Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Mark 15:47

And Mary Magdalene and Mary [the mother] of Joses beheld where he was laid.

47. Mary Magdalene ] and Mary the mother of Joses (see note above, Mar 15:40) and the other women (Luk 23:55), “beheld,” i. e. observed carefully, the place where He was laid, and where, surrounded by all the mystery of death,

“Still He slept, from Head to Feet

Shrouded in the winding-sheet,

Lying in the rock alone,

Hidden by the seald stone.”

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Beheld where he was laid – The affection of these pious females never forsook them, in all the trials and sufferings of their Lord. With true love they followed him to the cross; they came as near to him as they were permitted to come in his last moments; they followed him when taken down and laid in the tomb. The strong, the mighty, the youthful, had fled; but female love never forsook him, even in his deepest humiliation. This is the nature of true love; it is strongest in such scenes. While professed attachment will abound in prosperity and live most in sunshine, it is only genuine love that will go into the dark shades of adversity and flourish there. In scenes of poverty, want, affliction, and death, it shows its genuineness. That which lives there is genuine. That which turns away from such scenes is spurious.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 47. Beheld where he was laid.] The courage and affection of these holy women cannot be too much admired. The strength of the Lord is perfected in weakness; for here a timid man, and a few weak women, acknowledge Jesus in death, when the strong and the mighty utterly forsook him.

HUMAN strength and human weakness are only names in religion. The mightiest MAN, in the hour of trial, can do nothing without the strength of God; and the weakest WOMAN can do all things, if Christ strengthen her. These truths are sufficiently exemplified in the case of Peter and all his brother disciples on the one hand; and Joseph of Arimathea and the two Marys on the other. And all this is recorded, equally to prevent both presumption and despair. Reader, let not these examples be produced before thee in vain.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

And Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of Joses,…. Or Joseph, as the Vulgate Latin and Ethiopic versions read:

beheld where he was laid: very likely they saw Joseph, and his men, take him down from the cross, and they followed him, and observed where he laid him; or, as the Ethiopic version reads, “where they buried him”; placing themselves, as Matthew suggests, right “over against the sepulchre”, Mt 27:61; so that they were witnesses of his death, and of his burial, as they afterwards were of his resurrection from the dead.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Beheld (). Imperfect tense picturing the two Marys “sitting over against the sepulchre” (Mt 27:61) and watching in silence as the shadows fell upon all their hopes and dreams. Apparently these two remained after the other women who had been beholding from afar the melancholy end (Mr 15:40) had left and “were watching the actions of Joseph and Nicodemus” (Swete). Probably also they saw the body of Jesus carried and hence they knew where it was laid and saw that it remained there (, perfect passive indicative, state of completion). “It is evident that they constituted themselves a party of observation” (Gould).

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Beheld [] . Imperfect tense. Were looking on meanwhile. The verb also implies steady and careful contemplation. They took careful note.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “And Mary Magdalene,” (he de Maria he Magdalene) “Then the Mary Magdalene,” of Magdala, in Galilee, out of whom Jesus cast seven unclean spirits or demons, Mat 27:60; Luk 8:2.

2) “And Mary the mother of Joses..” (kai Maria he losetos) “And Mary who was the mother of Joses,” the Mary who was also the sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus, Mat 27:60; Joh 19:25.

3) “Beheld where He was laid.” (etheoroun pou tetheitai) “They beheld where He had been laid,” Luk 23:55, which accounts for their going there later to anoint Him for burial, after they had rested through the Sabbath day, Luk 23:56.

