thanks, he gave it to them: and they all drank of it. 24 And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament,

itself was protracted into a second course, and hence the appropriate repetition of the thanks-offering.

He gave (it) to them, and they all drank of it. Very literally, out of it. The evangelist hastens, anticipatively, along the historic line of action. But doubtless before the completion of the communicating act, and probably indeed before any one of the disciples partook of the cup, the words of institution, or rather the words of explanation, as contained in the next verse, would be spoken.

VER. 24. And He said to them, This. That is, This thing, or, as it is expressly supplemented for us in Luke xxii. 20 and 1 Cor. xi. 25, This cup. And yet the reference is obviously and admittedly to the wine in the cup. The freedom of the expression should be a lesson to those who insist on excluding every vestige of freedom from the phraseology of the 22nd verse.

Is My blood. Augustine used to explain the copula by referring to the expression in 1 Cor. x. 4, that Rock was Christ.' Or we might refer to Matt. xiii. 38, The field is the world: the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one.' The red wine employed at the passover was an appropriate symbol of the Saviour's blood, and especially in this respect, that when added mystically to the mystic bread it made a mystic feast. There was reason indeed for mourning too. For, while the bread pointed forward to nourishment and strength that were to be, the breaking of it pointed backward to manglement and woe. The poured out wine too not only pointed forward to festivity and joy, it also pointed backward to a sacrifice, by blood shedding, of an inestimably precious life. So strangely near to each other, and interconnected, are sorrow and joy. In death there is the fount of life; in the anguish of the heart there is the wellspring of bliss and joy. It is the paradox of saving grace.

Of the new covenant. The word is thirteen times translated testament in King James's version of the New Testament, and twenty times covenant. Its Hebrew equivalent properly means covenant; but its classical import is latter will or testament. Neither of the translations does full justice to the unique transaction referred to. Indeed no human word could. And to have used a Divine word would simply have been to speak an unintelligibility. The reference is to that disposition of things, in virtue of which mercy, and the possibility of true and everlasting bliss, are extended to the sinful human race. It was a glorious device, culminating in the atoning sacrifice of the Lamb of God.' It was a covenant, inasmuch as there is inherent in it an element of conditional reciprocity. God, on His part, does something; He does much. But the blessing involved in what He does is suspended, so far as men's enjoyment of it is concerned, on acquiescence on their part, or cordial acceptance, or faith. It is also of the nature of a testamentary deed. For there is involved in it a disposal of the effects or goods which constitute the property of God; in virtue of which disposal it is that men who acquiesce or believe become His heirs.' The deed is a real testament, for it is duly and solemnly

which is shed for many. 25 Verily I say unto you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God.

attested and testified. And it is also really a last will, for it is a final expression of the will and wish of God. There was need too, in contemplation of certain sublime moral and political ends to be subserved, for an interposing death (Heb. ix. 16, 17), although there was no need for the final departure of God from the midst of His own property. His presence in the midst of it, and His enjoyment of His goods, do not interfere with the presence and enjoyment of His heirs,' but only crown their privileges and happiness. The Divine plan of mercy has thus in it the essentials of both a covenant and a testament. But still covenant is the more prominent idea. And as the covenanting parties must, in so peculiar a case, approach each other through the solemnity of a sacrifice, the Saviour says 'This is My blood of the new covenant.' There is some reason for regarding the word new as imported from Luke xxii. 20 and 1 Cor. xi. 25. It is wanting in the uncial manuscripts & B C D L, and in the Coptic and Sahidic (Ming.) versions, and it is left out by Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford. Griesbach and Meyer approve. The reference indeed is undoubtedly to the 'new' covenant, which was in truth just the one grand scheme of mercy. The 'old' one, the Jewish, was but adumbrative, the shadow, cast before, of the coming reality.

Which is shed. Or, which is being shed. Our Saviour might have used & future expression, for the real blood shedding was still future. He might also have used a past expression, for the actual blood shedding was the logical antecedent of the commemorative ordinance. But He chooses to use a present expression, for to His mind the little space of time that was yet to elapse before His decease was as it were no time at all.

For many. How many is not indicated. But they must be so many as to constitute a multitude. We know from other passages that the multitude consisted of the whole of mankind. See 1 Tim. ii. 6; 2 Cor. v. 14; Heb. ii. 9; 1 John ii. 2. By the word many," says Calvin, " He means not a part of the "world only, but the whole human race, for He contrasts many with one, as if "He had said that He would not be the Redeemer of one man only, but would "die to deliver many from the condemnation of the curse." The preposition for before many (ép) means properly over, that is, in behalf of. It is indeed just the Greek form of our English word over.

