Lange Commentary - Luke 23:50

Lange Commentary - Luke 23:50 - 23:56

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Lange Commentary - Luke 23:50 - 23:56

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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

3. The Sabbath of the Grave (Luk_23:50-56)

(Parallel with Mat_27:57-66; Mar_15:42-47; Joh_19:38-42)

⁵⁰And, behold, there was a man named Joseph, a counsellor; and he was a good man’and a just: ⁵¹(The same had not consented to the counsel and deed of them:) he was of Arimathea, a city of the Jews; who also himself waited for the kingdom of God. ⁵²This man went unto Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. ⁵³And he took it down’ and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, whereinnever man before was laid [there was no one yet lying]. ⁵⁴And that day was the preparation⁵⁵[And it was the day of preparation], and the sabbath drew on. And the women also [om., also], which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld thesepulchre, and how his body was laid. ⁵⁶And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day [indeed] according to the commandment.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Luk_23:50. Joseph.—Comp. Lange on Mat_27:57. In a peculiar way Luke portrays his character as that of a good and righteous man. The latter, of course, not in the juridical, but in the theocratical sense of the word. Bengel: “Omnis homo ἀãáèüò est etiam äßêáéïò , non contra. Lucas totum laudat ante partem.” Whether he was the only one who in the Jewish council had raised his voice against the sentence of death upon our Lord, cannot be with certainty stated. So much, however, is clear, that he by this account is indirectly distinguished from Nicodemus, who is named indeed ἄñ÷ùí , but not âïõëåõôÞò , and who, therefore, appears to have had no voice in this case. As respects Arimathæa, this city is by no means identical with Rama, in Banjamin, which appears also Mat_2:18, as Friedlieb, ad loc. asserts without stating his grounds. In all probability we must understand by it Ramathaim, in Ephraim, where Samuel was born, and which lay not far from Lydda or Diospolis. See Wieseler in Herzog’s Real-Encycl. ad vocem. The additional trait, finally, that he waited for the kingdom of God, gives Joseph a claim to an honorable place in the spiritual family circle of those who are named in Luk_2:38.

Luk_23:52. Went unto Pilate.—For the more particular circumstances, see Mark. According to Cicero, In Verrem, v. 45–51, the Roman Procurators sometimes conferred such a favor for money. Moreover, the Roman laws also provided: corpora eorum, qui capite damnantur, cognatis ipsorum deneganda non sunt. See Ulpian Digest. 47, t. 24. That Pilate demanded no money of the rich Joseph, who did not belong to the relations of our Lord, may have had its ground in a secret joy at the speedy death of our Lord (Lange), or perhaps also in the wish to give at once a mark of his complacency to that member of the supreme council who displayed respect for Jesus, and thereby also in this way indirectly to mortify the priests, who had violently extorted the sentence of death. In this matter also, Pilate, even as in the refusal to alter the superscription over the cross, shows himself great in little things, while he, it is true, in the great matter had been, alas, only too little.

Luk_23:53. In linen.—To be understood of fine sindon, a cotton stuff which was cut into strips, and is elsewhere called clean linen, because the priests were commonly clothed with this stuff. The head was wrapped separately in a óáõäÜñéïí of the same stuff, Joh_20:7. The preliminary costly embalming Luke passes over, probably because soon, in place of it, the anointing by the women was to come. To speak of “enormous consumption of spices” (Strauss), would only be reasonable, if we did not know what a lavish expenditure in this respect often prevailed in the Orient, so that according to Josephus, Ant. Jud. xvii. 8, 3, at the funeral of Herod the Great, not less than five hundred servants were required to carry the spices.

A sepulchre that was hewn in stone.—If we must in general acknowledge the identity of the present and of the original Calvary, then the Holy Sepulchre is at all events to be sought in the immediate neighborhood of the place that even yet is shown as such, in the church of this name. Comp. hereupon the admirable words of Von Schubert, l. c. iii. p. 509.

Luk_23:54. It was the day of preparation, ðáñáóêåõÞ , preparation for the Sabbath, and particularly that part of the Friday which was regarded as the introduction to the Sabbath ( ðñïóÜââáôïí , Mar_15:42). When Meyer says ad loc. “Here also there betrays itself the absence of a festal character in the day of Jesus’ death’ is may be inquired whether, or the other side, the Jewish council on this whole day, and even at evening, would have exhibited such a restless activity if on this evening the Paschal Lamb had yet to be bought, slaughtered, and eaten. In all probability we have to understand the late Friday afternoon, between five and six o’ clock. ̓ ÅðÝöùóêå signifies here the dawning, not of the natural, but of the legal Saturday.

