Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Mark 16:10
[And] she went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept.
10. she went and told ] In the fulness of believing faith she hurried back to Jerusalem and recounted her tale of joy to the Eleven and the rest.
as they mourned and wept ] Desolate at the loss of their beloved Master, and unable to realize the wonderful accounts of His resurrection. “Weylinge and wepynge” is Wyclifs rendering.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Mar 16:10-11
And she went and told them.
A sad interior and a cheery messenger
Mark is graphic: he paints an interior like a Dutch artist. We see a choice company-Them that had been with Him. We know many of the individuals, and are interested to note what they are doing, and how they bear their bereavement. We see-
I. A sorrowing assembly. As they mourned and wept. What a scene I We behold a common mourning, abundantly expressed by tears and lamentations. They mourned-
1. Because they had believed in Jesus, and loved Him; and therefore they were concerned at what had happened.
2. Because they felt their great loss in losing Him.
3. Because they had seen His sufferings and death.
4. Because they remembered their ill-conduct towards Him.
5. Because their hopes concerning Him were disappointed.
6. Because they were utterly bewildered as to what was now to be done, seeing their Leader was gone.
II. A consoling messenger.
1. Mary Magdalene was one of themselves.
2. She came with the best of news. The resurrection of Christ
(a) removes the cause of sorrow;
(b) assures of the help of a living Redeemer;
(c) secures personal resurrection (1Co 15:23);
(d) brings personal justification (Rom 4:25).
3. She was not believed.
(a) Unbelief is apt to become chronic: they had not believed the Lord when He foretold His own resurrection, and so they do not believe an eyewitness who reported it.
(b) Unbelief is cruelly unjust: they made Mary Magdalene a liar, and yet all of them esteemed her.
III. A reassuring reflection.
1. We are not the only persons who have mourned an absent Lord.
2. We are not the only messengers who have been rejected.
3. We are sure beyond all doubt of the resurrection of Christ.
(a) The evidence is more abundant than that which testifies to any other great historical event.
(b) The apostles so believed it as to die as witnesses of it.
(c) They were very slow to be convinced, and therefore that which forced them to believe should have the same effect on us.
4. Great reason, then, for us to rejoice. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Unnecessary grief
A sorrow is none the less sharp because it is founded upon a mistake. Jacob mourned very bitterly for Joseph, though his darling was not torn in pieces, but on the way to be lord over all Egypt. Yet while there is of necessity so much well-founded sorrow in the world, it is a pity that one unnecessary pang should be endured, and endured by those who have the best possible grounds for joy. The case in the text before us is a typical one. Thousands are at this day mourning and weeping who ought to be rejoicing. Oh, the mass of needless grief! Unbelief works for the father of lies in this matter, and works misery out of falsehood among those who are not in truth children of sadness but heirs of light and joy. Rise, faith, and with thy light chase away this darkness! And if ever thou must have thy lamp trimmed by a humble Mary, do not despise her kindly aid.
Transient unbelief
Is it always foggy here? inquired a lady passenger of a Cunard steamers captain, when they were groping their way across the Banks of Newfoundland. How should I know? replied the captain, gruffly; I do not live here. But there are some of Christs professed followers who do manage to live in the chilling regions of spiritual fog for a great part of their unhappy lives. (Cuyler.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 10. Them that had been with him] Not only the eleven disciples, but several others who had been the occasional companions of Christ and the apostles.
Mourned and wept.] Because they had lost their Lord and Master, and had basely abandoned him in his extremity.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
And she went and told them that had been with him,…. Not “with her”, as the Persic version reads, but “with him”; that is, with Christ: she went, as she was bid by Christ, and told his disciples, what she had heard and seen; even those who had been with him from the beginning, and had heard his doctrines, and seen his miracles, and had had communion with him, and truly believed in him, and were his constant followers, and real disciples; not only Peter, James, and John, who were with him, particularly at the raising of Jairus’s daughter, and at his transfiguration on the mount, and when in his sorrows, in the garden; but the rest of the eleven, and not only them, but others that were with them; see Lu 24:9.
As they mourned and wept, being inconsolable for the death of their Lord, and the loss of his presence; and also for their carriage towards him, that one among them should betray him, another deny him, and all forsake him: thus were they like doves of the valley, mourning for their absent Lord, and for their own iniquities; and in this condition were they, when Mary brought them the joyful news of Christ’s resurrection from the dead.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
She (). Only instance of this pronoun (=) absolutely in Mark, though a good Greek idiom. (See Joh 19:35.) See also verses Mark 16:11; Mark 16:20.