BURIAL OF CHRIST

“There is another fact which was never denied either; and that is, that Christ was buried: no one ever doubted that, no one ever controverted that. He was buried, however, in a particular manner, just as He died in a particular manner. The sepulchre of Christ was an aperture in a rock, a hole cavity hewn out of a natural rock. So there was no approaching the sepulchre of Christ but by the mouth of it; there was no undermining it, there was no sapping and mining it, by which the corpse might have been abstracted, by which it might have been taken away some other way than the way it was put in; there was no way of the body getting out of the grave but by the way it got in, namely, by the mouth of the sepulchre. But the mouth of the sepulchre was shut up, sealed up, fortified with a great stone rolled against its mouth. The stone was sealed with royal arms, the imperial signet was attached to the stone, the sepulchre of Christ was hermetically sealed; so that it was supposed it could never be infringed upon, never could be violated ‘ and to make it still more inviolatable, it was guarded by Rome’s veteran legions. It was never denied, then, that Christ was buried.”

Dr. Beaumont.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

(47) Mary the mother of Joses.In Mat. 27:61 she is described simply as the other Mary.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

‘And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses beheld where he was laid.’

The women had not ceased their vigil. When Jesus died they waited still by the cross, and when the two great men of the Sanhedrin arrived with their servants they must have watched, wondering what would now happen. They would not dare to approach them. It was not the kind of thing that respectable women would do, and could have been seen as an affront. And then to their astonishment they saw those two great men arrange for His body to be laid reverently in a nearby tomb, and they watched as the great stone was rolled across, and determined that they would return that His body might be anointed, for they did not know that those great men had already seen to the anointing with great care. How could they have known? And even if they had known they may well have felt that they wanted to make their own loving contribution to the One Whom they had loved so well. Such loyalty has its own logic.

Mark mentions only two who saw because he knew the names of only two. Perhaps he knew that Salome had had to go off to see to Mary the mother of Jesus, who was prostrate (why else was she not there?), and under the care of Salome’s son, wanting to release her son in case he could do anything. Luke tells us that at this stage they went back to their lodgings to prepare spices and ointments, and presumably in the light of what happened recognised that they would need more than they had (which suggests they saw it as more than a token anointing).

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Mar 15:47. Beheld where he was laid. ‘, carefully observed, in order to bring their spices and unguents to embalm the body, as soon as the sabbath should be over.

Inferences drawn from our Lord’s appearance before Pilate. These Jews well deserved to be tributary: they had cast off the yoke of their God, and had justly earned this Roman servitude. Tiberius had befriended them too well with so favourable a governor as Pilate. If they had retained the power of life and death in their own hands, they would not have been beholding to a heathen for a legal murder.

But what is the cause, O ye rulers of Israel, that ye stand thus thronging at the door of the judgment-hall? Why do ye not go into that public room of judicature, to demand the justice for which you are come? Was it because you would not defile yourselves with the contagion of a heathen roof? Holy men,your consciences would not suffer you to yield to so impure an act! your passover must be kept! your persons must be clean! while you expect justice from the man, you abhor the pollution of the place! woe to you, priests, scribes, elders, hypocrites! can there be any roof so unclean as that of your own breasts! Go out of yourselves, ye false dissemblers, if ye would not be unclean. Pilate has most cause to fear, lest his walls should be defiled with the presence of such monsters of impiety, thirsting for innocent blood; the blood of the Son of the Blessed.

The plausible governor condescends to humour their superstition; they dare not come in to him, he therefore yields to go forth to them. Even Pilate begins justly, What accusation bring you against this man? See Joh 18:28-29. There is no judging fully of religion by men’s outward demeanour: there is more justice among Romans than among Jews. The malicious rabbis thought it enough that they had sentenced Jesus; no more was now expected than a speedy execution: “If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up to thee. We have condemned him to death; we need no more than thy command for execution.”

O monsters, whether of malice or injustice! must he then be a malefactor whom you will condemn? Is your bare word ground enough to shed blood? Whom did you ever kill but the righteous? By whose hands perished the prophets?the word was but mistaken; ye should have said, “If we had not been malefactors, we had never delivered up this innocent man to thee.”

