Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 26:32
But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.
32. The expression, I will go before you, lit., I will lead you as a shepherd, falls in with the thought of the quotation.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 32. But after I am risen again] Don’t lose your confidence; for though I shall appear for a time to be wholly left to wicked men, and be brought under the power of death, yet I will rise again, and triumph over all your enemies and mine.
I will go before you] Still alluding to the case of the shepherd and his sheep. Though the shepherd has been smitten and the sheep scattered, the shepherd shall revive again, collect the scattered flock, and go before them, and lead them to peace, security, and happiness.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
But after I am risen again,…. This he says for their comfort, that though he, their shepherd, should be apprehended, condemned, and crucified, should be smitten with death, and be laid in the grave, yet he should rise again; and though they should be scattered abroad, yet should be gathered together again by him, their good shepherd; who would after his resurrection, appear to them, be at the head of them, and go before them, as a shepherd goes before his sheep: for it follows,
I will go before you into Galilee; the native place of most, if not all of them. This the women that came to the sepulchre after Christ’s resurrection, were bid, both by the angel, and Christ himself, to remind the disciples of, and ordered them to go into Galilee, where they might expect to see him: accordingly they did go thither, and saw and worshipped him; see Mt 28:7.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
I will go before you. The thought links itself with what Christ had just said about the shepherd and the sheep. Compare Joh 10:4. I will go before you, as a shepherd before his flock.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
Mat 26:31
. For it is written. By this prediction he encourages them to rise above the offense, because God does not cease to recognize as his sheep those who are driven out and scattered in every direction for a time. After having treated of the restoration of the Church, the prophet, in order to prevent the minds of the godly from being overwhelmed with despair by the extreme distresses which were already at hand, declares, that when the government has been brought into a state of confusion, or even completely overturned, there will be a sad and miserable dispersion, but yet the grace of God will be victorious. And though almost all commentators confine the passage in Zec 13:7 to the person of Christ alone, yet I extend it farther, as meaning that a government, on which the salvation of the people depends, will no longer exist, because the shepherds will be driven from the midst of them. I have no doubt that the Lord intended to include that whole period during which, after the tyranny of Antiochus, the Church was deprived of good shepherds, and reduced to a state of desolation; for at that time God permitted the sword to commit fearful devastation, and, by slaying the shepherds, to throw the people into a state of wretched confusion. And yet this scattering did not prevent the Lord from gathering his sheep at length, by stretching out his hand towards them.
But though the prophet utters a general threatening that the Church will be deprived of shepherds, still this is justly and properly applied to Christ. For since he was the prince of all the shepherds, on whom alone the salvation of the Church depended, when he was dead, it might be thought that all hope was utterly gone. And, indeed, it was an extremity of temptation, when the Redeemer, who was the breath and life of his people, after having begun to collect the flock of God, was suddenly dragged to death. But so much the more strikingly was the grace of God displayed, when out of dispersion and death the remaining flock was again assembled in a wonderful manner.
Thus we see, that Christ quoted this passage appropriately, that the disciples might not be too much alarmed by the future dispersion, and yet that, aware of their own weakness, they might rely on their Shepherd. The meaning therefore is: “Not having yet felt your weakness, you imagine that you are sufficiently vigorous and powerful; but it will soon be apparent that the prediction of Zechariah is true, that, when the shepherd is slain, the flock will be scattered. But yet let the promise which is added exhilarate and support you, that God will stretch out his hand, to bring back to Him the scattered sheep. ” We are here taught, that there is no unity that brings salvation but that which keeps the sheep united under Christ’s crook.
32 But after I have risen. He now expresses more clearly — what I lately hinted — that the disciples, struck with dread, will resemble for a short time scattered and wandering sheep, but will at length be brought back to the fold. For Christ does not simply say that he will rise again, but promises to be their leader, and takes them for his companions, as if they had never swerved from their allegiance to him; and, to impart to them greater confidence, he mentions the place where they will again meet; as if he had said, “You, who are scattered at Jerusalem, will be again assembled by me in Galilee. ”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(32) After I am risen.Our Lord referred to these His words afterwards (Mat. 28:16), but they appear to have fallen at the time unheeded on the ears of the disciples, and to have been rapidly forgotten. No expectation of a resurrection is traceable in their after conduct.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
32. Go before you into Galilee By the smiting of the Shepherd the sheep should be scattered; and after his recovery from the blow by his resurrection, the Shepherd would go before his flock, and it should be again gathered in the old haunts in Galilee. The fulfilment of the promise is narrated in Mat 28:16. The chief Shepherd marshalled his flock upon a mountain in Galilee. This was a most tender promise, that they should meet again amid the scenes of his earlier ministry. It does not imply that he would never appear after his resurrection, previous to meeting them in Galilee.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“But after I am raised up, I will go before you into Galilee.”
