Then Simon Peter having a sword drew it, and smote the high priest's servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant's name was Malchus.
Then Simon Peter having a sword drew it, and smote the high priest's servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant's name was Malchus. None of the other Evangelists mention the name either of the ardent disciple or of his victim. But John being "known to the high priest" (John 18:15), the mention of the servant's name by him is quite natural, and an interesting mark of truth in a small matter. As to the right ear, specified both here and in Luke, the man, as Webster and Wilkinson remark, 'was likely foremost of those who advanced to seize Jesus, and presented himself in the attitude of a combatant; hence, his right side would be exposed to attack. The blow of Peter was evidently aimed vertically at his head.' "And Jesus answered and said, Suffer ye thus far" (Luke 22:51). It seems unnatural to understand this as addressed to the captors, as if He had said, 'Suffer My disciples thus far to show their attachment to Me; excuse it to this extent; they shall do nothing more of this kind,' as Webster and Wilkinson put it, and DeWette and van Osterzee view it. Still less natural does Alford's view appear, which takes it as a request to those who were holding and binding Him, to permit Him to heal the wounded ear. It seems plainly to be addressed, as Meyer says, to the disciples, bidding them go no further in the way of defending Him; and so the majority of interpreters understand it. "And He touched his ear, and healed him." Luke only records this miracle, which in the apparently helpless circumstances in which our Lord stood, was most signal. But "The Son of Man came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them" (Luke 9:56), and, even when they were destroying His, to save theirs.