vehemently that Jesus be crucified.

Matthew 27:54

When Pilate saw that . . . a tumult was made. It was a dangerous time for a tumult, with more than a million Jews in Jerusalem, and probably not a thousand Roman soldiers in the castle. If one occurred, it would be reported to Rome, and he could hardly make a plausible defense to the emperor. He therefore yielded, and gave his sanction to confessed wrong, rather than endanger himself. Washed [his] hands. A symbolic act, meaning that the responsibility of the sin was upon the Jewish authorities and people instead of himself.

Matthew 27:55

His blood [be] on us. That is, let us have the responsibility and suffer the punishment. A fearful legacy, and awfully inherited. The history of the Jews from that day on has been the darkest recorded in human annals.

Matthew 27:56

He had Jesus scourged. Scourging usually preceded crucifixion. It was an awful punishment, inflicted by brutal soldiers, and continued until the victim was fainting under the torture.

Matthew 27:57

Then the soldiers . . . took Jesus into the common hall. After the scourging which was inflicted in the court (Mr 15:16). Josephus says that Pilate stayed, while in Jerusalem, in Herod’s palace, on the northern brow of Zion, near the Jaffa gate. The whole band. The cohort (from 400 to 600 men) on duty at the palace. They gathered to mock the doomed prisoner.

Matthew 27:58

They stripped him. His clothing, stripped off at the scourging, had been replaced, but was now removed to wrap him in a mock royal mantle. Scarlet or purple were the royal colors.

Matthew 27:59

A crown of thorns. Both in mockery and for torture. And a reed in his right hand. For a scepter. Having thus arrayed him, in royal robe, crown of thorns, and mock scepter, they kneel before him and deride him.

Matthew 27:60

They spat upon him. In order to show still greater contempt. Brutal as these heathen soldiers were, they were no more so than the Jewish Sanhedrin had been.

Matthew 27:61

After that they had mocked him. Pilate presented the bleeding prisoner once more to the people, evidently to secure their pity, and made one more effort to release him, but in vain (John 19:5). Then Jesus was led away to the cross.

Matthew 27:62

As they came out. Of the city. Jesus was crucified “without the gate” (Hebrews 13:12). A company of soldiers, led by a centurion, had charge. A man of Cyrene. Simon by name, the father of two well-known Christians (Mr 15:21). Cyrene was in North Africa, and was the house of many Jews. To bear his cross. At first Jesus bore his own cross, but exhausted by scourging, sank under the weight (John 19:17). Luke seems to show that Simon only bore the “after” part of the cross, the lighter end, which had been dragging on the ground (Lu 23:26).

Matthew 27:63

Golgatha. A Hebrew word, meaning a skull. From its Latin equivalent, “calvaria”, comes our English word Calvary, which occurs in the English New Testament only in Luke, where it should be translated “a skull” (Lu 23:33). The name was due, either to a rounded rock like a skull, or to the fact that it was a place of execution and that skulls were lying there. The locality is not certainly known.

Matthew 27:64

They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall. A stupefying drink, intended to lessen suffering. He would not drink. The “tasting” implied a recognition of the kindly purpose of the act, but a recognition only. In the refusal to do more than taste, we trace the resolute purpose to drink the cup which his Father had given him to the last drop.

Matthew 27:65

They crucified him. This was the most dreadful, terrible and shameful death known to antiquity. The Jews never crucified Jews, nor the Romans, Romans. That the Jews should demand of the Romans to inflict it on Jesus shows the intensity of their hate. And parted his garments. From John 19:23 we learn that there were four soldiers at the cross, and the garments were the perquisite of the soldiers. The outer garments were divided into four parts, one to each, but the coat, rather the “tunic”, an inner garment, was seamless, woven in one piece, probably of wool. As it would have been spoiled by dividing it, the soldiers decided to cast lots for it, thus fulfilling another prophecy (Psalms 22:18).

Matthew 27:66

And sitting down they watched him there. It was their duty to remain by the cross until the execution was ended by death.