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Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it; we have the same, though not mentioned as spoken in particular to John, Mat_26:23 Luk_22:21; though neither of them mention Christ’s own dipping the sop, but Matthew saith, he dipped his hand with him in the dish; and Luke saith, his hand was with him on the table. Without question all the evangelists speak of the same time; for it is not reasonable to think that this discovery should be made, and Judas gone out, and that afterward he should return again to eat the passover. This maketh me very inclinable to think, that though the washing of the feet might be during the time of a common supper, preceding the passover, yet the supper they were now at was the passover supper: where,
1. Were none but he and the twelve disciples.
2. It is plain they were in that leaning posture, not used at common meals, but on the passover nights (as Dr. Lightfoot tells us from their writings).
3. The discourse passed at the table is the very same (though not in words, yet in sense) with that mentioned by Matthew and Luke, at the passover supper.
4. It is not reasonable to think that after such a discovery as Christ now made of the traitor, he should come again to be pointed at and exposed.
Concerning the sop, what it was, hath been some question; and a learned writer of our own (but in this point I think much too critical) hath increased the difficulty, by affirming the word here used, qwmion, signifies a piece of bread, or the lower part or chippings of the bread; for which he quotes Hesychius, who indeed doth say so of qwyion, but not qwmion. The learned annotator thinks qwyion is a false print for qwmion, but it cannot be: for,
1. There are in Hesychius several words in alphabetical order, between qwyion, and this word.
2. Though qwmion be not in Hesychius, yet qwmh is, and expounded by him ta merh, parts; now all know that this qwmion, which is but a diminutive derived from qwmov or qwmh, can signify no more than a little part, let it be of what it will; for it is manifest out of Homer, that, joined with an adjective, it signifies a mouthful of man’s flesh, which came out of the Cyclops’ mouth.
So as the sense of these words is, He it is to whom I shall give a little part or portion of meat, when I have dipped it. And having dipped it, he gave it to Judas the son of Simon: not the Judas who wrote the Epistle, and who is mentioned, Joh_14:22, but he that was the son of Simon, called from his place which he lived in, Kiroth, Iscariot: by which he did as perfectly describe the traitor as if he had named him.