Went (). First aorist passive participle. Common word for going, but in Mark so far only in 9:30 in the uncompounded form. Here also in verses Mark 16:12; Mark 16:15.
Them that had been with him ( ‘ ). This phrase for the disciples occurs here alone in Mark and the other Gospels if the disciples () are meant. All these items suggest another hand than Mark for this closing portion.
As they mourned and wept ( ). Present active participles in dative plural agreeing with … and describing the pathos of the disciples in their utter bereavement and woe.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
She [] . An absolute use of the pronoun unexampled in Mark. See also verses 11, 13. It would imply an emphasis which is not intended. Compare Mr 4:11; Mr 12:4, 5, 7; Mr 14:21.
Went [] . So in verses 12, 15. Went, go. This verb for to go occurs nowhere else in this Gospel except in compounds.
Them that had been with him [ ] . A circumlocution foreign to the Gospels.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “And she went and told them that had been with Him,” (ekeine proeutheisa apengeilen tois met autou) “She then, while going from one to another, reported to those (disciples) who had been with Him,” Mat 28:8; Mat 28:10-11; Luk 24:9-11.
2) “As they mourned and wept.” (genomenois penthousi kai klaiousin) “Who had been mourning and weeping,” the women who went with or accompanied Mary Magdalene to bear witness of the Lord’s resurrection, Joh 20:11-13.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
10. Them that had been with him Namely, his apostles whom he had chosen to be with him, who for near three years had been his constant followers. As they mourned and wept As they were mourning and weeping the loss of their beloved Master, and the overthrow of their dearest prospects. In the catastrophe of the crucifixion, their courage and fortitude had been lost. Recollections they no doubt had of his predictions of his resurrection; but their minds are incapable now of rising to the high level of so stupendous a supernatural fact. This seems, indeed, strange. But the same thing is occurring every day to ourselves. We weep and mourn hardly the less for our friends just deceased, from the fact that they are still living in soul and will rise in body at the last day. Sense so overcomes faith that we are overwhelmed with sorrow for the sad lot of those whom we fully believe to have gone to a better world. See notes on Mar 9:10; Mar 9:32.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
10 And she went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept.
Ver. 10. See Mat 28:8 . See Trapp on “ Mat 28:8 “
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
10. ] is no where found used absolutely by Mark, but always emphatically (see ch. Mar 4:11 ; Mar 7:15 ; Mar 7:20 ; Mar 14:21 ); whereas here and Mar 16:11 it is absolutely used (not in Mar 16:13 b and 20, where it is emphatical).
. ] This word, never used by Mark, is three times contained in this passage (Mar 16:12 ; Mar 16:15 ).
., though found in the Acts ( Act 20:18 ), never occurs in the Gospels: nor does the word in this passage.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Mar 16:10 . , she, without emphasis, not elsewhere so used. : the simple verb , three times used in this section (Mar 16:12 ; Mar 16:15 ), does not occur anywhere else in this Gospel. : the reference is not to the disciples in the stricter sense who are called the Eleven (Mar 16:14 ), but to the friends of Jesus generally, an expression not elsewhere occurring in any of the Gospels.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Mark
THE INCREDULOUS DISCIPLES
Mar 16:1 – Mar 16:13
It is not my business here to discuss questions of harmonising or of criticism. I have only to deal with the narrative as it stands. Its peculiar character is very plain. The manner in which the first disciples learned the fact of the Resurrection, and the disbelief with which they received it, much rather than the Resurrection itself, come into view in this section. The disciples, and not the risen Lord, are shown us. There is nothing here of the earthquake, or of the descending angel, or of the terrified guard, or of our Lord’s appearance to the women. The two appearances to Mary Magdalene and to the travellers to Emmaus, which, in the hands of John and Luke, are so pathetic and rich, are here mentioned with the utmost brevity, for the sake chiefly of insisting on the disbelief of the disciples who heard of them. Mark’s theme is mainly what they thought of the testimony to the Resurrection.
