Luke 23:35-37 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And the people stood beholding Him hanging on the cross, being, it seems, not at all concerned, but rather pleasing themselves with the spectacle. And the rulers Whom, from their office, one would have supposed to be men of sense and men of honour, stood among the rabble; and derided him, saying, He saved others, let him save himself Thus do they upbraid him for the good works he had done, as if it were indeed for these that they crucified him. They triumph over him as if they had conquered him, at the time that he was conquering sin and death for them! They challenge him to save himself from the cross, when he was saving others by the cross! See on Matthew 27:39-44. Let him save himself if he be Christ, the chosen of God If he really be the true Messiah, the elect of God, and, in consequence of that divine choice, be the king of Israel, as he has often pretended, let him save himself from death, that we may see a demonstration of his saving power; and we will then believe him. Or, if he, as the Messiah, would deliver our nation from the Romans, (to do which they supposed would be the principal office of the Messiah,) let him deliver himself from the Romans that have him now in their hands. Thus these Jewish rulers ridiculed him, as captivated by the Romans instead of subduing them. The expression, ο του θεου εκλεκτος, the elect, or chosen of God, is taken from Isaiah 42:1, and appears to be one of those titles by which the Messiah was at that time distinguished. The soldiers also Who kept guard at that time, joined with the rest of the spectators; and mocked him, coming and offering him vinegar To drink in the midst of his agonies. Compare John 19:29. And saying As the rulers and people had done; if thou be the king of the Jews As thou hast frequently pretended to be, before thou undertakest to deliver them, save thyself From our power, and thus begin to assert thy claim to a supreme authority. Their insult, it seems, did not lie in their offering our Lord vinegar, for that was the soldiers' common drink, when mixed with water; (see note on Matthew 27:48;) but it lay in what they said to him when they offered it, reproaching him for pretending to be a king, when he was so poor and mean a person, and now about to expire as a malefactor. As this claim of being a king, seemed to the soldiers most derogatory to the Roman authority, it is no wonder that they grounded their insult on this, rather than his professing himself the Son of God. Thus the priests derided his claiming the title of the Messiah, and the Romans his claiming that of a king.