Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Luke 22:44 - 22:44

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Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Luke 22:44 - 22:44


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44. ἐν ἀγωνίᾳ. Comp. 2Ma 3:16-17. The word which occurs here only in the N.T.—though we often have the verb ἀγωνίζομαι—means intense struggle and pressure of spirit, which the other Evangelists also describe in the strong words ἀδημονεῖν (Mat 26:37) and ἐκθαμβεῖσθαι (Mar 14:33). It was an awful anguish of His natural life, and here alone (Mat 26:38; Joh 12:27) does He use the word ψυχὴ of Himself. It was not of course a mere shrinking from death and pain, which even the meanest natures can overcome, but the mysterious burden of the world’s guilt (2Co 5:21)—the shrinking of a sinless being from the depths of Satanic hate and horror through which He was to pass. As Luther says ‘our hard impure flesh’ can hardly comprehend the sensitiveness of a fresh unstained soul coming in contact with horrible antagonism.

ὡσεὶ θρόμβοι αἵματος. Such a thing as a ‘bloody sweat’ seems not to be wholly unknown (Arist. Hist. Anim. III. 19) under abnormal pathological circumstances. (It is said that in the Netherlands the Duke of Anjou died sweating blood.) The blood of Abel ‘cried from the ground;’ but this blood ‘spake better things than the blood of Abel’ (Gen 4:10; Heb 12:24). St Luke does not however use the term ‘bloody sweat,’ but says that the dense sweat of agony fell from him “like blood gouts”—which may mean as drops of blood do from a wound. This is the sense given to the words by Theophylact, Euthymius, Grotius, Hammond, Michaelis, Olshausen, Bleek, &c.