VER. 25. Verily I say to you. I solemnly assure you.

I shall drink no more. The negative is triple in the original, and thus very strong; I shall not drink, no more, never.

Of the fruit of the vine. The word fruit means literally progeny, and is here applied to the wine, which is the elaborated product of the vine. Note that, according to our Saviour Himself, the liquid contained in the cup was not literal blood, but the fruit of the vine.

Until that day when I drink it new-as drink it I assuredly shall-in the kingdom of God. Namely, when, at the second coming of our Lord, the heavenly kingdom shall be established in all its intrinsic glory. The wine then used will

26 And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives. 27 And Jesus saith unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night for it

be new, not in the sense of being newly pressed from the grapes, for 'the old is better' (Luke v. 39), but in the sense of being one of the all things' that are to be made 'new.' See 2 Pet. iii. 13; Rev. xxi. 5. The word rendered new (Kaivos) is quite a different word from that which is employed when new wine or must, as distinguished from that which is old, or ripe by means of age, is referred to (véos).

VER. 26-31 take us through another of the scenes that were preliminary to he crisis. A corresponding paragraph is found in Matt. xxvi. 30-35. Comp. Luke xxii. 39 and John xvi. 32.

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VER. 26. And when they had sung a hymn. Wycliffe has the ympne, that is, the hymn. So Luther, Principal Campbell, Alford. But it is neither a hymn nor the hymn in the original. The phrase is participial, having hymned; and, if the custom that prevailed in our Lord's time corresponded with the custom represented by the subsequent rabbinical writers and practised to the present day, more psalms than one would be chauted at the conclusion of the feast. The Hallel,' a very simple oratorio of the Hallelujah description, was chanted during the paschal feast. It consisted of Psalms cxiii., cxiv., cxv., cxvi., cxvii., exviii., which group of hymns they cut in two parts," says Lightfoot; "a "part of it they repeated in the very middle of the banquet, and they reserved "a part to the end. . . . The hymn which Christ now sang with His disciples, after meat, was the latter part," which, according to the school of Shammai, extends over Psalms cxiv.-cxviii., while according to the school of Hillel it extended only over Psalms cxv.-cxviii. (Lightfoot's Works, xi., pp. 435, 436.) The British Jews, before partaking of the fourth and last cup, the cup of blessing,' repeat, says Mills, Psalms cxv., cxvi., cxvii., cxviii., and cxxxvi. (British Jews, p. 201.) Tyndale and Coverdale take all the poetry out of the evangelist's expression by rendering it, when they had sayd grace.

They went out to the mount of Olives. So Tyndale, Wakefield, Campbell, Edgar Taylor, Godwin. They went out, viz. from the place where they were in the city, and from the city. The scene, whence the exit took place, consisted of concentric spaces. The mount of Olives: Where our Lord, as well as many of the other sojourners, was accustomed to spend His nights. See chap. xi. 11, 12, 19.

VER. 27. And Jesus saith to them, Ye all shall be offended because of Me this night. But the expression because of Me this night has been imported from Matthew's narrative. It is wanting in the best manuscripts, and is left out by Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford. It was condemned as spurious by both Mill and Griesbach, as also by Fritzsche. Mark's narrative is briefer than Matthew's, but quite harmonious. Ye all shall be offended; literally, ye all shall be scandalized. Such is the Rheims version. Edgar Taylor's is, ye will all offend; Worsley, ye will all be made to offend; Mace, you will all be staggered; Norton, very paraphrastically, There is none of you whose faith will not be shaken ; Principal Campbell, with remarkable faithfulness to the idea, I shall prove a

is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered. 28 But after that I am risen, I will go before you into Galilee. 29 But Peter said unto him, Although all shall

tumbling-block to you all. Wakefield and Rodolphus Dickinson, too freely, ye will all forsake Me. The idea is, You will all be unwittingly caught and insnared (so that you will be staggered in your faith, and scandalized in your feelings). See chap. iv. 17, vi. 3, ix. 42, 43, 45, 47. They would, under the malign influence of insnaring circumstances, lose confidence in the Lord as the long hoped for Messiah.

For. An event, necessary for the weal of universal man, but not yet fully understood by the disciples, was imminent. In its very approach it would shake their faith.

It stands written. Viz. in Zech. xiii. 7, in the midst of a remarkable oracle, which still needs, for its satisfactory interpretation, a considerably increased amount of scrutiny.