However, Jesus now makes clear that the smitten Shepherd is Himself, and that once He has been smitten He will be raised up, for God will raise Him up. And then like a shepherd going on ahead of His sheep to survey the ground and seek out new pastures He will go before them into Galilee. We are reminded of how the Ark of the covenant of YHWH went before the people in order to prepare a resting place for them as they progressed towards the place of salvation (Num 10:33). This idea that Jesus is with His disciples in all circumstances is one that is emphasised by Matthew (Mat 18:20; Mat 28:20). He was ever conscious of his Lord’s watch over him and presence with him.
And once there they will meet Him, and eat with Him (Joh 21:13), and as usual, (and as also in the case of the ‘the breaking of bread’), the skins of water or wine which accompanied men everywhere in that hot climate are to be assumed (Act 10:41). And there they will learn that the Kingly Rule of His Father has come (Mat 28:18). Here the idea is of the shepherd who goes ahead of His sheep, in order to prepare pasture in the way ahead. But why to Galilee? Because Galilee was Scripturally the place where light would shine out of darkness (Mat 4:16), because Galilee was where He had performed most of His mighty wonders, because Galilee was where He had given the majority of His teaching (Mat 5:1), because Galilee was not gripped in the same religious stranglehold as Jerusalem, because the hills of Galilee had been where He had regularly met with His Father (Mat 14:23), because Galilee was the centre of His outreach, and finally because for most of them Galilee was the home to which they would return when danger arose. And He expects them to do so, and wants them to know that when they do so they will find Him there, ready to feed them and make all things right. He does not want their minds centred on Jerusalem or their aims tied up in Jerusalem (compare Joh 4:20-24). He wants them to look to the One of Galilee (see Isa 9:2-7), for their outreach is to be to the world.
Galilee was from the bginning the place where the light was especially to shine (Mat 4:15-16). Indeed we elsewhere gain the impression that, had they been obedient after His resurrection was notified to them, to Galilee is where they should have gone (Mat 28:7; Mat 28:10; Mar 16:7). It was probably fear and disobedience that kept them in Jerusalem (Joh 20:19), as they hid themselves away feeling that all the world was seeking them out. And that is why Jesus graciously appears to them there. But He will not allow them to be tied to Jerusalem, its horizons were too limited.
Matthew also does not want to link them with Jerusalem, for in his eyes, as in the eyes of Jesus, Jerusalem is tainted and condemned, and Jesus’ new followers (and Matthew’s readers) need therefore to be seen as removed from the choked atmosphere of religious Jerusalem to the spiritual freedom of Galilee. They need to see the One of Galilee as the source of the light of the Gospel (Mat 4:15-16) without His message being hampered by the restraints of bigoted Jerusalem. It is in fact probable that Matthew was never really happy ministering in Jerusalem. As a former tax collector he would never be accepted there and would in fact be held in contempt there, except by the faithful, and he would thus be only too conscious of its pernicious influence. He knew that it was overly religious and stultifying.
It was very different for Luke the Gentile. To Luke and his fellow-Gentiles, to whom Jerusalem was but a symbol. it was the famed centre from which God’s word was to go out (Isa 2:2-4) and was the very hub of things from the point of view of the New Testament. He rejoiced in what he knew of the Jerusalem church and saw Jesus as connected with Jerusalem, both in death and resurrection life. Unlike Matthew and Peter he was not aware of the oppressive and pernicious religious atmosphere of a Jerusalem that could choke true faith and wither it, and as a result had to be destroyed. Thus to him, as to far off Gentiles, Jerusalem was in a sense the centre from which their faith had sprung, but only as a symbol and something that could easily be left behind. It was never something that gripped them. Their reaction to its destruction, in contrast with that of many Jewish Christians,who would be divided in their hearts, was probably mainly that it demonstrated how right Jesus had been in His prophecy. Yet even Luke has to show how in the end God had to drive the Apostles away from Jerusalem with its fatal fascination, and in which they nearly got bogged down.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Mat 26:32 f. , , Euthymius Zigabenus.
