They find a room by his direction, and make ready there. to him, Where wilt 273 Luke 9 And they said un- And they said unto him, Lord, we are ready to SECT. perform the charge, and that we may be under clxviii. no uncertainty as to the place, only desire thou wouldst particularly tell us, Where, or at what XXII. 9. house wilt thou have us go and prepare for thy eating the passover with us. thou that we [MARK, go and] prepare [for thee to eat the passover?] [MAT. XXVI. -17. MARK XIV.12.] 10 And he said un to them, [Go into the city to such a man, and] behold, when ye [MAT. XXVI. 18. 11 And [MARK, wheresoever he shall go in] ye shall say unto the good man of the house, TheMaster saith unto thee, [My time is at hand, I will keep the where is the guest ; And he said unto them, I will give you a sign, 10 which shall put the matter out of doubt: Go directly into the city to such a one as I will point are entered into the out to you: [and] behold, as soon as ever you are city, there shall a man entered into the city, a man will meet you in the meet you, bearing a pitcher of water; fol- street carrying a pitcher of water in his hand low him into the house follow him immediately into the house where he where he entereth in. enters; for I know it will be a place very fit for MARK XIV.-13.] our accommodation". And wheresoever he 11 goes in, you shall say to the master of the family, We are come to thee with a message from Jesus the Teacher; and he says to thee by us, my time is now very near, and before I make my last remove I will celebrate the passover at thy house : where then is the dining-room? or what convenient chamber hast thou to spare, where I may chamber, where I shall come and eat the passover with my disciples, and eat the passover with be secure from the interruption of any other XXVI.-18. MARK Company? And upon this he will take you up 12 stairs, and shew you a large upper room, which 12 And he shall will conveniently hold us all; and you will find per room furnished it furnished with all proper utensils, and prepared [and prepared: there by all necessary circumstances of purification of make ready [for us] every kind, so as to be, on the whole, in very [MARK XIV. 15.} good order: there provide the unleavened bread, the lamb, and the bitter herbs, and make all things ready for us against the time of our coming; for we shall be able to find the house without any direction from you". passover at thy house,] my disciples? [MAT. XIV. 14] shew you a large up b A man will meet you, &c.] As Samuel, having anointed Saul, for the confirmation of his faith gave him several predictions relating to some very contingent occurrences he was to meet with in his journey (see 1 Sam. x. 2-7), so our Lord seems by these predictions to have intended the same with regard to his disciples, and also to give them a most important hint that he foresaw all the particular circumstances which were to befal him at Jerusalem when be went up thither for the next and last time before his sufferings.-The sending them to Jerusalem in this manner seems to intimate, that he did not go thither himself that morning so that it is very probable he spent most of the day in retirement for meditation and prayer. And c My time is near.] Every body knew that the time for eating the passover was near; for that these words must be supposed to have a further view. And I am therefore ready to believe that the owner of this house, to whom our Lord sent this message by the name of the teacher, might be a person who (though unknown to Peter and John) was in his heart at least a disciple of Christ; and our Lord might give this intimation, that it was to be a time of more than ordinary importance to him, that it might be some secret support to this man's faith under that violent shock it was soon to receive by his approaching sufferings. d We shall be able to find the house, &c.] The same prophetic gift which ena bled 274 SECT. clxviii. He comes in the evening, and sits down with the twelve. forth, and came into and And after he had given these particular in- MARK XIV. 16. structions to his two disciples, they went out from And his disciples went Mat. thence, and came into the city, and found the man the city, and found as XIV. 16 carrying the water, whom they followed into a he had said unto them: house, where there was, just as he had said to they [did as Jesus had appointed them, them, a commodious dining-room at liberty, and] made ready the and well furnished: and as the master of the passover. [MATT. house was free to let them have it, they did as XXVI. 19. LUKE XXII. 13.] Jesus had appointed them, and made the passover ready against the time when he should come to 17 John XIII. 1 eat it. And in the evening, when the proper hour for 17 And in the evening [LUKE, when the eating the passover was come, he came directly to hour was come], he the house where his messengers were, and sat cometh, [and sat down] down to the table