Joh 19:17-30 | JFB | STEP | 17. And he bearing his cross-- (See on ). went forth-- Compare , "without the camp"; "without the gate." On arriving at the place, "they gave Him vinegar to drink mingled with gall [wine mingled with myrrh, Mr 15:23], and when He had tasted thereof, He would not drink" ( ). This potion was stupefying, and given to criminals just before execution, to deaden the sense of pain. Fill high the bowl, and spice it well, and pour The dews oblivious: for the Cross is sharp, The Cross is sharp, and He Is tenderer than a lamb. Keble. But our Lord would die with every faculty clear, and in full sensibility to all His sufferings. Thou wilt feel all, that Thou may'st pity all; And rather would'st Thou wrestle with strong pain Than overcloud Thy soul, So clear in agony, Or lose one glimpse of Heaven before the time, O most entire and perfect Sacrifice, Renewed in every pulse. Keble.

‏ John 19:17-30

Joh 19:17-30. Crucifixion and Death of the Lord Jesus.

17. And he bearing his cross--(See on Lu 23:26).

went forth--Compare He 13:11-13, "without the camp"; "without the gate." On arriving at the place, "they gave Him vinegar to drink mingled with gall [wine mingled with myrrh, Mr 15:23], and when He had tasted thereof, He would not drink" (Mt 27:34). This potion was stupefying, and given to criminals just before execution, to deaden the sense of pain.

Fill high the bowl, and spice it well, and pour

The dews oblivious: for the Cross is sharp,

The Cross is sharp, and He

Is tenderer than a lamb.

Keble.

But our Lord would die with every faculty clear, and in full sensibility to all His sufferings.

Thou wilt feel all, that Thou may'st pity all;

And rather would'st Thou wrestle with strong pain

Than overcloud Thy soul,

So clear in agony,

Or lose one glimpse of Heaven before the time,

O most entire and perfect Sacrifice,

Renewed in every pulse.

Keble.

18. they crucified him, and two others with him--"malefactors" (Lu 23:33), "thieves" (rather "robbers," Mt 27:38; Mr 15:27).

on either side one and Jesus in the midst--a hellish expedient, to hold Him up as the worst of the three. But in this, as in many other of their doings, "the scripture was fulfilled, which saith (Is 53:12), And he was numbered with the transgressors"--(Mr 15:28)--though the prediction reaches deeper. "Then said Jesus"--["probably while being nailed to the Cross,"] [Olshausen], "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Lu 23:34)--and again the Scripture was fulfilled which said, "And He made intercession for the transgressors" (Is 53:12), though this also reaches deeper. (See Ac 3:17; 13:27; and compare 1Ti 1:13). Often have we occasion to observe how our Lord is the first to fulfil His own precepts--thus furnishing the right interpretation and the perfect Model of them. (See on Mt 5:44). How quickly was it seen in "His martyr Stephen," that though He had left the earth in Person, His Spirit remained behind, and Himself could, in some of His brightest lineaments, be reproduced in His disciples! (Ac 7:60). And what does the world in every age owe to these few words, spoken where and as they were spoken!

19-22. Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross ... Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews ... and it was written in Hebrew--or Syro-Chaldaic, the language of the country.

and Greek--the current language.

and Latin--the official language. These were the chief languages of the earth, and this secured that all spectators should be able to read it. Stung by this, the Jewish ecclesiastics entreat that it may be so altered as to express, not His real dignity, but His false claim to it. But Pilate thought he had yielded quite enough to them; and having intended expressly to spite and insult them by this title, for having got him to act against his own sense of justice, he peremptorily refused them. And thus, amidst the conflicting passions of men, was proclaimed, in the chief tongues of mankind, from the Cross itself and in circumstances which threw upon it a lurid yet grand light, the truth which drew the Magi to His manger, and will yet be owned by all the world!

23-24. Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts; to every soldier--the four who nailed Him to the cross, and whose perquisite they were.

a part, and also his coat--the Roman tunic, or close-fitting vest.

without seam, woven from the top throughout--"perhaps denoting considerable skill and labor as necessary to produce such a garment, the work probably of one or more of the women who ministered in such things unto Him, Lu 8:3" [Webster and Wilkinson].

25-27. Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary, wife of Cleophas--This should be read, as in the Margin, "Clopas," the same as "Alpheus" (Mt 10:3). The "Cleopas" of Lu 24:18 was a different person.

28-30. After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished--that is, the moment for the fulfilment of the last of them; for there was one other small particular, and the time was come for that too, in consequence of the burning thirst which the fevered state of His frame occasioned (Psa 22:15).

that the scripture--(Psa 69:21).

might be fulfilled saith, I thirst. Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar--on the offer of the soldiers' vinegar, see on Joh 19:24.

and they--"one of them," (Mt 27:48).