They were again to gather around Him in Galilee, the native scene of His ministry. Comp. Mat 28:10 . The authenticity of these words in their present form may be called in question, in so far as Christ cannot have predicted His resurrection in such explicit terms. See on Mat 16:21 . The answer of Peter, given in the bold self-confidence of his love, savours somewhat of self-exaltation; consequently the impression made upon him by the experience of his shortcomings was all the deeper.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
32 But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.
Ver. 32. But after I am risen again, &c. ] Infirmities bewailed, break no square. Peccata nobis non nocent, si non placent (Aug.): our sins hurt us not, if they please us not. The Church stands as right with Christ when penitent, as while innocent,Son 7:12Son 7:12 ; cf. Mat 4:1-2 , &c. Her hair, teeth, temples, all as fair and well featured as ever.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
32. ] In this announcement our Lord seems to have in mind the remainder of the verse in Zechariah: “and I will turn ( , reducere manum, i.e. impiis sublatis curam agere, &c. Schrder) mine hand upon the little ones.” As this could not be cited in any intelligible connexion with present circumstances, our Lord gives the announcement of its fulfilment, in a promise to precede them ( ., a pastoral office, see Joh 10:4 ) into Galilee, whither they should naturally return after the feast was over: see ch. Mat 28:7 ; Mat 28:10 ; Mat 28:16 . Schleiermacher thinks it “extremely improbable that Jesus, if He foresaw so exactly the days of His resurrection, and therefore could not but know that He should see his disciples again more than once in Jerusalem, should here have said that He would lead them into Galilee” (English Translation, p. 298). I confess that I see no improbability in the case; but the three references to this promise just quoted make it surely in the highest degree improbable that it should have been subsequently foisted in . We do not find such elaborate attempts to preserve the appearance of consistency in our Gospels. The reader who sees in it the reference to prophecy, will form a very different opinion.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Mat 26:32 predicts a brighter future to alleviate the gloom. he shepherd will yet again go before His flock ( , pastoris more , Grotius), leading them. . , the place of reunion. This verse is wanting in the Fayam Fragment, which Harnack regards as a sign of its great antiquity. Resch, Agrapha , p. 495.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
I will go before you. Compare Joh 10:4.
Galilee. App-169.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
32.] In this announcement our Lord seems to have in mind the remainder of the verse in Zechariah: and I will turn (, reducere manum, i.e. impiis sublatis curam agere, &c. Schrder) mine hand upon the little ones. As this could not be cited in any intelligible connexion with present circumstances, our Lord gives the announcement of its fulfilment, in a promise to precede them (., a pastoral office, see Joh 10:4) into Galilee, whither they should naturally return after the feast was over: see ch. Mat 28:7; Mat 28:10; Mat 28:16. Schleiermacher thinks it extremely improbable that Jesus, if He foresaw so exactly the days of His resurrection, and therefore could not but know that He should see his disciples again more than once in Jerusalem, should here have said that He would lead them into Galilee (English Translation, p. 298). I confess that I see no improbability in the case; but the three references to this promise just quoted make it surely in the highest degree improbable that it should have been subsequently foisted in. We do not find such elaborate attempts to preserve the appearance of consistency in our Gospels. The reader who sees in it the reference to prophecy, will form a very different opinion.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Mat 26:32. , I will go before) As a shepherd. A pastoral expression.-, Galilee) Where His appearance was to be exceedingly solemn to His sheep again collected together. Our Lord says to those who had come up with Him from Galilee, Before you return home from the feast I will rise from the dead.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
I am: Mat 16:21, Mat 20:19, Mat 27:63, Mat 27:64, Mar 9:9, Mar 9:10, Luk 18:33, Luk 18:34
I will: Mat 28:6, Mat 28:7, Mat 28:10, Mat 28:16, Mar 14:28, Mar 16:7, Joh 21:1-14, 1Co 15:6
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
6:32
After I am risen explains what Jesus meant in the preceding verse by being smitten. The stroke was to be so severe that it would cause his death, but he predicted that he was to rise from the dead.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Mat 26:32. But after I am raised up. The resurrection is again announced.
I will go before you. The figure of a shepherd is continued. Comp, the remaining words of Zec 13:7 : And I will turn my hand upon the little ones.
Into Galilee. In Galilee He collected His disciples: chap. Mat 28:16; John 21, 1Co 15:6. This gathering was the pastoral work after the resurrection, hence the other interviews in Jerusalem are not referred to.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Observe here, The wonderful lenity of Christ towards his timorous and fearful disciples; notwithstanding their cowardly flight from him, he tells them he would not forsake them, but love them still; and as an evidence of it, would meet them in Galilee: I will go before you into Galilee; there shall you see me. And when they did see him he never upbraided them with their timorousness, but was friends with them, notwithstanding their late cowardice. Christ’s love to is disciples is like himself, unchangeable and everlasting. Having loved his own, he loved them to the end.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Jesus assured the disciples that He would meet them in Galilee after His resurrection. Following as it does the announcement of their abandoning Him, this promise assured them that He would not abandon them. He would precede them to Galilee where He would be waiting for them when they arrived (cf. John 21).