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Mar_14:43-52. See on Mat_26:47-56. Comp. Luk_22:47-53. The brief, vivid, terse narrative, especially as regards the blow of the sword and the young man that fled (which are alleged by Wilke to be interpolated), testifies to its originality.
δεδώκει ] without augment. See Winer, p. 67 f. [E. T. 84 f.].
σύσσημον ] a concerted signal, belongs to the later Greek. See Wetstein and Kypke, Sturz, Dial. Al. p. 196.
ἀσφαλῶς ] securely, so that He cannot escape. Comp. Act_16:23.
Mar_14:45. ῥαββὶ , ῥαββί ] The betrayer himself is under excitement.
Mar_14:49. ἀλλʼ ἵνα κ . τ . λ .] sc.: ὡς ἐπὶ λῃστὴν ἐξήλθατε κ . τ . λ ., Mar_14:48. Comp. Joh_9:3; Joh_1:8; Joh_13:18.
Mar_14:50. It would have been more exact to name the subject (the disciples).
Mar_14:51 f. συνηκολούθει αὐτῷ ] (see the critical remarks): he followed Him along with, was included among those who accompanied Jesus in the garden.
σινδόνα ] a garment like a shirt, made of cotton cloth or of linen (see Bast, ep. crit. p. 180), in which people slept. “Atque ita hic juvenis lecto exsilierat,” Grotius.
ἐπὶ γυμνοῦ ] not to be supplemented by σώματος , but a neuter substantive. Comp. τὰ γυμνά , the nakedness, and see in general Kühner, II. p. 118.
If οἱ νεανίσκοι were genuine, it would not have to be explained as the soldiers (Casaubon, Grotius, de Wette), since the context makes no mention of such, but generally: the young people, who were to be found in the ὄχλος , Mar_14:43.
Who the young man was, is not to be defined more precisely than as: an adherent of Jesus,[167] but not one of the Twelve. The latter point follows not from Mar_14:50 (for this young man also, in fact, had fled), but from the designation εἷς τις νεανίσκ . in itself, as well as from the fact that he already had on the night-dress, and therefore had not been in the company at the table. There was no justification, therefore, for guessing at John (Ambrose, Chrysostom, Gregory, Moral, Mar_14:23), while others have even concluded from the one garment that it was James the Just, the brother of the Lord (Epiphanius, Haer. lxxxvii. 13, as also in Theophylact). There are other precarious hypotheses, such as: a youth from the house where Jesus had eaten the Passover (Victor Antiochenus and Theophylact), or from a neighbouring farm (Grotius), or Mark himself (Olshausen, Bisping). The latter is assumed also by Lange, who calls him a “premature Joseph of Arimathea;” and likewise by Lichtenstein, who, by a series of combinations, identifies the evangelist with a son of the master of the house where the Passover took place. Casaubon aptly remarks: “quis fuerit hic juvenis quaerere curiosum est et vanum, quando inveniri to τὸ ζητούμενον non potest.” Probably Mark himself did not know his name.
It must be left undetermined, too, whence (possibly from Peter?) he learned this little episode,[168] which was probably passed over by Matthew and Luke only on account of its unimportance.
ΓΥΜΝΌς ;] “pudorem vicit timor in magno periculo,” Bengel.
[167] Not possibly Saul (the subsequent Apostle Paul), who had run after Him from curiosity, as Ewald, Gesch. der apost. Zeit. p. 339, conjectures.
[168] According to Baur, only a piquant addition of Mark; according to Hilgenfeld, it is connected with Mark’s conception of a more extended circle of disciples (Mar_2:14?).