That must needs be notoriously unjust, which nature itself teaches pagans to abhor. Pilate sees and hates this bloody suggestion and practice. “Do ye pretend holiness, and urge so injurious a violence? If he be such as you accuse him, where is his conviction? If he cannot be legally convicted, why must he die? If I must judge for you, why have you judged for yourselves? Could ye suppose that I would condemn any man unheard? If your Jewish laws grant you this liberty, the Roman laws allow it not to me. Since you have gone so far, be your own carvers of justice: Take ye him, and judge him according to your law.”

O Pilate! how happy had it been for thee, if thou hadst continued steadfast to this determination! Thus thou hadst washed thy hands more clear than in all the water in the world. Might law have been the rule of this judgment, and not malice, this blood had not been shed. How palpably does their tongue betray their heart; It is not lawful for us to put any man to death. Pilate talks of judgment, they talk of death. This was their only aim; law was but a colour, judgment was but a ceremony.

Where death is fore-resolved, there cannot want accusations. They began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, &c. Luk 23:2. “What accusation, saidst thou, O Pilate?Heinous and capital. Thou mightest have believed our confident intimation; but since thou wilt still urge us to particulars, know that we come furnished with such an indictment, as shall make thine ears glow to hear it. Besides that blasphemy whereof he has been condemned by us, this man is a seducer of the people, a raiser of sedition, an usurper of sovereignty.” O impudent suggestions! What wonder is it, blessed Saviour, if thy honest servants be loaded with slanders, when thy most innocent person escaped not accusations, so palpably, so shamefully false!

Pilate now startles at the charge: the name of tribute, the name of Caesar is in mention. These potent spells can bring him back, and call Jesus to the bar. There meekly stands the Lamb of God to be judged, who shall once come to judge both the quick and dead. Then shall he, before whom the suffering Jesus stood guiltless and dejected, stand before his dreadful majesty guilty and trembling. Pilate, however, hears and fully acquits him of the charge: his declaration is, I find in him no fault at all. Noble testimony of Christ’s innocency, from that mouth which afterwards doomed him to death!

I tremble to think how just Pilate as yet seemed, and how soon after depraved: how fain would he have liberated Jesus, whom he found faultless! but though he proposed a Barabbas, a thief, a murderer, seditious, infamous, and odious to all; yet they preferred even this Barabbas to the Prince of Life. O malice beyond all example, shameless and bloody! Who can but blush to think, that a heathen should see Jews so impetuously unjust, so savagely cruel! he knew there was no fault to be found in Jesus; he knew there was no crime that was not to be found in Barabbas: ye he hears, and blushes to hear them say, Not this man, but Barabbas. What a killing indignity was this, O blessed Lord, for thee to hear from thine own nation! hast thou refused all glory, to put on shame and misery for their sakes? hast thou disregarded thy blessed self to save them; and do they now refuse thee for Barabbas? Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people, and unjust.

Pilate would have chastised thee and let thee go: that cruelty had been true mercy to this of the Jews; whom no blood would satisfy but that of thy heart. He calls for thy fault; they clamour for thy punishment. They cried the more, Crucify him! crucify him!

As their outrage increased, so the president’s justice declined; those graces which lie loose and ungrounded, are easily washed away with the first tide of popularity. Thrice had that man proclaimed the innocence of Him whom he now inclines to condemn, willing to content the people. O the foolish aims of ambition! Not God, not his conscience comes into any regard; but the people. What a base idol does the proud man adore! What is their breath, but an idle wind? or their anger, but a painted fire? O Pilate, where now are thyself and thy people?Whereas a good conscience would have stuck by thee for ever, and have given thee boldness before the face of God in glory.

Then Pilate took Jesus and scourged him. Thou that didst so lately water Gethsemane’s garden with the drops of thy bloody sweat, now bedewest the pavement of Pilate’s hall with the showers of thy blood. Blessed Jesus, why should I think it strange to be scourged with tongue or hand, when I see thee bleeding? What lashes can I fear from heaven or earth, since thy scourges have been borne for me, and have sanctified them to me? Now what a world of insolent reproaches, indignities, tortures, art thou entering upon! To an ingenuous and tender disposition scorns are sufficient torment; but here the most exquisite pain must help to perfect thy misery and their despite.