Luk_23:55. And the women … followed after.— ÊáôáêïëïèÞóáóáé . The strengthened expression appears in this connection to intimate a following down, êáôÜ , even into the grave. See Lange, L. J. iii. p. 521. They accompany the funeral of our Lord as far as possible; that they, according to the common view, were also present at the taking down from the cross, and active in it, is not related to us by the history. According to all the Synoptics, they joined the little funeral train only after the corpse had been taken down and suitably wrapt around. In this work Joseph and Nicodemus had apparently the assistance of servants or friends, but not directly of the women. It is, therefore, very possible that they did not know precisely the quantity of the spices brought by Nicodemus, and even if this had been the case, love does not inquire how little will suffice, but how much it can perform. Even the view of the abundance of the manifestations of love on the part of these two men must also have disposed them to like zeal, and made the thought unendurable to them that they who yet had served the living Master with their possessions should now render no further service to the dead. The observation also that all was accomplished sumptuously, it is true, but with comparatively great haste, must have spontaneously brought up the thought to them, whether there might not be here something still to be cared for. Therefore, after the men had returned home, they remain alone, and still regard the grave for a while (Luk_23:55), going home then with the resolution as soon as possible to buy spices and ointment, but resting the Sabbath day, according to the commandment. According to the more exact statement of Mark, the spices were first bought and prepared after the Sabbath was already passed (Luk_16:1), that is, according to our reckoning, on Saturday evening, after six o’clock. This is also internally probable, since the Sabbath, we may suppose, had already begun when they had returned to Jerusalem from viewing the grave (Luk_23:55). That the purchase took place directly after their return, Luke does not at all say, although he does not deny it ( ὑðïóôñÝøáóáé äὲ ἡôïßìáóáí ); he only intimates that they did not permit themselves to be kept back from their work of love by the strict observance of the Sabbath law. Luk_23:56 of his account is immediately connected with Luk_24:1, and the antithesis between ìÝí and äÝ would properly indicate that at the end of Luke 23 only a comma ought to have been placed. Sense: After they had viewed the grave, they bought (not stated when?) spices, and rested indeed on the Sabbath day, according to the law, but when this was over they went with the (just-purchased) spices as quickly as possible to the grave.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. If it has ever plainly appeared that decisive events in the kingdom of God must serve to bring its hidden friends to light, and that a great sorrow is capable of uniting men of diverse rank, condition, and age, this then took place at the burial of our Lord. For the Eleven we here look round in vain; so scattered are the sheep that even the care for the corpse of the Shepherd is not capable of uniting them; but love to the Lord has turned women to heroines, and if even to this moment there has not yet a single voice from the Jewish council been lifted against the atrocity committed, yet it now appears that not all the members are animated by the spirit of Annas and Caiaphas.

2. The certainty of the death of Jesus before His burial is raised above every rational doubt, and partially attested even by the manner of His burial. Only the modern romance of unbelief, which in late years has sought in a magnificent manner to deceive a credulous public by the publishing of quasi-ancient manuscripts out of which the connection of Jesus with Essenism was to appear as clear as the sun, undertakes to assure us that Joseph of Arimathæa still discovered signs of life, and, therefore, attended the supposed corpse with the utmost care. See, e. g., Jesus der Essäer oder die Religion der Zukunft, Leipzig, 1849; the Buck Jesu, Kassel, 1850. “The important discoveries about Jesus’ manner of death,” and the like, which a few years ago were circulated by thousands, now are in part already forgotten again, but in part serve even yet as weapons in the hands of the most stupid unbelief. 2Th_2:11.

3. The burial of our Lord constitutes the precise transition from the condition of His humiliation to that of His exaltation, and is therefore sometimes reckoned with the one, sometimes with the other. It is, with all that took place hitherto, the fulfilment of the prophetic word (Isa_53:9; 1Co_15:3-4), and in the more particular circumstances, remarkable in the extreme. A new grave receives our Lord, even as before an ass’s colt bore Him, on which never yet a man had sat. A grave in the rock, so strong that only angels’ power could open it; with only one entrance, so that the local circumstances themselves forbid the supposition that the corpse had been stolen; in a garden, so that thus, in a place like that in which sin was born, it is also borne to the grave. Thus does all concur to procure for our Lord an undisturbed repose, and to prepare for Him a glorious resurrection morning.

4. As respects the condition of our Lord during the interval which His corpse passed in the grave, we venture boldly to apply to it the word of John, that “that Sabbath day was a great day.” Luk_19:31. It was, without doubt, a condition of full consciousness, of refreshing rest, of the beginning of joy in company with the Penitent Thief, and of blessed hope of the approaching resurrection morning. How far we can now begin to speak of an activity of our Lord in the condition of separation, is connected with the question when the preaching to the spirits in prison (1Pe_3:19-21) took place. We believe that the apostle places it between our Lord’s resurrection and His ascension.

