And some began to spit on him, and to cover his face, and to buffet him, and to say unto him, Prophesy: and the servants did strike him with the palms of their hands.
And some began to spit on him - or, as Matt. 22:67 , "to spit in [or 'into' - eis (G1519)] His face." Luke (Luke 22:63) says in addition, "And the men that held Jesus mocked him" - or cast their jeers at Him.
And to cover his face, х perikaluptein (G4028)] - or 'to blindfold him' (as in Luke 22:64),
And to buffet him, х kolafizein (G2852)]. Luke's word, which is rendered "smote Him" (Luke 22:63), is a stronger one х derontes (G1194)], conveying an idea for which we have an exact equivalent in English, but one too colloquial to be inserted here.
And [began] to say unto him, Prophecy. In Matthew 26:68 this is given more fully: "Prophesy unto us, thou Christ, Who is he that smote thee?" The sarcastic fling at Him as "the Christ," and the demand of Him in this character to name the unseen perpetrator of the blows inflicted on Him, was in them as infamous as to Him it must have been, and was intended to be, stinging.
And the servants did strike him with the palms of their hands - or "struck Him on the face" (Luke 22:64). Ah! Well did He say prophetically, in that Messianic prediction which we have often referred to, "I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting"! (Isaiah 50:6). "And many other things blasphemously spake they against Him" (Luke 22:65). This general statement is important, as showing that virulent and varied as were the recorded affronts put upon Him, they are but a small specimen of what He endured on that dark occasion.
But this brings us back to our poor disciple, now fairly within the coils of the serpent. It is extremely difficult so to piece together the several charges thrown against Peter, and his replies, as perfectly to harmonize and exhaust the four streams of text. But the following, in which the best critics concur, comes as near to it, perhaps, as we shall succeed in getting. Nothing could better show how independently of each other the Evangelists must have written than the almost hopeless difficulty of putting all the accounts of Peter's denials into their exact order, so as to make one harmonious record out of them. But the circumstantial differences are just of that nature which is so well understood in sifting a mass of complicated evidence on a public trial, which, instead of throwing doubt over them, only confirms the more strongly the truth of the facts reported.