And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Ver. 46. Jesus cried with a loud voice] Therefore he laid down his life at his own pleasure; for by his loud outcry it appears that he could have lived longer if he had listed, for any decay of nature under those exquisite torments that he suffered in his body, but much greater in his soul. That which for the present seems to have expressed from him this doleful complaint, was the sense of his Father's wrath in the darkening of the body of the sun over him; which though God causeth to shine upon the just and unjust for their comfort, yet was not suffered to shine upon him for those three sorrowful hours together. When Theodorus, the martyr, was racked and tortured by the command of Julian the Apostate, an angel, in the form of a young man, stood by him and comforted him, wiping off his sweat with a fine linen cloth, and pouring cold water on his vexed limbs. When Mr Saunders, martyr, was examined before Stephen Winchester, he felt a most pleasant refreshing issuing from every part of his body to his heart, and from thence ebbing and flowing to each part again. William Hunter, martyr, cried out at the stake, Son of God, shine upon me, and immediately the sun shone out of a dark cloud so full in his face that he was constrained to look another way; whereat the people mused, because it was so dark a little before. And I myself was an eyewitness of a like answer returned from heaven, to a like prayer made by a penitent malefactor executed at Evesham in Worcestershire, many years since. But our Lord Christ was forsaken of all these creature comforts; and (which was worse than all) of his Father's favour, to his present apprehension; left forlorn and destitute for a time, that we might be received for ever. a Howbeit, perplexed though he were, yet not in despair; persecuted, yet not forsaken; cast down, yet not destroyed. 2Co 4:8-9 He could say My God, in the midst of all, by the force of his faith, which singles out God (as a father saith) and appropriateth him to a man's self. b And Hilary hath a good note, which here comes in not out of place. Habes conquerentem relictum se esse, quia homo est; habes eundem profitentem latroni in paradiso regnaturum, quia Deus est. As man, he cries out My God, my God, &c., when, as God, he promiseth paradise to the penitent thief.
a εγκατελιπες est plus quam κατελιπες, ut deserere quam derelinquere.
b η πιστις ιδιοποιειται τον θεον .