Matthew 26:72 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

And again he denied with an oath— To his denial he now added perjury. Jesus was so public a person, and so well known to thousands, not at all in his interest, that this additional falsehood, I do not know the man, was most unnecessary; and—as it frequently happens, when people allow themselves to transgress the bounds of truth,—it was more likely to entangle anddiscover him, than to clear him. Dr. Clarke conjectures, that Peter was suffered to fall fouler than any of the rest of the apostles, except Judas the traitor, and to make more remarkable mistakes in his conduct, that we might thus be cautioned against that extravagant regard which would afterwards be demanded to him and his pretended successors. How must these people, before whom Peter denied his Lord, be surprised, when they saw, as no doubt some of them did, this timorous disciple, within the compass of a few weeks, when he was brought with John before the council, not only maintaining the cause and honour of Jesus, but boldly charging the murder of this Prince of Life upon the chief men of the nation, and solemnly warning them of their guilt and danger in consequence of it! See Acts 4:5-12. Perhaps when it is said there, Matthew 26:13., that they took knowledge of Peter and John, that they had been with Jesus; the meaning may be, that some of them or their attendants remembered Peter and John, as the two persons who had followed Jesus thus far, when the rest had forsaken him. See John 18:15-18 and Doddridge.