I. He shows us, first, bewildered love and sorrow.
Sorrow wakes early, and love is impatient to bring its tribute. So we can see these three women, leaving their abode as soon as the doleful grey of morning permitted, stealing through the silent streets, and reaching the rock-cut tomb while the sun was rising over Olivet. Where were Salome’s ambitious hopes for her two sons now? Dead, and buried in the Master’s grave. The completeness of the women’s despair, as well as the faithfulness of their love, is witnessed by their purpose. They had come to anoint the body of Him to whom in life they had ministered. They had no thought of a resurrection, plainly as they had been told of it. The waves of sorrow had washed the remembrance of His assurances on that subject clean out of their minds. Truth that is only half understood, however plainly spoken, is always forgotten when the time to apply it comes. We are told that the disbelief of the disciples in the Resurrection, after Christ’s plain predictions of it, is ‘psychologically impossible.’ Such big words are imposing, but the objection is shallow. These disciples are not the only people who forgot in the hour of need the thing which it most concerned them to remember, and let the clouds of sorrow hide starry promises which would have turned mourning into dancing, and night into day. Christ’s sayings about His resurrection were not understood in their, as it appears to us, obvious meaning when spoken. No wonder, then, that they were not expected to be fulfilled in their obvious meaning when He was dead. We shall have a word to say presently about the value of the fact that there was no anticipation of resurrection on the part of the disciples. For the present it is enough to note how these three loving souls confess their hopelessness by their errand. Did they not know, too, that Joseph and Nicodemus had been beforehand with them in their labour of love? Apparently not. It might easily happen, in the confusion and dispersion, that no knowledge of this had reached them; or perhaps sorrow and agitation had driven it out of their memories; or perhaps they felt that, whether others had done the same before or no, they must do it too, not because the loved form needed it, but because their hearts needed to do it. It was the love which must serve, not calculation of necessity, which loaded their hands with costly spices. The living Christ was pleased with the ‘odour of a sweet smell,’ from the needless spices, meant to re-anoint the dead Christ, and accepted the purpose, though it came from ignorance and was never carried out, since its deepest root was love, genuine, though bewildered.
The same absence of ‘calm practical common sense’ is seen in the too late consideration, which never occurred to the three women till they were getting near the tomb, as to how to get into it. They do not seem to have heard of the guard; but they know that the stone is too heavy for them to move, and none of the men among the disciples had been taken into their confidence. ‘Why did they not think of that before? what a want of foresight!’ says the cool observer. ‘How beautifully true to nature!’ says a wiser judgment. To obey the impulse of love and sorrow without thinking, and then to be arrested on their road by a difficulty, which they might have thought of at first, but did not till they were close to it, is surely just what might have been expected of such mourners. Mark gives a graphic picture in that one word ‘looking up,’ and follows it with picturesque present tenses. They had been looking down or at each other in perplexity, when they lifted their eyes to the tomb, which was possibly on an eminence. What a flash of wonder would pass through their minds when they saw it open! What that might signify they would be eager to hurry to find out; but, at all events, their difficulty was at an end. When love to Christ is brought to a stand in its venturous enterprises by difficulties occurring for the first time to the mind, it is well to go close up to them; and it often happens that when we do, and look steadily at them, we see that they are rolled away, and the passage cleared which we feared was hopelessly barred.
II. The calm herald of the Resurrection and the amazed hearers.
He tells of his youth, his attitude, and his attire. The angelic life is vigorous, progressive, buoyant, and alien from decay. Immortal youth belongs to them who ‘excel in strength’ because they ‘do his commandments.’ That waiting minister shows us what the children of the Resurrection shall be, and so his presence as well as his speech expounds the blessed mystery of our life in the risen Lord. His serene attitude of sitting ‘on the right side’ is not only a vivid touch of description, but is significant of restfulness and fixed contemplation, as well as of the calmness of a higher life. That still watcher knows too much to be agitated; but the less he is moved, the more he adores. His quiet contrasts with and heightens the impression of the storm of conflicting feelings in the women’s tremulous natures. His garments symbolise purity and repose. How sharply the difference between heaven and earth is given in the last words of Mar 16:5 ! They were ‘amazed,’ swept out of themselves in an ecstasy of bewilderment in which hope had no place. Terror, surprise, curiosity, wonder, blank incapacity to know what all this meant, made chaos in them.
The angel’s words are a succession of short sentences, which have a certain dignity, and break up the astounding revelation he has to make into small pieces, which the women’s bewildered minds can grasp. He calms their tumult of spirit. He shows them that he knows their errand. He adoringly names his Lord and theirs by the names recalling His manhood, His lowly home, and His ignominious death. He lingers on the thought, to him covering so profound a mystery of divine love, that his Lord had been born, had lived in the obscure village, and died on the Cross. Then, in one word, he proclaims the stupendous fact of His resurrection as His own act-’He is risen.’ This crown of all miracles, which brings life and immortality to light, and changes the whole outlook of humanity, which changes the Cross into victory, and without which Christianity is a dream and a ruin, is announced in a single word-the mightiest ever spoken save by Christ’s own lips. It was fitting that angel lips should proclaim the Resurrection, as they did the Nativity, though in either ‘He taketh not hold of angels,’ and they had but a secondary share in the blessings. Yet that empty grave opened to ‘principalities and powers in heavenly places’ a new unfolding of the manifold wisdom and love of God.
