Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 27:42
He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.
42. He saved others; himself he cannot save ] These words in the original would recall the “hosannas” in the Temple which had enraged the chief priests; see note ch. Mat 21:9. They also connect themselves with the name of Jesus (“Saviour”).
the King of Israel ] A title applied to Jesus only here and in the parallel passage of St Mark’s Gospel.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
He saved others – It does not seem probable that they meant to admit that he had actually saved others, but only that he pretended to save them from death by miracles, or that he claimed to be the Messiah, and thus affirmed that he could save them. This is, therefore, cutting irony.
If he be the King of Israel … – It may seem strange to some that Jesus did not vindicate by a miracle his claims to be the Messiah, and come down from the cross. But the time had come for him to make an atonement. He had given full and sufficient proof that he was the Christ. Those who had rejected him, and who mocked and taunted him, would have been little likely to admit his claims if he had come down from the cross, since they had set at naught all his other miracles. They said this for the purpose of insult; and Jesus chose rather to suffer, though his character was assailed, than to work a new miracle for their gratification. He had foretold his death, and the time had come; and now, amid revilings, and gibes, and curses, and the severe sarcasms of an angry and apparently triumphant priesthood, he chose to die for the sins of the world. To this they added insult to God, profanely calling upon him to interpose by miracle and save him, if he was his friend; and all this when their prophets had foretold this very scene, and when they were fulfilling the predictions of their own Scriptures. See the Isa. 53 notes, and Dan 9:24-27 notes. So wonderful is the way by which God causes His word to be fulfilled.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 42. He saved others; himself he cannot save.] Or, Cannot he save himself? Several MSS. read this with the mark of interrogation as above; and this makes the sarcasm still more keen.
A high priest who designs to destroy the temple of God: a Saviour who saves not himself; and the Son of God crucified: these are the contradictions which give offence to Jews and libertines. But a high priest who dispels the types and shadows, only that he may disclose the substance of religion, and become the minister of a heavenly sanctuary; a Saviour who dies only to be the victim of salvation; and the Son of God who confines his power within the bounds of the cross to establish the righteousness of faith: this is what a Christian adores; this is the foundation of his hope, and the fountain of his present comfort and final blessedness. See Quesnel.
We will believe him.] Instead of , him, many excellent MSS. have ‘ , IN him: this is a reading which Griesbach and other eminent critics have adopted.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
He saved others, himself he cannot save,…. This was not so much a concession of theirs, that he had done many saving works, as healing the sick, cleansing lepers, causing the blind to see, and the lame to walk, and raising the dead; but rather a suggestion, that these were only pretensions and illusions; that either they were not really done, or done by the help of the devil; since now he himself was in the utmost extremity, he could not save himself: but of this they might have been convinced by his striking many of them to the ground, that came to apprehend him in the garden, and of which these men were eyewitnesses; and he, as man, could easily have obtained of his Father more than twelve legions of angels that would have rescued him out of their hands: but so it must not be; he came not to save himself, but others, and to save them spiritually and eternally by dying himself.
If he be the king of Israel; that is, the Messiah, who was promised and expected as a king, as Zion’s king, or king of Israel; see Joh 1:49, hence in Mr 15:32 it is Christ the king of Israel.
Let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. The Persic version reads, “that the people may see, and believe in him”; and the Syriac and Arabic versions, “that we may see, and believe in him”, as in Mr 15:32. But, alas! they had seen greater things already than this, and yet had not believed. He could easily have caused the nails to have given way, and unloosed himself, and come down, who had done such mighty works among them; and if he had, there is no reason to conclude they would have believed him to be the Son of God, and the true Messiah; for though after this, he did a much greater work, raised himself from the dead, of which they had the fullest evidence, yet they remained unbelieving.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
He saved others; himself he cannot save ( ; ). The sarcasm is true, though they do not know its full significance. If he had saved himself now, he could not have saved any one. The paradox is precisely the philosophy of life proclaimed by Jesus himself (Mt 10:39).