I will smite the Shepherd. In the original Hebrew the same idea is more poetically put, Sword! awake against My Shepherd, even against the Man, My Fellow (My neighbour), saith Jehovah of hosts; smite the Shepherd! It is thus the Divine sword that is to awake and smite. 66 Many hands were raised to wound Him, | None would interpose to save; | But the awful stroke that found Him Was the stroke that Justice gave." (Kelly.) The passage, says Henry Cowles, "remarkably recognises the Divine agency in the atoning death of the Lamb of God." (The Minor Prophets, p. 366.) "The great doctrine here "set forth," says Dr. Moore, "is, that the death of Christ was a judicial act, in "which He endured the penalty of the law, whose penal power was symbolised "by this sword of Divine wrath." (Prophets of the Restoration, p. 293.) Man acted coincidently, it is true, and most wilfully and wickedly, at some points in the scene; indeed, his agency, in some respects, as so often in other cases, outran the Divine order of things. But still the Divine agency went on, in uninterrupted dignity, with the dread solemnities of its own high and holy work, and completed the sacrifice. (See Stroud's Physical Cause of Christ's Death.)

And the sheep shall be scattered abroad. The sudden withdrawal of the Shepherd's presence will loosen for a season the bond that bound the sheep together. They will be scattered hither and thither in dismay.

VER. 28. But after I am raised up. Namely, from the condition into which I shall be smitten by the awakened sword. The disciples however would have no proper conception of what their Lord meant. Comp. chap. ix. 10. Their thoughts, though vibrating with solemnity and pathos, yet ran in lines that led far away from the reality that was actually imminent.

I shall go before you into Galilee. Namely, like a shepherd who goes before his sheep, that they may follow him. Though the sheep were for the moment to be scattered, yet they would continue, and especially the lambs of the flock, to be Divinely cared for. I will turn My hand,' saith the Lord. on the little ones' (Zech. xiii. 7), to rescue and protect them. This would be realized when the Shepherd reappeared on the scene.

VER. 29. But Peter said to Him, Although all shall be offended. Or scandalized,

be offended, yet will not I. 30 And Jesus saith unto him, Verily I say unto thee, That this day, even in this night, before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice. 31 But

or staggered and stumbled. The expression rendered although is more emphatic than our translation would suggest. It is literally even if (kai ei). Such is the reading, not of the Received Text only, but also of the great majority of the uncial manuscripts. In NBCGL, 1, 69, however, the expression is reversed, if even (el κaí). This last reading has been accepted by Tregelles, Tischendorf in his eighth edition, and Alford. The variation is of trifling significance; but we feel disposed to adhere to the Received reading as the less likely to have been tinkeringly modified.

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Yet (will) not I. The will, even in English, can be very well dispensed with, as in Wycliffe and the Rheims. Literally the expression is, but not I. The whole remark of Peter was compressed. It might be unfolded thus: Others may be staggered and stumbled, but not I. Even if they all shall falter, I will not.' 'Just like Peter,' a child of manly impulse, but far too impetuous and self-reliant. 'This was indeed," says Petter, "his principal and most dangerous error and fault at this time, that he presumed too much upon himself." VER. 30. And Jesus saith to him, Verily I say to thee that thou to-day, this very night. Note the limitation of the time. The day had begun. It began with the night; and already was the night far advanced. Not only, however, some time or other during the day, but before even the first or nocturnal half of it should be concluded, the event about to be predicted would take place. So short was to be the distance between Peter's presumption and his fall. Before the cock crow twice, thou wilt deny Me thrice. The time is still further imited. Long before the dawn of the morning the denial would take place. In the other evangelists the word twice does not occur. It is said in Matt. (xxvi. 34), Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny Me thrice. The expressions in Luke xxii. 34 and John xiii. 38 correspond. But as the expression before the cock crow seems to mean before the cock crow once, there has been perplexity among some of the reverent students of the word, while there has been no little cock-crowing, not once only or twice, on the part of those who will not admit that there is anything Divine in the Gospel. Evanson, for example, says: This relation is absolutely irreconcileable with what is given in the Gospel "according to Matthew." (Dissonance, p. 265.) Scholten contends that the word twice must have been a gloss introduced into the text of the Proto-Mark. (Het Oudste Evang., p. 229.) So Michelsen. (Het Evang. van Markus, p. 170.) But there is really no difficulty, if the subject be looked at, not microscopically and crotchetously, but in a broad and genial spirit. "The difference," says Alexander, "is the same as that between saying, before the bell rings, and before "the second bell rings (for church or dinner); the reference in both expressions being to the last and most important signal, to which the first is only preliminary." Or we may conceive the matter thus: No doubt there would be more said in the conversation than is recorded, much more. It is, as in most other cases, but snatches of the interview that are narrated. And in the different narratives different aspects of the one sum total are presented to view. Mark, very likely instructed by Peter himself, presents one particular item of what