Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Mark 16:13
And they went and told [it] unto the residue: neither believed they them.
13. they went and told it unto the residue ] No sooner did they recognise our Lord in the breaking of the bread (Luk 24:35), and He had vanished out of their sight (Luk 24:31), than they returned in haste to Jerusalem, ascended to the Upper Room, found ten of the Apostles met together (Luk 24:33), and whereas they thought they alone were the bearers of joyful tidings, they were themselves greeted with joyful tidings, “ The Lord has risen indeed, and appeared unto Simon ” (Luk 24:34; 1Co 15:5). When this appearance was vouchsafed to St Peter we are not told. It certainly occurred after the return from the sepulchre, but whether before or after the journey to Emmaus cannot be determined.
neither believed they them ] The Ten, as we have just now seen, announced that the Lord had appeared to Simon, and this they at the time believed. When the two disciples arrive, they announce that He had appeared to them also. Unable to comprehend this new mode of existence on the part of their risen Lord, that He could be now here and now there, they were filled with doubts. They had refused to believe the evidence of Mary Magdalene (Mar 16:11), and even now hesitation possessed them, and they could not give credence to the word of the two disciples. The Evangelists multiply proofs of the slowness of the Apostles to accept a truth so strange and unprecedented as their Lord’s resurrection, and that not to a continuous sojourn, as in the case of Lazarus, but to a form of life which was manifested only from time to time, and was invested with new powers, new properties, new attributes. The Resurrection, it is to be remembered, was unlike ( a) any of the recorded miracles of raising from the dead, ( b) any of the legends of Greece or Rome. It was “not a restoration to the old life, to its wants, to its inevitable close, but the revelation of a new life, foreshadowing new powers of action and a new mode of being.” See Westcott’s Gospel of the Resurrection, pp. 154 160.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The residue – The remainder. Those who remained at Jerusalem.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
13. And they went and told it untothe residue: neither believed they them, &c.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And they went and told it unto the residue,…. Upon their return to Jerusalem, which was on the same night, they went to the eleven apostles, and the other disciples that were with them, and related the whole affair to them; how that Jesus had joined them by the way, and discoursed much with them about himself, and expounded the Scriptures on the road; and when they came to the end of their journey, sat down at meat with them, when he was very plainly discerned, and known by them, and then disappeared; see
Lu 24:33;
neither believed they them. “These two”, as the Arabic version reads; though they were men, and fellow disciples; and this was a repeated testimony, and a second set of witnesses of Christ’s resurrection to them; all which aggravates their unbelief: upon sight of them they said, “the Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon”, Lu 24:34; the reason of which Dr. Lightfoot thinks was this, that Peter hearing that Christ was risen, and went before them into Galilee, was eager to see him, and therefore took this journey along with Cleophas, which the rest of the disciples knew; and he returning so soon, they concluded he had seen him: but when he, and Cleophas, told the whole affair, they were as unbelieving as ever.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Neither believed they them ( ). The men fared no better than the women. But Luke’s report of the two on the way to Emmaus is to the effect that they met a hearty welcome by them in Jerusalem (Lu 24:33-35). This shows the independence of the two narratives on this point. There was probably an element who still discredited all the resurrection stories as was true on the mountain in Galilee later when “some doubted” (Mt 28:17).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
1) “And they went and told it unto the residue:” (kakeinoi apelthontes apengeilan tois loipois) “And as they were going (they kept on walking) and reported it to the rest,” the remaining disciples, along the way, Luk 24:13-35.
2) “Neither believed they them.” (oude ekenois episteusan) “Neither did those others believe them,” that they, the two had seen Jesus.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
13. They The two disciples from Emmaus. The residue The rest of their fellow apostles. Neither believed they them There was perhaps a reasonableness in this distrust of particular relations of our Lord’s appearances. A due skepticism of any particular story was doubtless right.
It did not imply necessarily a disbelief that the Lord would rise again according to his promises. In fact, like true philosophers, the disciples held that no narrative of the kind should be accepted until it had been fully tested by the most satisfactory evidence. Hence their skepticism affords just ground for our belief. Their testimony is the testimony of incredulous and scrutinizing witnesses.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
13. ] as Mary Magdalene had done before.
