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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comJamieson Fausset Brown Commentary - John 18:2 - 18:2
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Judas ... knew the place, for Jesus ofttimes - see Joh 8:1; Luk 21:37.
resorted thither with his disciples - The baseness of this abuse of knowledge in Judas, derived from admission to the closest privacies of his Master, is most touchingly conveyed here, though nothing beyond bare narrative is expressed. Jesus, however, knowing that in this spot Judas would expect to find Him, instead of avoiding it, hies Him thither, as a Lamb to the slaughter. “No man taketh My life from Me, but I lay it down of Myself” (Joh 10:18). Besides, the scene which was to fill up the little breathing-time, the awful interval, between the Supper and the Apprehension - like the “silence in heaven for about the space of half an hour” between the breaking of the Apocalyptic Seals and the peal of the Trumpets of war (Rev 8:1) - the AGONY - would have been too terrible for the upper room; nor would He cloud the delightful associations of the last Passover and the first Supper by pouring out the anguish of His soul there. The garden, however, with its amplitude, its shady olives, its endeared associations, would be congenial to His heart. Here He had room enough to retire - first, from eight of them, and then from the more favored three; and here, when that mysterious scene was over, the stillness would only be broken by the tread of the traitor.