O adorable Redeemer, was it not enough that thy sacred body was stripped, and wealed with bloody stripes, but thy person must be made the mockery of insulting enemies?thy back disguised with purple robes, thy temples wounded with a thorny crown, thy face spit upon, buffeted, smitten; thy hand sceptred with a reed, thyself derided with grimace, bended knees and scoffing acclamation?
O whither dost thou stoop, Co-eternal Son of the eternal Father, whither dost thou abase thyself for me! I have sinned, and thou art punished; my head has devised evil, and thine is pierced with thorns; I have smitten thee, and thou art smitten for me; I have dishonoured thee, and thou art made the sport of men for me who have deserved to be insulted by devils!
Thus disguised, bleeding, mangled, deformed, behold the man, brought forth to the furious multitude, whether for compassion, or for more cruel derision. Look upon him, O ye merciless Jews; see him in his shame, and in his wounds; his face all livid with blows; his eyes swoln, his cheeks besmeared with spitting, his skin lacerated with scourges, his whole body bathed in blood;and would ye yet have more? Behold the man, whom ye envied for his greatness!

Yea, and behold him well, O thou proud Pilate; ye cruel soldiers, ye insatiable Jews; ye see him base, whom ye shall see glorious: the time is coming, wherein ye shall behold him in another garb; when ye, who now bend the knee to him in scorn, shall see all knees in heaven and earth, and under the earth, bowing before him in aweful adoration; when ye who now see him with contempt, shall behold him with trembling and horror.

What an inward war do I yet find in the breast of Pilate? His conscience bids him spare; his popularity bids him kill. His wife, warned by a dream, cautions him to have no hand in the blood of that Just One; the importunate multitude press him for a sentence of death. All artifices have been tried to liberate the man whom he has pronounced innocent; all violent motives are urged to condemn the man whom malice pretends guilty.

Just in the height of this bosom-strife, when conscience and moral justice were ready to sway Pilate’s distracted heart to an equitable dismission, the Jews are heard to cry out, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar’s friend. There is the word that strikes it dead: in vain shall we hope that a carnal heart can prefer the care of the soul, to honourable safety; or God, to Caesar.

Now Jesus must die; Pilate hastes into the judgment hall; the sentence rests no longer with him; let him be crucified.

Yet how foul soever his soul,his hands shall be clean; he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent, &c. Now all is safe; this is sufficient expiation; water can wash off blood; the hands cleanse the heart: protest thou art innocent, and thou canst not be guilty.Vain hypocrite! and canst thou think to escape so? Is murder of no deeper die?What miserable evasions do foolish sinners invent, to beguile themselves? Any thing will serve to charm the conscience, when it chooses to slumber and sleep. O Pilate, if that very blood thou sheddest, do not wash off the guilt of thy bloodshed, thy water-washing does but the more defile thy soul.

Little did these desperate Jews know the weight of that blood which they were so forward to imprecate upon themselves and their children!And have ye not now felt, O nation worthy of plagues, have ye not now felt what blood it was, whose guilt ye so furiously affected? Near eighteen hundred years are now elapsed since ye thus wished for wretchedness? And have ye not been almost ever since the hate and scorn of the world. Did ye not live, many of you, to see your city buried in ashes, and drowned in blood? To see yourselves no nation? Was there ever a people under heaven made so eminent a spectacle of misery and desolation? Your former cruelties, uncleanness, idolatries, cost you but some short captivities: God cannot but be just; this sin under which ye now lie groaning and forlorn, must needs be so much greater than those, as your devastation is more unbounded; and what can that be, other than the murder of the Lord of Life?Ye have what ye wished, unhappy people! be miserable till ye be penitent!

