Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Mark 15:37
And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost.
37. And Jesus cried with a loud voice ] saying, “It is finished.” The three Evangelists all dwell upon the loudness of the cry, as it had been the triumphant note of a conqueror.
and gave up the ghost ] saying, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,” and then all was over. The Lord of life hung lifeless upon the Cross. “There may be something intentional in the fact that in describing the death of Christ the Evangelists do not use the neuter verb, ‘He died,’ but the phrases, ‘ He gave up the ghost ’ (Mar 15:37; Luk 23:46; Joh 19:30); ‘ He yielded up the ghost ’ (Mat 27:50); as though they would imply with St Augustine that He gave up His life, ‘ quia voluit, quando voluit, quomodo voluit. ’ Comp. Joh 10:18.” Farrar, life, ii p. 418 n.
the ghost ] Ghost, from A. S. gst, G. geist, = spirit, breath, opposed to body. “The word has now acquired a kind of hallowed use, and is applied to one Spirit only, but was once common.” Bible Word-Book, p. 224. Compare ( a) Wyclif’s translation here, “deiede or sente out the breth;” ( b) “ghostly dangers” (= spiritual dangers), “our ghostly enemy” (sour spiritual enemy), in the Catechism; ( c) Bishop Andrewes’ Sermons, ii. 340, “Ye see then that it is worth the while to confess this [that Jesus is the Lord], as it should be confessed. In this sense none can do it but by the Holy Ghost. Otherwise, for an ore tenus only, our own ghost will serve well enough.” Bible English, p. 265.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Mar 15:37
And Jesus cried with a loud voice.
Christ died as a substitute
In one sense, Jesus died as our substitute. Now, what is a substitute. A substitute is one who suffers for or instead of another. A schoolboy feeble of body was brought up to the masters desk for breaking one of the laws of the school. In those days, the punishment at school was something like that which is given to garrotters in our prisons. The poor boy took off his clothes, and stood there with his thin body and his hones almost pushing through his skin. It was a pitiable sight, so poor and thin and wretched was that body! There was a great hush in the school! Then one of the leading boys sprang up with tears in his eyes, and in a moment almost tore his clothes from his back, and, while every boy wept, he stood before the master, saying, Please, sir, he cannot bear it; I will take his punishment. (W. Birch.)
The death of death
Last winter, Jacob, a native assistant of mine, was summoned to his rest. On the day before his death, having been asked how he felt, he replied, I shall not rise from this bed again. I am called hence to the Lord. He then raised his arm, stretched it out, and said, Look! my arm is nothing but bones and skin; it is the same with my earthly body. The flesh is dead within me; my desire is fixed on my heavenly country-that country where I shall behold Him who loves me, and whom I love. Yes, I shall see Him shortly. When asked whether he feared death, Oh, no, he answered, how can I love Christ and fear death? How can death affect me? The death of Christ was the death of Death! (J. Kogel, Greenland.)
Vicarious dying
In the recent floods in France, at Castle-zarazin, while the house was being swept away, the mother, in agony to save her two children, put them in a bread tray and floated the bread tray off upon the waves; but the tray with the two children had gone but a short distance when it struck a tree and capsized. The mother started out for the place. She got there. She took the two children. She somehow clambered up into the tree with them, and held on to a branch. But while hanging there the branch began to crack, and she knew it could not long hold the three, and so she wrapped up her little ones as well as she could, and she tied them fast to the branch, and then she kissed the darlings good-bye and fell backward into the wave and died, while they lived and were recovered. What do you think of that? O! you say: Bravo! bravo! That was just like a mother to do that; but what do you say when I tell you that these tides of sin and death are bearing away the race, and that Jesus Christ swims through the flood, and He comes to us tonight to lift us out and to fasten us to the tree of life, and then having given us the kiss of pardon and peace, falls back Himself in the billows of death, dying Himself that we might live. O! the sacrifice of the Son of God! Bleeding Jesus, let me embrace Thee now! (Dr. Talmage.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 37. Gave up the ghost.] This was about three o’clock, or what was termed by the Jews the ninth hour; about the time that the paschal lamb was usually sacrificed. The darkness mentioned here must have endured about two hours and a half. Concerning this eclipse, See Clarke on Mt 27:45.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
And Jesus cried with a loud voice,…. A second time, and said the words which are in Lu 23:46 and in Joh 19:30
and gave up the ghost. The Syriac version renders it, “and finished”: his life, his days, his race, his ministry, and the work which was given him to do; [See comments on Mt 27:50].
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Gave up the ghost (). Literally, breathed out. See “yielded up his spirit” in Mt 27:50 for discussion for details. Mark uses this word again in verse 39.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
1) “And Jesus cried with a loud voice,” (ho de lesous apheis phone megale) “Then Jesus (again) letting go a loud voice,” a second time, with a great sound, Mat 27:50; as He had done before, Mar 15:34. The Gk. “palin,” used by Matthew, means “a second time.”
2) “And gave up the Ghost.” (eksepneusen) “He expired, died, or gave up, dismissed the Spirit,” expired of His own will, choice, or accord, voluntarily, Joh 10:17-18; Joh 19:19, and He cried “It is finished;” a victor’s cry, Mat 27:50; Luk 23:46.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
‘And Jesus, having uttered a loud cry, breathed his last.’
