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Mat_27:50 Πάλιν ] refers to Mat_27:46. What did Jesus cry in this instance? See Joh_19:30, from which Luk_23:46 diverges somewhat, containing, in fact, an explanatory addition to the account of the great closing scene, that is evidently borrowed from Psa_31:6.
ἀφῆκε τὸ πνεῦμα ] i.e. He died. See Herod, iv. 190; Eur. Hec. 571: ἀφῆκε πνεῦμα θανασίμῳ σφαγῇ ; Kypke, I. p. 140; Gen_35:18; Sir_38:23; Wis_16:14. There is no question here of a separating of the πνεῦμα from the ψυχή . See in answer to Ströbel, Delitzsch, Psych. p. 400 f. The theory of a merely apparent death (Bahrdt, Venturini Paulus) is so decidedly at variance with the predictions of Jesus Himself regarding His end, as well as with the whole testimony of the Gospel, is so utterly destructive of the fundamental idea of the resurrection, undermines so completely the whole groundwork of the redemption brought about by Christ, is so inconsistent with the accumulated testimony of centuries as furnished by the very existence of the church itself, which is based upon the facts of the death and the resurrection of Jesus, and requires such a remarkable series of other theories and assumptions of an extraordinary and supernatural character in order to explain duly authenticated facts regarding Christ’s appearance and actings after His resurrection,—that, with friends and foes alike testifying to the actual death of Jesus, we are bound at once to dismiss it as an utterly abortive attempt to get rid of the physiological mystery (but see on Luke, Remarks after Mat_24:51) of the resurrection. It is true that though those modern critics (Strauss, Weisse, Ewald, Schweizer, Schenkel, Volkmar, Scholten, Keim) who deny the literal resurrection of Christ’s body, and who suggest various ways of accounting for His alleged reappearing again on several occasions, do not dispute the reality of His death, their view is nevertheless as much at variance with the whole of the New Testament evidence in favour of the resurrection as is the one just adverted to. Comp. Mat_28:10, Rem., and Luk_24:51, Rem.