Matthew 26:69 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Now Peter sat without— Our Lord's trial in the high-priest's palace, and Peter's denying him, being contemporary events, might be related the one before the other, according to the historian's pleasure. St. Matthew and St. Mark describe the trial first, because it is a principal fact. But St. Luke brings it in after the denials. St. John has preserved the exact and natural order: for he begins with the first denial, because it happened immediately after Peter entered the palace; then gives the history of the trial as the principal fact, and concludes with the subsequent denials. The apostles, no doubt, were in great consternation when their Master was apprehended, as appears from their forsaking him. Some of them, however, recovering out of the panic that had seized them, followed the band at a distance, to see what the end would be: of this number was Peter, and another disciple, whom John has mentioned without giving his name, and who therefore is generally supposed to have been John himself, it being the manner of this Evangelist to speak of himself in the third person. See John 13:23; John 21:20. St. Matthew and St. Mark seem to differ in the account which they give of the place where Peter first denied his Master. St. Matthew says, Peter sat without in the palace; St. Mark 14:66 says that this denial happened as Peter was beneath in the palace. It appears from John 18:25 that Peter was with the servants at the fire, when he denied his Master the third time;and from Luke 22:61., that Jesus looked upon Peter, just as he was pronouncing the words of the third denial. Our Lord, therefore, and his disciples were not, the one in the court, and the other in the vestibule of the palace, during his trial, as some have supposed; but they were together in one room, Jesus with his judges at the upper end of it, and Peter with the servants at the fire at the other end. Accordingto this disposition, Peter might be said to have been without in the hall, that is to say, without, in relation to the crowd of judges, witnesses, and soldiers, around Jesus; but in relation to the place where the council sat, he was beneath in the hall, in the lower part of it; a way of speaking common even in our own language. Further, John, Matthew 26:18 says, that Peter, after the first denial, stood with the officers at the fire; whereas St. Matthew and St. Luke tell us, that when he first denied his Master, he sat by the fire. It seems the maid's words had put him into such confusion, that before he answered her, he arose from the seat, which the servants had given him at his first coming in. We learn from St. John, that the damsel who attacked Peter was the who kept the door; it seems, that after having admitted him, she followed him to the fire, and spoke to him in an angry tone, having been informed that it was he who had cut off her fellow-servant's ear. See John 18:17; John 18:26. Thou also wast with Jesus, means, when he was apprehended in the garden; to be with, signifies sometimes to be a disciple. The woman, probably, either had some knowledge of Peter before, or was informed by John, or some of those who had been in the garden, that he was one of Christ's friends. See Matthew 26:73. The word Galilee is added by way of distinction, Jesus being a very common name at this time. See Macknight, Grotius, Doddridge.