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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comAdam Clarke Commentary - Matthew 26:65 - 26:65
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The high priest rent his clothes - This rending of the high priest’s garments was expressly contrary to the law, Lev 10:6 : Lev 21:10. But it was a common method of expressing violent grief, Gen 37:29, Gen 37:34; Job 1:20, and horror at what was deemed blasphemous or impious. 2Ki 18:37; 2Ki 19:1; Act 14:14. All that heard a blasphemous speech were obliged to rend their clothes, and never to sew them up again. See Lightfoot.
He hath spoken blasphemy - Quesnel’s note on this is worthy of notice. “See here a false zeal, a mask of religion, and a passionate and seditious way of proceeding, tending only to incense and stir up others, all which are common to those who would oppress truth by cabal, and without proof. By crying out, ‘heresy, blasphemy, and faction,’ though contrary to all appearance, men fail not to stir up those in power, to gain the simple, to give some shadow of authority to the ill-disposed, to cast devout but ignorant people into scruples, and thereby to advance the mystery of iniquity, which is the mystery of all ages.” This was the very plan his Catholic brethren adopted in this country, in the reign of Queen Mary, called the bloody queen, because of the many murders of righteous men which she sanctioned at the mouth of her Catholic priesthood.