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(Parallel with Mat_26:47-56; Mar_14:43-52; Joh_18:3-11.)
To Kiss Him.—If we consult Luke alone, it might appear to us as if Judas had indeed the intention of pressing the kiss of betrayal upon the lips of innocence, but had been hindered in the carrying out of his purpose by our Lord’s address. From Matthew and Mark, however, it appears that the kiss was actually given. The accounts, however, make the impression that the answer of our Lord followed this shameful act as immediately as upon the burning lightning the stunning thunder-peal follows.
Luk_22:48. With a kiss, öéëÞìáôé , the hallowed token of friendship. This in Luke stands emphatically first. Mark omits this utterance of our Lord; Matthew, on the other hand, has: “Friend, wherefore art thou come?” (Mat_26:50.) If Judas had, perhaps, approached in the thought of being able wholly to escape rebuke while he did what could only be the work of a moment, he now at once experiences that even this last wretched consolation is torn from him. Brief as his last tarrying in the presence of the Saviour was, it appears, nevertheless, at once, that he is seen through, vanquished, and condemned. If we assume that the ἑôáῖñå , ê . ô . ë ., of Matthew was uttered when Judas was first hurrying to Him the moment before the kiss, the öéëÞìáôé , ê . ô . ë ., immediately after it, everything agrees admirably. It is as if our Lord would, in the last word with which He gives Judas over to his self-chosen destruction, with every syllable yet thrust a sword through his Soul. ÖéëÞìáôé — ôὸí õἱὸí ἀíèñþðïõ — ðáñáäßäùò the emphasis may be laid on every word, and yet even then we have only imperfectly rendered the force of this crushing question, which loses by every paraphrase. But alas, our Lord could therewith only reveal His own forbearance, holiness, and majesty, but could not win the wretched man for heaven who was already consecrated to hell. Cold as his kiss, remained the heart of the betrayer; from now on, we see Judas no longer standing with the disciples, but with the enemies, Joh_18:5. Even the Mohammedans have marked the place at which this abomination has been conjectured to have been committed, with a heap of stones. See Sepp, l. c., iii. p. 460.
Luk_22:49. When they which were about Him.—Unconscious but strong contrast between the unfaithful disciple and the faithful ones. They see ôὸἐóüìåíïí : what is now on the point of taking place. By the approach of the band and the insult of Judas, they are at once persuaded that they themselves are no longer a step distant from the dreaded hour. They believed themselves hitherto to have dreamed, and appear now all at once to awake. Whether they shall strike in with the sword, is the question which they, looking upon the weapons brought with them out of the paschal hall, addressed to the Master, and before He could answer approvingly or disapprovingly, already one of them has followed the ill-considered question with a hasty act. No one of the Synoptics has here mentioned the name of Peter; the occurrence did not redound to the Apostle’s honor; the repeated narration of this occurrence with the statement of his name might have had the effect of bringing the Apostle into trouble; but for John, who did not write his gospel until after Peter’s death, such a ground of silence no longer existed. If, on the other hand, John, with Matthew and Mark, leaves the healing of Malchus’ ear unmentioned, this was not done because this miracle—the last miraculous benefit which Jesus bestows—was in itself compared with other miracles less remarkable, but because it was, of course, understood that the Master immediately made good the harm which the inconsiderate zeal of His disciple had occasioned. Luke, the physician, can not, however, omit to add: êáὶ ἁøÜìåíïò , ê . ô . ë . It is alike arbitrary to declare the ear to have been only wounded (Von Ammon), and to deny the whole reality of this miracle, as Neander, Theile, De Wette, Strauss, and others do.