Let him now come down ( ). Now that he is a condemned criminal nailed to the Cross with the claim of being “the King of Israel” (the Jews) over his head. Their spiteful assertion that they would then believe upon Jesus (‘ ) is plainly untrue. They would have shifted their ground and invented some other excuse. When Jesus wrought his greatest miracles, they wanted “a sign from heaven.” These “pious scoffers” (Bruce) are like many today who make factitious and arbitrary demands of Christ whose character and power and deity are plain to all whose eyes are not blinded by the god of this world. Christ will not give new proofs to the blind in heart.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
He saved others, etc. The Greek order is, Others he saved; himself he cannot save.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
42. If he is the King, of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we shall believe him. For they ought not to embrace as King any one who did not answer to the description given by the prophets. But Isaiah (Isa 52:14) and Zechariah (Zec 13:7) expressly represent Christ as devoid of comeliness, afflicted, condemned, and accursed, half-dead, poor, and despised, before he ascends the royal throne. It is therefore foolish in the Jews to desire one of an opposite character, whom they may acknowledge as King; for, by so doing, they declare that they have no good-will to the King whom the Lord had promised to give. But let us, on the contrary, that our faith may firmly rely on Christ, seek a foundation in his cross; for in no other way could he be acknowledged to be the lawful King of Israel than by fulfilling what belonged to the Redeemer. And hence we conclude how dangerous it is to depart from the word of God by wandering after our speculations. For the Jews, in consequence of having imagined to themselves a King who had been suggested to them by their own senses, rejected Christ crucified, because they reckoned it absurd to believe in him; while we regard it as the best and highest reason for believing, that he voluntarily subjected himself on our account to the ignominy of the cross.
He saved others; himself he cannot save. It was an ingratitude which admits of no excuse, that, taking offense at the present humiliation of Christ, they utterly disregard all the miracles which he had formerly performed before their eyes. They acknowledge that he saved others. By what power, or by what means? Why do they not in this instance, at least, behold with reverence an evident work of God? But since they maliciously exclude, and—as far as lies in their power—endeavor to extinguish the light of God which shone in the miracles, they are unworthy of forming an accurate judgment of the weakness of the cross. Because Christ does not immediately deliver himself from death, they upbraid him with inability. And it is too customary with all wicked men to estimate the power of God by present appearances, so that whatever he does not accomplish they think that he cannot accomplish, and so they accuse him of weakness, whenever he does not comply with their wicked desire. But let us believe that Christ, though he might easily have done it, did not immediately deliver himself from death, but it was because he did not wish to deliver himself. And why did he for the time disregard his own safety, but because he cared more about the salvation of us all? We see then that the Jews, through their malice, employed, in defense of their unbelief, those things by which our faith is truly edified.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(42) He saved others.The mockers, as before (comp. Joh. 11:50-51), bear unconscious witness to the truth. They referred, it may be, to the works of healing and the raising of the dead which had been wrought in Galilee and Jerusalem, but their words were true in a yet higher sense. He had come into the world to save others, regardless of Himself.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
42. He saved others; himself he cannot save A noble Saviour, forsooth, who cannot save himself! And yet, as learned men, they know or ought to know that the Old Testament foretold a suffering as well as a glorious Messiah. They ought to have remembered that it was by suffering that the Messiah was to save. Come down from the cross And if he should come down from the cross, what then? What hope of mercy for his enemies? What would be the fate of men who say to him, The test of your Messiahship is to overcome our purpose of murdering you? And, still worse, if he should come down from the cross, and leave the great work of the atonement unfinished, what redemption for you miserable sinners?
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Mat 27:42 Parallelism similar to that of Mat 27:40 .
(see the critical remarks) : and we believe on Him (at once), that is, as actually being the Messiah. with the dative (Luk 24:25 ) conveys the idea that the faith would rest upon Him . So also Rom 9:33 ; Rom 10:11 ; 1Ti 1:16 ; 1Pe 2:6 .
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
42 He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.
Ver. 42. We will believe him ] They would not; but rather have said, he had done it by the devil’s help; or have searched the devil’s skull to find out some other trick to elude the truth.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
42. ] Luke gives, more exactly, the second reproach in this verse as proceeding from the soldiers .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Mat 27:42 . , etc., He saved others, Himself He cannot save. Both facts ; the former they can now afford to admit, and they do so all the more readily that it serves as a foil to the other fact patent to everybody. . Messianic King the claim involved in the confession before the Sanhedrim, refuted by the cross, for who could believe that Messiah would be crucified? , etc.: yet let Him come down now from the cross, and we will believe on Him at once. These pious scoffers profess their readiness to accept descent from the cross as the conclusive sign from heaven they had always been asking for.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
He saved. Note the Alternation here, in the Greek. In Eng. it is an Introversion. j | Others k | He saved j | Himself k | He cannot save.
others. App-124.
cannot = is not (Greek. ou, as in Mat 27:6) able to.
If he be, &c. The condition is assumed. See App-118. All the texts omit “if”, and read “he is” (in irony).