REFLECTIONS.1st, Unwearied in wickedness, we see those who had great part of the night sat up to seize and condemn the Lord Jesus, early in the morning again in consultation how to get their sentence confirmed by the Roman governor, and executed. Let it shame our slothfulness, that they should be carried farther by enmity against Christ, than we by zeal to serve him.

1. They bound and led him prisoner to Pilate’s tribunal. Our mighty Samson might indeed easily have snapped these cords asunder; but, faster bound with bands of love to our sinful souls, he quietly submitted to be led as a lamb to the slaughter.
2. Before Pilate our Lord witnessed the good confession. In answer to his interrogatories, he confessed, and denied not, that he was the Christ, the King of his spiritual Israel: but to the clamorous charges of the priests, his invenomed persecutors, he observed a profound silence; nor, when urged by Pilate to answer, deigned to make the least reply. He despised their malice; he was prepared to suffer; he desired not to be delivered; and he knew it was in vain to remonstrate with those who wilfully and obstinately rejected the truth; and therefore, to Pilate’s admiration, he still held his peace. Note; (1.) Christ is a king; and they who refuse to bow as willing subjects to his government, will find him able to punish the rebels that will not have him to reign over them. (2.) We need not wonder, if false brethren are our bitterest accusers. Read the Scriptures, and from the beginning it will be seen, that wicked, worldly, and sensual priests are ever the most invenomed enemies to the cause of truth. (3.) Silence is in general the best answer to false and scurrilous invective.

3. Pilate, convinced of the innocence of Jesus, greatly desired to deliver him from his enemies; as he plainly saw, that the envy of the priests was alone the cause of this malicious prosecution: and as it was an established custom at the passover, to gratify the people by the release of any prisoner they desired, he thought of an expedient which he imagined could scarcely fail of success. There was a most infamous miscreant then in prison for murder and insurrection; and he doubted not, but if he proposed to the people these two, Jesus and Barabbas, they would infallibly prefer the former. The supposition was reasonable; but he was disappointed in the issue. Note; (1.) When people think to extricate themselves from their difficulties by indirect means, because if they act openly and honestly it may expose them to censure, they often but farther involve themselves. (2.) Whatever many pretend as the specious pleas for reviling the zealous ministers of truth, it is envy that instigates their enmity; they cannot bear the reproof of their lives and doctrine.

4. Swayed by the malignant insinuations of the priests and elders, who, forgetting their dignity, mingled with the crowd, the people rejected Jesus, and demanded Barabbas. Pilate, amazed, laboured still to get Jesus off, and proposed a question to themwhat he should do with that poor man, who was called the King of the Jews, and more to be pitied than feared. They cried out all together, Crucify him, crucify him. In vain the governor attempted to expostulate on the injustice, the cruelty of such a punishment, where a man had been proved guilty of no crime: they only grew more outrageous and clamorous, and tumultuously demanded an instant compliance with their request. Note; We must not judge of the justice of a cause by the clamours of the populace: the voice of truth is often silenced amid the louder cries of prejudice.

2nd, The importunity and clamour of the people overcame the convictions of Pilate’s conscience. To content them, he released Barabbas, pronounced sentence of crucifixion on Jesus, and delivered him up for execution, having before scourged him, in hopes of moving their compassion. But,
1. The soldiers, in order more bitterly to insult him, dragged him to the hall called Praetorium; and gathering their whole company, in derision of the pretensions of Jesus, arrayed him, as a king, in a purple robe, placed a crown of thorns upon his head, and, ridiculing his mock dignity, wished all happiness to the King of the Jews; striking him on the head with the cane which they had put into his hand, to make the thorns on his head pierce the deeper; and spitting upon him in contempt, while they fell on their knees, pretending to pay him homage. Thus, because sinful man had affected to be like God, he who came to bear the punishment of our pride, must submit to the basest indignities to expiate our guilt. With wonder and love then let us behold the man, astonished at his humiliation, and bowing with no fictitious homage, but with the deepest reverence before him, as our incarnate God and king.

