And they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again. And they were exceeding sorry.
And they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again. And they were exceeding sorry.
Though the shock would not be so great as at the first announcement (Matthew 16:21-22), their "sorrow" would not be the less, but probably the greater, the deeper the intelligence went down into their hearts, and a new wave dashing upon them by this repetition of the heavy tidings.
Accordingly, Luke (Luke 9:43-44), connecting it with the scene of the miracle just recorded, and the teaching which arose out of it-or possibly with all His recent teaching-says our Lord forewarned the Twelve that they would soon stand in need of all that teaching: "But while they wondered everyone at all things which Jesus did, He said unto His disciples, Let these sayings sink down into your ears; because the Son of Man shall be delivered, etc.:" 'Be not carried off your feet by the grandeur you have lately seen in Me, but remember what I have told you, and now tell you again, that that Sun in whose beams ye now rejoice is soon to set in midnight gloom.'
Remarkable is the antithesis in those words of our Lord, preserved in all the three Narratives - "The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men." He adds (Matt. 17:45) that "they understood not this saying, and it was hid from them, that they perceived it not" - for the plainest statements, when they encounter long-continued and obstinate prejudices, are seen through a distorting and dulling medium - "and were afraid to ask Him;" deterred partly by the air of lofty sadness with which doubtless these sayings were uttered, and on which they would be reluctant to break in, and partly by the fear of laying themselves open to rebuke for their shallowness and timidity. How artless is all this!
For Remarks on this section, see the notes at Mark 9:14-32, at the close of that section.
The time of this section is evidently in immediate succession to that of the preceding one. The brief but most pregnant incident which it records is given by our Evangelist alone-for whom, no doubt, it would have a special interest, from its relation to his own town and his own familiar lake.