To curse and to swear. — We may infer from the two words that he used some common formula of execration, such as, e.g., “God do so to me and more also” (1 Kings 19:2; 1 Kings 20:10), as well as the oath-formula, “By Heaven,” or “By the Temple.”
Immediately the cock crew. — St. Mark alone records the first cock-crow. The Greek has no article; “a cock crew.” We find from Mark 13:35 that “cock-crowing” had become a familiar phrase, as with us, for the earliest hour of dawn.