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
42.] Luke gives, more exactly, the second reproach in this verse as proceeding from the soldiers.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Mat 27:42. , we will believe Him) We [Christians] believe on Him for that very reason, that He did not immediately descend from the Cross, but on the contrary consummated His work.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
saved: Joh 9:24, Joh 12:47, Act 4:14
the King: Mat 27:37, Mat 2:2, Luk 19:38, Joh 1:49
Reciprocal: Gen 37:19 – Behold Deu 10:10 – the Lord hearkened 1Ki 22:24 – Which way Psa 3:2 – no Psa 22:8 – He trusted Psa 69:12 – They Psa 71:11 – God Jer 19:1 – the ancients of the people Mar 15:18 – Hail Joh 4:48 – Except Joh 19:7 – because Joh 20:25 – Except
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
APPARENT FAILURE
He saved others; Himself He cannot save.
Mat 27:42
We must face the fact that Jesus, Who died, is in the world to-day.
I. Apparent failure of the Master.Judged by the ordinary standards of the world, and according to the capacity of the men who saw the Crucifixion, the Passion of our Lord must have seemed, and did seem, to mark our Lords work upon earth as a total failure. To all, even to the disciples who forsook Him and fled, He was one of the things that henceforth must be only a pathetic memory. Only in the light of His Resurrection did the weakness of the Cross become the uttermost sign of the power of God.
II. Apparent failure of the disciples.And we also, who are beginning to be disciples of the Master, have to bear the experience of what looks like failure. I am not sure that any man bears the yoke of Jesus Christ without coming into contact with the piercing and stinging thought that his life is more or less of a failure. It is not only that noble sense of failure which comes when we fail in our aspiration after some higher power of life than we as yet possess. It is in lower regions. It is when our aspiration, our Christian life, our Christian hope, and our Christian desire have to strike upon the rocks of circumstance. It is when we come out from our vision and our hope of God, and have to pass the deadening and the stinging experience of average standards, and worldly surroundings, and atmospheres. If these thoughts have found their home in any one here, is it not upon the Cross that our Lord comes nearest to us? Do you see why He died, why He failed? He failed and died because He could not be anything except His Fathers Son, He could not, it was not in Him to think of anything else than His true thought for God and man. Therefore He seemed to fail before the idea of men who knew nothing of His ideal, nor His reserve. But, therefore, because for Him the world was well lost, because our Lord failed to triumph according to the standards of His time, therefore it is that we can trust Him to-day. I, if I be lifted up, He said, will draw all men unto Me. For ourselves we know that there is no failure in the world except onethe failure of character.
III. The true test.So, then, now in our best moments we can see that it makes more difference to the world that a man shall be good, and shall be true, than that he should do big things, and loom large. It is better, and it is more effective, and more lasting, that a man shall just set himself to be true, to be true to his Lord, to be true to his Lords voice in his own conscience. That is the thing that will tell.
The Rev. H. P. Cronshaw.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
7:42
Saved others refers to the miraculous cures that Jesus did for people. Himself he cannot save means he cannot deliver himself from the cross. This was another falsehood, and it ignored the incident in the garden when Peter thought to defend him against bodily attack (chapter 26:51-54). They professed that they would believe in him if he would come down from the cross. This was a hypocritical claim for Jesus had done many works in their presence that were as great as this would have been, yet they refused to acknowledge him as the Lord.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Mat 27:42. He saved others. This may be ironical, or it is a recognition of His miracles of mercy, to taunt Him with a supposed loss of power just when He needed it most for Himself. His very mercy is used in mockery.
He is the king of Israel, etc. Ironical, with a mocking suggestion of still being open to the proof of His Messiahship.
And we will believe on him. Unless there was an atoning purpose in Christs death, it will always seem strange that He did not offer some such miraculous proof of His power. The soldiers repeated this reproach, but of course without this last clause (see Luk 23:36-37).
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Verse 42
He saved others; by his miracles of healing.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
The reference to His saving others probably goes back to Jesus’ healing ministry. The religious leaders threw doubt on Jesus’ healing ministry by claiming that He could not even heal His own condition. Perhaps these Jerusalemites were also recalling Jesus’ triumphal entry and the cries of His mainly Galilean followers: "Save us now!" (Mat 21:9; Mat 21:15). Of course, Jesus could have saved Himself from His suffering on the cross, but He could not have done so and provided salvation for humankind. In one sense the religious leaders spoke the truth.
The critics continued to point out Jesus’ apparent helplessness. They implied that their failure to believe on Jesus was His fault. They promised to believe on Him if He would come down off the cross. If He had done so, there would have been no salvation for anyone (cf. Mat 1:21; Mat 8:16-17; Mat 20:28; Mat 26:26-29; Mat 28:18-20). They may also have been ridiculing the belief of the simple Galileans who had become His disciples.