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Joh_18:3. The σπεῖρα is the Roman cohort (see Mat_27:27; Act_21:31; Polyb. xi. 23, i. 6, xiv. 3 ff.; Valckenaer, Schol. I. p. 458 f.), designated by the article as the well-known band, namely, because serving as the garrison of the fort Antonia, distinguished by what follows from the company of officers of justice appointed on the part of the Sanhedrim, and not to be explained of the Levitical temple-watch (Michaelis, Kuinoel, Gurlitt, Lect. in N. T. Spec. IV. 1805, B. Crusius, Baeumlein). That Judas arrived with the whole σπεῖρα is, as being disproportionate to the immediate object (against Hengstenberg), not probable; but a division, ordered for the present service, especially as the chiliarch himself was there (Joh_18:12), represented the cohort.[207] Of this co-operation of the Roman military, for which the Sanhedrim had made requisition, the Synoptics say nothing, although Hengstenberg takes pains to find indications of it in their narrative. John’s account is more complete.
φανῶν κ . λαμπ .] with torches and lamps (the latter in lanterns; Mat_25:1 ff.). Comp. Dion. H. xi. 40. Extreme precaution renders this preparation conceivable even at the time of full moon. The arms are understood to have been, as a matter of course, carried by the soldiers, but not by the ὑπηρέται , and are mentioned as helping to complete the representation.
The êáß ’s are not accumulated (Luthardt), not one of them is unnecessary.
[207] This is quite sufficient for the inexactness of popular information. We have hence neither to understand a manipulus (i.e. the third part of the cohort), for which an appeal is erroneously made to Polyb. xi. 23. 1, nor, generally, a band, a detachment of soldiers (2Ma_8:23; 2Ma_12:22; Jdt_14:11). The latter, not because it is Roman military that are spoken of; the former, not because although Polybius elsewhere employs σπεῖρα as equivalent to manipulus (see Schweighäuser, Lex. p. 559), yet a whole maniple (some 200 men) would here be too many.