Matthew 27:41-43 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Likewise also the chief priests, mocking, &c.— The rulers having, as theyimagined, wholly overturned our Lord's pretensions as Messiah, ridiculed him on that head, and with a meanness of soul which will for ever render them infamous, mocked him even in the agonies of death. They scoffed at the miracles of healing, by which he demonstratedhimself the Messiah; and promised faith, on condition that he would prove his pretensions by coming down from the cross. In the mean time nothing could be more false and hypocritical; for they continued in their unbelief, notwithstanding Jesus raised himself from the dead, which was a much greater miracle than his coming down from the cross would have been; a miracle also that was attested by witnesses, whose veracity they could not call in question; for it was told them by the soldiers, whom they had themselves placed at the sepulchre to watch his body. It is plain, therefore, that the priests said they would believe if Jesus came down, not because their incorrigible stubbornness would have yielded to any proof, however convincing, but to insult Christ; fancying it impossible for him now to escape out of their hands. It is difficult to tell what it was that the rulers alluded to in the 43rd verse: He trusted in God;—let him deliver him now, if he will have him;— ει θελει αυτον, if he delight in him, &c. Perhaps those who now spake, were the persons who attended Judas and the armed band when they apprehended Jesus. Luke 22:52. On that occasion they had heard him order Peter to put up his sword, telling him that he could pray to his Father, and he would give him more than twelve legions of angels. In derision of this expression of his reliance on God, whom he called his Father, they say to him, now that he was hanging on the cross, "He trusted in God that he would deliver him, and claimed a peculiar relation to him as his Son. If God really delights in him as his Son, let him shew it now, by delivering him from thisignominious punishment." But whatever the particular was to which they now alluded, certain it is that the rulers, by speaking as above, fulfilled a remarkable prophesy concerning the Messiah's sufferings, Psalms 22:8 where it is foretold, that the Messiah's enemies would utter these words in derision of his pretensions. Many of the Jewish writers themselves acknowledge that these words belonged to the Messiah; and it certainly merits a serious reflection, that at the very time when these priests and elders intended to explode our Lord's pretensions to the Messiahship, they should make use of what their own writers acknowledged to be a characteristic of the true Messiah. See Macknight and Doddridge.