5. The Sabbath which our Lord passes in the grave is the last Sabbath of the Old Covenant. Therefore, also, His friends spend it in the sadness of those who do not yet know that the day of the New Covenant has dawned, wherein life and immortality were brought to light. His enemies embitter to themselves this their Sabbath rest with the endeavors which they use to guard the corpse of our Lord, as related by Matthew alone. It is a poetical justice that they who have so often accused the Saviour of Sabbath-breaking, now themselves finally desecrate this day. Scarcely has the day after the Friday dawned (the legal Sabbath day, that is, which began on Friday evening after six o’clock), when they already come to Pilate and make their proposition to him, Mat_27:62. Not a single night will they leave the corpse unwatched, and do not rest until the guard is posted in the garden of Joseph. But by this very means they concur in the revelation of their shame, in the revelation of the resurrection of our Lord, and of the glory of God.

6. An admirable representation of the Taking Down from the Cross, by Rubens; of the viewing of the grave by the two women, by E. Veith; beautiful grave hymn: “Nun schlummerst die, O meins Ruh,” &c.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

See on the parallels in Lange.—Joseph of Arimathæa the representative of an honorable minority.—Just when all appears to be lost, does the heroic courage of faith awake.—The dead Saviour the centre of union between His male and female friends.—Love stronger than death, Son_8:6.—“They beheld the sepulchre” (admirable text for Good Friday evening): 1. How far our beholding of the sepulchre may be distinguished from that of the first female friends; 2. how far, however, it must agree with theirs.—Jesus’ sepulchre viewed in the light of faith: 1. The monument of the wickedness of His enemies; 2. the goal of the Passion of our Lord; 3. the working-place of the providence of God: 4. the grave of the sin of the world; 5. the pledge of the Christian’s rest in the grave.—The great Sabbath: 1. A feast of delusive rest for Israel; 2. a day of refreshing rest for Jesus; 3. a time of active rest for the Father; 4. a pledge of restored rest for the sinner: 5. an image of the present rest of the Christian, Heb_4:9.—The great Sabbath: 1. The history; 2. the significance; 3. the admonitions of this very memorable day.—The Sabbath rest: 1. Of Christ; 2. of the Christian.

Starke:—Say not, “If everything is thus corrupt, how can I alone live so devoutly?”—He that is inwardly concerned for right, must also make it known in seasonable time.—There is no fear in love, but, &c.—Before our rulers we must have befitting respect, Rom_13:7.—Believers’ best and dearest treasure is Jesus.—One may and should, even yet, clothe Jesus in His naked members.—Hedinger:—Even to the dead must we show love, and Christianly commit them to the earth.—To lose one’s money for Christ’s sake is a great gain.—Through a blessed death there is a passage to the true rest, O beauteous Sabbath!—J. Hall:—The true Christian is not content with having others show love towards their neighbor, but he does it also himself.—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—This is the way of pious souls, that they are God-fearing, loving, active.—Arndt:—The burial of our Lord: 1. Its possibility; 2. its glory; 3. its importance; 4. its obligation.—J. C. Stern:—The confession of the Christian at the grave of the Saviour.

Footnotes:

Luk_23:51.—The words êáὶ . . . êáὶ áὐôüò should be omitted from the Recepta, and we should with Lachmann, Tischendorf, [who has, however, restored them,] read simply äò ðñïòåäÝ÷åôï [with Meyer, Tregelles, Alford also. The MSS. which have tho suspected words show so many variations in writing them as to make it probable that they came from the parallel passages in Matthew and Mark.—C. C. S.]

Luk_23:54.—B., Cod. Sin., C.¹, L., have ðáñáóêåõçò instead of the ðáñáóêåõÞ of the Recepta. The Genitive is adopted by Lachmann, Meyer, and Tregelles. Tisehendorf and Alford retain the Recepta, which, however, besides being opposed by the above-named MSS., is not supported by D., which has ðñïóáââáôïõ . As all the uncials which read the Nominative, omit the following êáé , while those which read the Genitive retain it, there seems little doubt that Meyer is right in supposing the final ò to have been dropped from ðáñáóêåõò in consequence of the following óáââáôïí , while êáé , where it remained, protected the Genitive ending.—C. C. S.]

Luk_23:56.— Êáὶ ôὸ ìὲí óÜââáôïí ἡóõ÷áóáí . .. ôῆ äὲ ôῶí óáââÜôùí ... ἡëèïí . “And the sabbath day, indeed, they rested … but on the first of the week … they came.”—C. C. S.]