Luk_22:51. Suffer ye thus far.—Instead of the more detailed address to Peter, Mat_26:52-54, Luke has only a brief but most remarkable utterance of our Lord to His enemies, ἐᾶôå ἕùò ôïýôïõ . For that our Lord here speaks to the disciples (Grotius, Bengel, Meyer, and others), in the sense of: “Leave them, the ὄ÷ëïò , alone,” nolite progredi, is proved by nothing, not even by ἀðïêñéèåßò . Much more probable is it that the interrupted sentence is more particularly explained by the immediately subsequent act of healing. Our Lord, namely, sees how the band are just addressing themselves to take Him prisoner, with the greater bitterness, perchance, because blood had already flowed, and He Himself is not minded to counterwork their designs. He only desires that they would leave His hands yet a moment free, that He might bestow yet one more benefit. “Leave Me,” He says in other words, “still free for the moment that I need in order to be able to perform this.” He does not even say, but only indicates by a sign, what He means. While He thus speaks, He attaches again the wounded member, and heals with one act two men, the one of a wound in the body, the other of a sickness in the soul. With this last friendly beam of light, the sun of His majestic works of wonder goes down in the mists of Gethsemane. [This interpretation of ʼ Åᾶôå ἕùò ôïýôïõ , although opposed to the usual view, is accepted by Alford, and appears to me more natural and simple than any explanation of the words as addressed to the disciples.—C. C. S.]
Luk_22:52. Then Jesus said.—Probably we can understand these words as spoken during the seizure and binding, or even after this. From the fact that our Lord’s words in Gethsemane are comparatively many, we may in some measure conclude as to the great tension of His spirit and the great composure of soul in which He inwardly passes through the beginning of His suffering, of which particularly the character of what He says may most strongly convince us.
To the chief priests.—If we place ourselves fairly in the intense excitement of the moment, we shall not be able to find it at all incredible that, as appears from Luke in this passage, some chief priests were personally in Gethsemane, in order to convince themselves of the fact of the arrest, and, in case of need, to encourage their servants by their presence. The servants had been sent out, but their masters had come of their own accord, and, perhaps, had only just now entered the garden (Ebrard, Lange). Why might they not, in their impatience, have rushed after their dependents, when these, on account of the delay in Gethsemane, did not return so quickly as had probably been expected? It is worthy of note that they are mentioned only at the end but not at the beginning of the arrest. The words which our Lord addressed to them and the captains of the temple, with the elders, were well fitted to shame them, provided they had been yet capable of shame. Without doubt, we find in this address of our Lord a resemblance to the words which He, Joh_18:20, addresses to the high-priest. However, the distinction is still considerable enough to refute the conjecture (Strauss) of our having here no independent part of the history of the Passion, but only two variations upon one and the same theme. Better than to concede this is it to direct attention to the manner in which by this Synoptical sentence, the truth of the Johannean statement, Joh_7:30; Joh_7:44; Joh_8:20; Joh_8:59, is confirmed, without the comparison with which the words of our Lord in the text cannot be even understood.
As against a robber.—Our Lord deeply feels in this moment as well the ignominy as the injustice that is inflicted upon Him, and therefore expresses his resentment that they should have come to take Him as they would a robber and murderer. Then first does He direct their view back to the memorable past: I was daily with you, &c. This utterance must remind them of many a fruitless plot which they had meditated, and many a word of rebuke which they had heard, although our Lord, who is not minded to eulogize Himself, is entirely silent as to the miracles which He has performed before their eyes, and as to the triumphs which He by word or deed has won over their perplexity and weakness. Finally, after He has upbraided them with their, month-long cowardice, to which wretched presumption has now succeeded, He takes from them even the fancy of having really taken Him against His will and to His harm, by speaking (Matthew) of the Scriptures which are fulfilled in precisely this way, and at the same time (Luke) by saying to them that they are not serving the kingdom of light but that of darkness.
Luk_22:53. This is your hour, and the power of darkness.—Our Lord alludes therewith to the just fallen hour of night, and gives the reason why they have taken Him now and not in open day, in the temple, when He there walked and taught, êáè ʼ ἡìÝñáí . Your hour, not the favorable hour suited for you (De Wette), but the hour destined according to the Divine decree for you to the carrying out of your work (Meyer); êáὶ áὕôç (so may we supply) ἥ ἐîïõóßá ôïῦ óêüôïõò , that is, the might which now reveals itself and works through you, is that which God, according to His own eternal purpose, had left to the kingdom of darkness. Without doubt, our Lord makes use of this figurative language in view of the nocturnal darkness which had been chosen for the carrying out of the wicked deed, and His words thereby become only the more striking; ôὸ óêüôïò , however, of which He here speaks, can be nothing else than the kingdom of darkness, whose faithful accomplices in this moment Judas and the whole throng are. This whole address affords, at the same time, a proof of the clearness of mind with which our Lord, in the midst of the darkness surrounding Him, looked through the past, the present, and the future. Luke, who alone relates to us this last word of the Lord in Gethsemane, on the other hand, passes over the flight of the disciples and that of the naked young man, Mar_14:48-52.