] Supply .
not consistent with Luk 24:33-34 . Here again the Harmonists have used every kind of distortion of the plain meaning of words to reconcile the two accounts; assuming that some believed and some doubted, that they first doubted and then believed; or, according to Bengel, first believed and then doubted.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
13.] -as Mary Magdalene had done before.
] Supply .
-not consistent with Luk 24:33-34. Here again the Harmonists have used every kind of distortion of the plain meaning of words to reconcile the two accounts; assuming that some believed and some doubted, that they first doubted and then believed; or, according to Bengel, first believed and then doubted.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Mar 16:13. ) They brought back word.- , not even them) Luk 24:34, affirms they did believe. Both statements are true. They did believe: but presently there recurred to them a suspicion as to the truth, and even positive unbelief. The faith suddenly arising in them, and entertained at first with a joy which had still in it something of an unwonted and ecstatic character blended with it, was not faith, as compared with the faith which followed, cleared as the latter was of all dregs of unbelief, and fully satisfied as to all difficulties, and suitable to the exigencies of the apostleship. Luk 24:37-38; Joh 20:25; Mat 28:17.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
they went: Luk 24:33-35
neither: Luk 16:31, Joh 20:8, Joh 20:25
Reciprocal: Mat 28:7 – go Mar 16:11 – believed Luk 24:13 – two Luk 24:34 – Saying Luk 24:35 – General
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
3
These disciples reported what they had seen and heard, and the ones to whom they told the story were as doubtful as themselves.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
And they went and told it unto the residue: neither believed they them.
[Neither believed they them.] That in the verses immediately going before the discourse, the question is of the two disciples going to Emmaus, is without all controversy: and then how do these things consist with that relation in Luke, who saith, that “they…returned to Jerusalem and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them, saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon,” Luk 24:33;34. The word saying; evidently makes those to be the words of the eleven; and of those that were gathered together with them: which, when you read the versions, you would scarcely suspect…in the original Greek, since it is the accusative case, it is plainly to be referred to the eleven disciples, and those that were together with them. As if they had discourse among themselves of the appearance made to Peter, either before, or now in the very access of those two coming from Emmaus. And yet saith this our evangelist, that when those two had related the whole business, they gave credit no not to them. So that according to Luke they believed Christ was risen and had appeared to Simon, before they told their story; but according to Mark, they believed it not, no not when they had told it.
The reconciling, therefore, of the evangelists, is to be fetched thence, that those words pronounced by the eleven, The Lord is risen indeed; etc., doth not manifest their absolute confession of the resurrection of Christ, but a conjectural reason of the sudden and unexpected return of Peter.
I believe that Peter was gong with Cleophas into Galilee, and that being moved with the words of Christ told him by the women, “Say to his disciples and Peter, I go before you into Galilee.” Think with yourself, how doubtful Peter was, and how he fluctuated within himself after his threefold denial; and how he gasped to see the Lord again, if he were risen, and to cast himself an humble supplicant at his feet. When, therefore, he heard these things from the women (and he had heard it indeed from Christ himself, while he was yet alive, that “when he arose he would go before them into Galilee”), and when the rest were very little moved with the report of his resurrection, nor as yet stirred from that place, he will try a journey into Galilee, and Alpheus with him. Which when it was well known to the rest, and they saw him return so soon, and so unexpectedly, “Certainly (say they) the Lord is risen, and hath appeared to Peter; otherwise, he had not so soon come back again.” And yet when he and Cleophas open the whole matter, they do not yet believe even them.
Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels
Mar 16:13. They. Emphatic, giving prominence to these successive messages.
The rest, i.e., of them that had been with Him (Mar 16:10).
And them also they believed not. Despite the repeated testimony. Luke (Luk 24:34) tells how these two met the company who told them, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon. But he speaks immediately after of their terror at His appearance (Luk 24:37); their state of mind was not one of decided belief. The same impression is conveyed by Mat 28:17; Joh 20:20. A conflict of doubt and belief would be very natural, or even a division of opinion, some doubting and some believing. Even if all believed that the Lord had appeared to Simon, some might, for various reasons, still doubt the message of the two disciples. This apparent discrepancy with Luke may have encouraged the copyists to omit the passage, if they found any authority for doing so.