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Mat_26:37 f. Anticipating the inward struggle that awaited Him, He retired farther into the garden, taking with Him none (Mat_17:1) but the three most intimate disciples.
ἤρξατο ] indicating the first symptoms of the condition in question.
λυπεῖσθαι κ . ἀδημονεῖν ] Climax. Suidas explains ἀδημον . as meaning: λίαν λυπεῖσθαι . See Buttmann, Lexilog. II. p. 135 f.; Ael. V. H. xiii. 3; Php_2:26.
περίλυπος ] very sorrowful, Psa_63:5; Psalms 3 Esdr. 8:71 f.; Isocr. p. 11 B; Aristot. Eth. iv. 3; Diog. L. vii. 97. The opposite of this is περιχαρής .
ἡ ψυχή μου ] Comp. Joh_12:27; Xen. Hell. iv. 4. 3 : ἀδημονῆσαι τὰς ψυχάς . The soul, the intermediate element through which the spirit ( τὸ πνεῦμα , Mat_26:41) is connected with the body in the unity of the individual (see Beck, Bibl. Seelenl. p. 11), is the seat of pleasure and pain. Comp. Stirm in the Tüb. Zeitschr. 1834, 3, p. 25 ff.
ἕως θανάτου ] defining the extent of the περίλυπος : unto death, so as almost to cause death, so that I am nearly dead from very grief; Jon_4:9; Isa_38:1; and see on Php_2:27. The idea of the mors infernalis (Calovius), as though Christ had been experiencing the pains of hell, is here exegetically unwarrantable. Euthymius Zigabenus correctly observes: φανερώτερον ἐξαγορεύει τὴν ἀσθένειαν τῆς φύσεως ὡς ἄνθρωπος .
μείνατε … ἐμοῦ ] “In magnis tentationibus juvat solitudo, sed tamen, ut in propinquo sint amici,” Bengel.