2. The manner in which our Lord deals with the traitor, is an act of the sublimest self-revelation in the midst of the deepest humiliation. Whoever could so speak and act, had also full freedom to speak even in prayer concerning the son of perdition, as our Lord had done, Joh_17:12. The whole scene, in which heaven and hell, as it were, looked in each other’s eyes, endured not much longer than a moment; but now our Lord occupies Himself no longer with this adder, who has wound himself hissing through the garden, and whom He flings from Him with a single gesture, but He goes out towards the band come to arrest Him. Yet was His last word to Judas tremendous enough to thunder through his ears even to all eternity.
3. The wound which Peter inflicted with his sword on Malchus, is the first of innumerable wounds which perverted carnal zeal has inflicted on the cause of the Lord. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but spiritual, 2Co_10:4. Where this is forgotten, and men think themselves able to serve the truth not by dying but by killing (non moriendo, sed interficiendo), there it is no wonder if the Lord of the Church often utters in the ears of the combatants in very palpable wise, “non tali auxilio.” In this respect, therefore, there is perpetually an immense significance in the manifold misfortunes of the Crusaders, the defeat of the Reformed in the battle-field of Kappel, &c. What would have become of the kingdom of God if our Lord had not, as here, every time advanced anew into the midst, in order by His wisdom and might to make good again the consequences of human rashness? “Even as Peter here hews off the servant’s ear, so have those who vaunt themselves to be his successors taken from the church the hearing and understanding of the word of God. But Christ touched the church and healed her.” J. Gerhard.
4. How entirely different is the situation of our Lord in which He leaves Gethsemane, from that in which He had entered the garden! And yet now, when He is led away as prisoner, the crown is much nearer to Him than before, when He could as yet in perfect freedom speak to His disciples and to the Father.
Starke:—Brentius:—Government should not be against, but for Christ.—Hot-tempered people have special need to go to Christ to school.—Nova Bibl. Tub.: —Even zeal for Christ is sinful when it is displayed unintelligently, Rom_10:2.—Where power prevails over justice, there to be still and patient is the best counsel.—When the world acts against Christ, it has no scruple to give up its convenience and dignity for a while.—Rambach:—When one regards the hours as his own, he is thereby misled into many sins.—Nova Bibl. Tub:—The bonds of Jesus our deliverance.—Arndt:—The arrest: 1. Jesus’ prevalence over His enemies; 2. His providence for His friends; 3. His sparing love towards Judas.—Krummacher:—Passions-buch:—The Judas kiss: 1. The separation; 2. the farewell.—Simon’s sword and Jesus’ cup.—The Saviour, how He gives Himself as Gift and then as Sacrifice.—Braunig:—The treason committed against the person and cause of Christ: 1. How we are to think of such treason; 2. how we are to combat such treason.—“Gratia sit vinculis tuis, bone Jesu, quœ nostra tam potenter diruperunt.” Bernard.
Footnotes:
Luk_22:49.—Rec.: áὐôῷ . Critically doubtful. [Om., B., Cod. Sin., L., X.—C. C. S.]
Luk_22:51.—Van Oosterzee translates this: Lasset mich so lange! “Let me alone so long,” i. e., till He could heal the servant. Others take it to mean: “Suffer them (the soldiers) to go as far as they are doing.” A good deal may be said for either interpretation, but, as Bleek remarks, ἄðïêñéèåὶò … åῖ ̓ ðåí , appears to designate our Lord’s words as in reply to Peter’s, which would establish the second interpretation as the right one. The weight of authority appears also to favo*** this, though De Wette and Alford support the former, and the mildness of the words, if considered as a rebuke to His disciples, are, as De Wette remarks, greater than we should expect.—C. C. S.]