2. When they were tired of this inhuman sport, they disarrayed him of the purple robe, put on him his own garment, and led him away to the place of execution, bearing his cross. But he being unable to support the loadlest he should die by the way, and disappoint their crueltythey took it off from him, and seizing one who passed by, perhaps known to be a disciple, the father of Alexander and Rufus, men afterwards of note among the faithful, they compelled him to carry the cross after Jesus to Calvary. Note; (1.) Unexpected crosses often come upon us: it is well to be habitually prepared for them. (2.) However ignominiously we may be treated now for Christ’s sake, it shall hereafter redound to our everlasting honour, if we be faithful.

3rdly, We are now led to the lowest step of the Saviour’s humiliation, his obedience unto death, even the death of the cross.

1. They crucified hima punishment and death the most painful, ignominious, and accursed! The hands and feet torn with the nails, excited the most excruciating pain, the whole body hanging on the wounded parts; the bones dislocated; and blood streaming down: thus lingering in agonies inexpressible, he felt all the horrors of death in its most tremendous form. None but the vilest miscreants and slaves were thus punished; and God in his law had branded the death upon a tree with his curse, Deu 21:23. He who stood in the room of sinners, even of the chief of sinners, therefore submitted to bear their sins in his own body on the tree, to endure all the shame, the pain, the curse, which they had deserved, and thus to take away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

2. On the cross he continued to endure every fresh insult and cruelty which malice could devise. (1.) While he hung in agonies, the soldiers, who were more immediately his executioners, sported themselves with dividing his clothes as their fee, and casting lots for their several shares. (2.) Two thieves were crucified with him, one on each side, that he might not only appear numbered with the transgressors, but branded as the vilest of the vile. Thus undesignedly they fulfilled the Scriptures concerning him, Isa 53:12. (3.) Every passenger, with bitterest sarcasms, cast in his teeth what they regarded as an arrogant boast, wagging their heads in scorn, and bidding him prove the mission which he pretended, by coming down from the cross. The chief priests and scribes also, who came to glut their vengeance with this spectacle, and to see the execution performed with every circumstance of ignominy and cruelty, now triumphed over him, deriding his pretensions as a Saviour to others, who was so little able to save himself; insultingly demanding that now he would shew himself the Messiah, the king of Israel; and promising to believe on him, if he could give an instance of the power that he assumed, by unfastening himself from the tree, and coming down before them all. While, with horror and amazement at such wickedness, we read and tremble, let us fear, that we do not repeat those crimes we so condemn, by our sins crucifying the Son of God afresh, and putting him to an open shame.

4thly, Death at last brings the welcome release, after Jesus had hung on the tree about six hours; during which we are told,
1. Of the dreadful darkness that for the three last hours covered the earth, portending that fearful state of blindness and hardness of heart to which the Jewish people were now abandoned for their wickedness.
2. The darkness of the sun was but an emblem of the more dreadful darkness which involved the Redeemer’s soul, and extorted from him that exceeding bitter cry, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Such a complaint from the mouth of the Son of God may well amaze every hearer. The arrows of wrath now drank up his spirit, the powers of darkness struggled with all their might, and all that Jesus could endure was laid upon him. Never had such an hour passed since the sun began its revolutions; nor shall be again, till he is plucked from his sphere.

3. Astonishingly hardened, notwithstanding all that had passed, some that stood by mocked him, as if he now wanted Elias to come; and running, and filling a sponge with vinegar, they put it to his lips; while others said, Let alone; let us see whether Elias will appear to save him or not. Thus they regarded him as abandoned of God, and concluded that none in earth or heaven desired to help him.

4. Having finished the atonement, he dismissed his spirit, and left the lifeless corpse upon the tree. He cried with a loud voice, not as one worn out with pains, but as a triumphant conqueror; and vanquished as he fell, by death destroying him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.

