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Mat_27:65 f. Pilate’s reply is sharp and peremptory.
ἔχετε κουστωδίαν ] with Luther, Vatablus, Wolf, Paulus, de Wette, Keim, Steinmeyer, ἔχετε is to be taken as an imperative, habetote (comp. Xen. Cyrop. viii. 7. 11; Mar_9:50; Mar_11:22; Soph. Phil. 778): ye shall have a watch! For if it be taken as an indicative, as is generally done in conformity with the Vulgate, we must not suppose that the reference is to Roman soldiers (Grotius, Fritzsche), for the Sanhedrim had not any such placed at their disposal, not even to the detachment that guarded the cross (Kuinoel), for its duties were now over, but simply to the ordinary temple guards. But it is evident from Mat_28:14 that it was not these latter who were set to watch the grave. This duty was assigned to a company of Roman soldiers, which company the Acta Pil. magnifies into a cohort.
ὡς οἴδατε ] as, by such means as, ye know how to prevent it, i.e. in the best way you can. The idea: “vereor autem, ut satis communire illud possitis” (Fritzsche), is foreign to the text.
μετὰ τῆς κουστωδίας ] belongs to ἠσφαλίς . τ . τάφ .; they secured the grave by means of (Stallbaum, ad Plat. Rep. p. 530 D) the watch, which they posted in front of it. The intervening σφραγίς . τ . λίθ . is to be understood as having preceded the ἠσφαλ . τ . τ . μετὰ τ . κουστ .: after they had sealed the stone. To connect μετὰ τ . κουστωδ . with σφραγίς . (Chrysostom) would result either in the feeble and somewhat inappropriate idea that the watch had helped them with the sealing (Bleek), or in the harsh and unnecessary assumption that our expression is an abbreviation for μετὰ τοῦ προσθεῖναι τὴν κουστωδίαν (Fritzsche).
σφραγίς .] Comp. Dan_6:17. The sealing was effected by stretching a cord across the stone at the mouth of the sepulchre, and then fastening it to the rock at either end by means of sealing-clay (Paulsen, Regier. d. Morgenl. p. 298; Harmar, Bcobacht. II. p. 467); or if the stone at the door happened to be fastened with a cross-beam, this latter was sealed to the rock (Strauss, Sinai und Golgatha, p. 205).
REMARK.
As it is certain that Jesus cannot have predicted His resurrection in any explicit or intelligible manner even to His own disciples; as, moreover, it is impossible to suppose that the women who visited the grave on the resurrection morning could have contemplated embalming the body, or would have concerned themselves merely about how the stone was to be rolled away, if they had been aware that a watch had been set, and that the grave had been sealed; and finally, as the supposition that Pilate complied with the request for a guard, or at all events, that the members of the Sanhedrim so little understood their own interest as both to leave the body of Jesus in the hands of His followers instead of taking possession of it themselves, and to bribe the soldiers to give false testimony instead of duly calling them to account, as they might have done, for their culpable neglect, is in the highest degree improbable, just as much so as the idea that the procurator would be likely to take no notice of a dereliction of duty on the part of his own soldiers, who, by maintaining the truth of a very stupid fabrication, would only be proclaiming how much they themselves were to blame in the matter: it follows that the story about the watching of the grave—a story which is further disproved by the fact that nowhere in the discussions belonging to the apostolic age do we find any reference confirmatory or otherwise to the alleged stealing of the body—must be referred to the category of unhistorical legend. And a clue to the origin of this legend is furnished by the evangelist himself in mentioning the rumour about the stealing of the body,—a rumour emanating to all appearance from a Jewish source, and circulated with the hostile intention of disproving the resurrection of Jesus (Paulus, exeg. Handb. III. p. 837 ff.; Strauss, II. p. 562 ff.; Schleiermacher, L. J. p. 458 ff.; Weisse, Ewald, Hase, Bleek, Keim, Scholten, Hilgenfeld). The arguments advanced by Hug in the Freyburg. Zeitschr. 1831, 3, p. 184 ff.; 5, p. 80 ff.; Kuinoel, Hofmann, Krabbe, Ebrard, Lange, Riggenbach, Steinmeyer, against the supposition of a legend, resolve themselves into arbitrary assumptions and foreign importations which simply leave the matter as historically incomprehensible as ever. The same thing may be said with regard to the emendation which Olshausen takes the liberty of introducing, according to which it is made to appear that the Sanhedrim did not act in their corporate capacity, but that the affair was managed simply on the authority of Caiaphas alone. Still the unhistorical character of the story by no means justifies the assumption of an interpolation (in opposition to Stroth in Eichhorn’s Repert. IX. p. 141),—an interpolation, too, that would have had to be introduced into three different passages (Mat_27:62; Mat_27:66, Mat_28:4; Mat_28:11 ff.); yet one can understand how this apocryphal story should have most readily engrafted itself specially and exclusively upon the Gospel of Matthew, a Gospel originating in Judaeo-Christian circles, and having, by this time, the more developed form in which it has come down to us. For a further amplification of the legend, see Ev. Nicod. 14.