‘And immediately the second time the cock crew. And Peter called to mind the word, how Jesus had said to him, “Before the cock crows twice you will deny me three times.” And when he thought on it he wept.'
Brave Peter, always ready to run into danger, courageous to the very end. But not capable of the cold, steel nerves of the spy. He knew he had failed his Master. And he wept. How deeply he must have felt it. It would take the Master's forgiveness to enable him to forgive himself. It is a warning that in times of persecution it is folly to deliberately run into danger. By doing so we would make ourselves vulnerable. God's grace is not given arbitrarily.
‘And immediately the second time the cock crew.' Nobody else would have taken much notice of the cock, but to Peter it was an expression of condemnation and derision. It would have been as though the cock had spat on him.
‘Before the cock crows twice.' Not necessarily the same cock, but the same sound.
‘Deny me three times.' A threefold denial would be seen as a complete denial. But only Peter knew. Yet he told the world. He wanted them to know how good Jesus had been to him, and how He had forgiven him when he could not forgive himself.
‘When he thought on it.' This translates ‘epibalon', to ‘throw over, throw oneself, think of, set to'. It is problematic. Thus some have translated, ‘threw his cloak over his head', ‘threw himself to the ground', ‘set to and wept'. Perhaps it indicates that he ‘threw himself into the thought', indicating the violent nature of the realisation.