5. At that instant the vail of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom, intimating the abolition of the ritual service, the rending of the Jewish state in pieces, and the access opened through the cross of Jesus, and his body there offered, for every sinner unto the holiest of all; God being reconciled through the blood of his cross, and willing to receive all that come unto him through this dying Redeemer.
6. This amazing cry, and sudden departure of Jesus, deeply affected the Roman centurion, under whose command the soldiers were; and, convinced by what he saw and heard of his innocence, and the truth of that assertion for which he suffered, he could not but confess, that this was verily the Son of God. He was probably the first fruits of the Gentile confessors, and bore testimony of the Redeemer’s glory in the hour of his deepest humiliation. See the Annotations.

7. Those pious women who had followed Jesus from Galilee, and supported him out of their substance, continued with him to the last. The names of some of them are mentioned to their everlasting honour. Mary Magdalene is one: much had been forgiven her, and she thus proved how much she loved the Saviour in return; and Mary the mother of James the less, so called probably from his low stature; and Salome, the mother of Zebedee’s children: and now all their hopes seemed to be extinguished by the death of their Lord. Thus frequently, when we seem sunk into the lowest depths, then does the glory of God more eminently appear in raising our desponding souls venturing upon Jesus, and filling us with the triumphs of faith and joy.

5thly, Nothing now remained but to take down the bodies as the evening approached, longer than which they were forbidden to hang there; and also it being the preparation of the sabbath, the work needed to be hastened. But who shall perform this last kind office to the corpse of Jesus? The Lord had prepared an unexpected person for the service, Joseph of Arimathea, a person of distinction, a counsellor, probably one of the great Sanhedrim,

(see Luk 23:51.) a secret disciple of Jesus; and who, notwithstanding his sufferings and death, expected that his glorious kingdom would come, and in faith waited for it.

1. He went boldly to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus, when none of his apostles or followers had the courage to own him. Pilate, who could hardly believe that Christ was yet dead, called the centurion, and, when he was assured of the fact, readily granted Joseph’s request, and gave an order for delivering the body. Note; (1.) In Christ’s cause we have need of courage. They who dare appear on the side of the people who are every where spoken against, must not be shamefaced. (2.) God has his faithful ones among the great, the noble, and honourable counsellorsthough not many, yet enough to leave the rest utterly inexcusable in their infidelity.

2. Joseph having taken down the mangled corpse of his Lord with great respect, and wrapped it in fine linen bought for this occasion, interred the body in his own new tomb, which was hewn out of a rock; and closed the door with a large stone; while the two Marys, who had continued near the cross, now followed their Master to his grave, and marked the place, intending after the sabbath to embalm the corpse. Note; (1.) They who love the Lord Jesus, serve him with their best, and count nothing too much to bestow for his honour. (2.) Visits to the grave are very useful; they serve to quicken us to prepare for our great change.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

REFLECTIONS.

READER! let us not hastily pass away from this most solemn and interesting chapter. It is profitable to follow the footsteps of the LAMB whithersoever he goeth. And while from the High Priest’s palace, to the palace of Pilate, we attend the lowly Redeemer, marking his footsteps with his blood, oh! for grace to ponder well the cause of all his sufferings. The HOLY GHOST in one line of his blessed word, hath explained the whole. CHRIST hath once suffered for sins; the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to GOD.

Reader! do not overlook that every hand, both Jew and Gentile, were embrued in his blood; yea, above all, behold the hand of JEHOVAH engaged in the vast design. Look at the cross, and hear the voice of the LORD, calling to the sword to awake. Awake, O sword, against any shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the LORD of HOSTS! Smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered!

Reader? let us both, as lovers of JESUS, attend the funeral. This is the office of near and dear friends. Remember, he is still the same, and the covenant in his blood cannot be dissolved by death. And in the contemplation of our own death, and our sure resurrection in JESUS, let us say with Job, Oh! that thou wouldst hide me in the grave, that thou wouldst keep me secret until the wrath be past; that thou wouldst appoint me a set time, and remember me!

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)