The angel-a true evangelist-does not linger on the wondrous intimation, but points to the vacant place, which would have been so drear but for his previous words, and bids them approach to verify his assurance, and with reverent wonder to gaze on the hallowed and now happy spot. A moment is granted for feeling to overflow, and certainty to be attained, and then the women are sent on their errand. Even the joy of that gaze is not to be selfishly prolonged, while others are sitting in sorrow for want of what they know. That is the law for all the Christian life. First make sure work of one’s own possession of the truth, and then hasten to tell it to those who need it.
‘And Peter’-Mark alone gives us this. The other Evangelists might pass it by; but how could Peter ever forget the balm which that message of pardon and restoration brought to him, and how could Peter’s mouthpiece leave it out? Is there anything in the Gospels more beautiful, or fuller of long-suffering and thoughtful love, than that message from the risen Saviour to the denier? And how delicate the love which, by calling him Peter, not Simon, reinstates him in his official position by anticipation, even though in the subsequent full restoration scene by the lake he is thrice called Simon, before the complete effacement of the triple denial by the triple confession! Galilee is named as the rendezvous, and the word employed, ‘goeth before you,’ is appropriate to the Shepherd in front of His flock. They had been ‘scattered,’ but are to be drawn together again. He is to ‘precede’ them there, thus lightly indicating the new form of their relations to Him, marked during the forty days by a distance which prepared for his final withdrawal. Galilee was the home of most of them, and had been the field of His most continuous labours. There would be many disciples there, who would gather to see their risen Lord ‘five hundred at once’; and there, rather than in Jerusalem which had slain Him, was it fitting that He should show Himself to His friends. The appearances in Jerusalem were all within a week if we except the Ascension, and the connection in which Mark introduces them if Mar 16:14 be his seems to treat them as forced on Christ by the disciples’ unbelief, rather than as His original intention. It looks as if He meant to show Himself in the city only to one or two, such as Mary, Peter, and some others, but to reserve His more public appearance for Galilee.
How did the women receive the message? Mark represents them as trembling in body and in an ecstasy in mind, and as hurrying away silent with terror. Matthew says that they were full of ‘fear and great joy,’ and went in haste to tell the disciples. In the whirl of feeling, there were opposites blended or succeeding one another; and the one Evangelist lays hold of one set, and the other of the other. It is as impossible to catalogue the swift emotions of such a moment as to separate and tabulate the hues of sunrise. The silence which Mark tells of can only refer to their demeanour as they ‘fled.’ His object is to bring out the very imperfect credence which, at the best, was given to the testimony that Christ was risen, and to paint the tumult of feeling in the breasts of its first recipients. His picture is taken from a different angle from Matthew’s; but Matthew’s contains the same elements, for he speaks of ‘fear,’ though he completes it by ‘joy.’
III. The incredulity of the disciples.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
with = in company with. Greek -meta. App-104. Not the same word as in Mar 16:20.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
10.] is no where found used absolutely by Mark,-but always emphatically (see ch. Mar 4:11; Mar 7:15; Mar 7:20; Mar 14:21); whereas here and Mar 16:11 it is absolutely used (not in Mar 16:13 b and 20, where it is emphatical).
.] This word, never used by Mark, is three times contained in this passage (Mar 16:12; Mar 16:15).
., though found in the Acts (Act 20:18), never occurs in the Gospels: nor does the word in this passage.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
as: Mar 14:72, Mat 9:15, Mat 24:30, Luk 24:17, Joh 16:6, Joh 16:20-22
Reciprocal: 2Ki 5:4 – and told his lord Mat 28:7 – go Mat 28:9 – as Luk 24:9 – General Luk 24:22 – General Joh 20:18 – came Act 1:3 – he showed
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
0
They mourned and wept fulfills chapter 2:20.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Mar 16:10. She went and told. Comp. Joh 20:18. Emphasis seems to rest on the word she; she was the first to tell them, the others probably returning later, after they had seen the Lord on the way (Mat 28:9).
Them that had been with him. An unusual expression for disciples, probably including the whole company of His followers.
As they mourned and wept. A natural touch, showing how little they anticipated His resurrection.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Mary reported to the disciples that she had seen the risen Christ (cf. Mar 16:7). While the rest of the Jews rejoiced, celebrating the Passover season, Jesus’ disciples mourned His death. They would not believe Mary’s eyewitness testimony. This should encourage other disciples who find that unbelievers will not believe their witness to the resurrection of Jesus.