The loud cry was ‘it is finished’, followed by the quieter, “Father, into your hands I commend my Spirit.” (Joh 19:30; Luk 23:46). The loud cry was remembered by all, contributing as it did to the eeriness of the occasion. It is possible that ‘it is finished’ represented the final words of Psalms 22 ‘He has done it’. Certainly it was a cry of triumph that God’s purposes had been accomplished.
‘Breathed His last.’ From beginning to end He was in control, even to the timing of His death. A work had had to be done, a sacrifice offered, a battle fought, a price paid, but once it was done He did not linger. He committed His life into the hands of His Father.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
37 And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost.
Ver. 37. He gave up the ghost ] After which he went not to Limbus Patrum to preach there, as Papists dote, and would deduce it from 1Pe 3:19 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Mar 15:37-41 . Death and its accompaniments (Mat 27:50-56 , Luk 23:46-49 ).
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Mar 15:37 . : a second great voice uttered by Jesus ( vide Mar 15:34 ), the fact indicated in Mt. by the word . At this point would come in John’s . (Joh 19:30 ). , breathed out His life, expired; aorist, the main fact, to which the incident of the drink ( , imperfect) is subordinate; used absolutely, here (and in Luk 23:46 ), as often in the classics. Bengel remarks: “spirare conducit corpori, exspirare spiritui”.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
cried with a loud voice, and = having uttered a loud cry,
He gave up the ghost = expired. Greek. ekpneo = to breathe out, or expire. Occurs only here, Mar 15:39, and Luk 23:46.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Mar 15:37. , He expired) To breathe, is conducive to the good of the body: to cease to breathe [expire], is conducive to the good of the spirit.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
gave up
(See Scofield “Mat 27:50”)
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
Mat 27:50, Luk 23:46, Joh 19:30
Reciprocal: Heb 5:7 – with
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE RENT VEIL
And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost. And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.
Mar 15:37-38
As the rent rocks and open graves proclaimed Christ victorious in death, so may the rent veil have declared that He had won for Himself an access into heavenly places, there to perpetuate the work which had been wrought out on Calvary. It is possible also that the abolition of the Mosaic economy was hereby figuratively taught. Christ had come to destroy the law, but only that He might substitute for it a better covenant.
I. The rent veil signifies that through Christ alone we have access to the Father, and that supplies of heavenly things may be expected to descend. The privilege of prayer, the privilege of intercourse with our heavenly Father, has been procured for us exclusively by Christ.
II. The rent veil gives a title to a heavenly inheritance.It is like an opening in the firmament through which the eye of faith may gaze on the diadem and the palm which are in store for the faithful. What was to occur after death and the resurrection? The rent veil gives the answer. As the opened graves published the great truth of the abolition of death, so did the rent veil publish that of our being begotten again to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away.
Rev. Canon Melvill.
Illustration
That some great catastrophe betokening the impending destruction of the Temple had occurred in the Sanctuary about this very time, is confirmed by not less than four mutually independent testimonies; those of Tacitus, of Josephus, of the Talmud, and of earliest Christian tradition. The most important of these are, of course, the Talmud and Josephus. The latter speaks of the mysterious extinction of the middle and chief light in the golden candlestick forty years before the destruction of the Temple; and both he and the Talmud refer to a supernatural opening by themselves of the great Temple gates that had been previously closed, which was regarded as a portent of the coming destruction of the Temple. We can scarcely doubt that some historical fact must underlie so peculiar and widespread a tradition, and we cannot help feeling that it may be a distorted version of the occurrence of the rending of the Temple veil (or of its report) at the crucifixion of Christ.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
7
Cried with a loud voice. This is commented upon at some length at Mat 27:50. Gave up the ghost (or spirit), which proves that man possesses something besides his flesh which leaves the body at death.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Mar 15:37. Gave up the ghost, the literal sense here is: breathed out, expired. A beautiful substitute for died, which all the Evangelists appear to have avoided (J. A. Alexander).
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Verse 37
And Jesus cried with a loud voice. If this statement contained all the information upon this subject communicated to us, we might have supposed that the exclamation was one of pain,–the last, expiring cry. But, as John tells us that the expression uttered was, “It is finished,” and as Luke 23:46 adds also that with a loud voice he commended his spirit into the hands of God, the dying exclamation seems to assume the character of an expression of triumphant joy that the great and glorious consummation had at last arrived.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
Jesus’ loud cry indicates that this was not the last gasp of an exhausted man. Jesus’ cry was a shout of victory. He announced, "It is finished!" (Joh 19:30). Then He dismissed His spirit (Mat 27:50; Luk 23:46; Joh 19:30). Normally it took as long as two or three days for crucified people to die. [Note: Grassmick, p. 190.] Jesus’ relatively short period of suffering on the cross amazed Pilate (Mar 15:44).
"His comparatively early death was not due to His physical sufferings alone, and it is a mistake to center major attention on the physical agonies of our Lord." [Note: Hiebert, p. 397. Cf. Clarke, p. 246.]