with all the twelve apostles with the twelve[ LUKE, around him, to taste (according to the usage of apostles.] [MAT1. those days) the unleavened bread, and the bitter XXII. 14.] herbs, before the lamb was served up. XXVI. 20. LUKE JOHN XIII. 1. Now passover, when Jesus unto the Father, hav Now it is here to be observed, that before he began to eat the feast of the passover, as Jesus before the feast of the knew that his hour was come when he should de- knew that his hour was part from this calamitous world, in which he had come, that he should sojourned for a while, to return to the bosom of departout of this world the Father in which he originally dwelt, he was ing loved his own, solicitous to order every circumstance of his con- which were in the duct in this last intercourse with his disciples, so world, he loved them as might most effectually promote their edifica- unto the end. tion and comfort, and make it clearly manifest that having always tenderly loved his own that were in the world, he loved them in the most per bled Christ to predict these circumstances e To taste the unleavened bread, &c.] I fect bread and bitter herbs, which, when the master and the rest of the company had tasted, one of the younger persons present, generally a child, asked the reason of what was peculiar in that feast (according to Exod. xii. 26), which introduced the haggadah, that is, the shewing forth, or decla ration of it; (in allusion to which we read of shewing forth the Lord's death, 1 Cor. xi. 26.)-Then the master rose up and took another cup, and washed his hands again, before the lamb was tasted: and in this interval, I suppose, Christ also washed the feet of his disciples:-Then, after eating the passover, followed another cup, which, after having delivered to each a piece of bread, was the sacramental cup at this supper :Then, after some pious and friendly discourse, the whole family, after having drank at least a fourth cup, sang some psalms of praise: and so the solemnity ended.— Agrecable to this is the account given in the Religious Ceremonies of all Nations, Vol. I. p. 215–217. f He Taking the cup before the passover, he divides it among them. 275 LUKE XXII. 15. And he said them, With desire I before I suffer, fect manner, even to to the end of his life, and SECT. would decline nothing which might be for their clxviii. advantage. Luke And, to express the fervency and strength of XXII.15 unto this affection, he said to them, as they sat togehave desired to eat ther, before supper was brought in, I assure you this passover with you that I have most earnestly desired to eat this passover with you, though I know it will be the last I shall celebrate with you, and we shall rise from it but a few hours before I am to suffer from mine enemies the most cruel insults, and torments, which shall end in my death: yet such is my love to my people, and such my desire to glorify my heavenly Father, that no passover was ever so welcome to me as this: For now I 16 see the days of my humiliation almost finished; and I say unto you, That after this I will not celebrate any other passover with you, nor eat of it any more, till it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God, or till the institutions of the gospel shall have perfected those of the law, and the ordinances of both are superseded by the more perfect enjoyments of the heavenly world. 16 For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfiled in the kingdom of God. 17 And he took the and said, Take this, yourselves, And then, having received the cup, with which 17 cup, and gave thanks, it was usual for them to begin the feast, he gave and divide it among thanks to God for the redemption of Israel, in commemoration of which the passover was instituted, and for giving them this opportunity of celebrating this holy banquet together; and then said, Take this cup, and let it go round, and divide [it] among yourselves, and bless the God of your fathers. And see that you do it 18 with a devotion suitable to the distinguished solemnity which you have now before you for I say unto you, That after what passes this evening, I will not drink any more with you of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God come, and that complete and spiritual redemption, which is typified by this ordinance, shall be fulfilled and perfected. 18 For I say unto you, I will not drink until the kingdom of of the fruit of the vine, God shall come. f He loved them to the end.] I shall in the next section hint at my reasons for agreeing with those critics who place the story of Christ's washing his disciples' feet at the beginning of the paschal supper, rather than a night or two before. At present, I would only observe, that this verse seems intended by John to introduce, not merely the story which immediately follows it, but the whole account of Christ's beha VOL. VII. IMPROVE viour to his friends in these last scenes of M m 276 Reflections on the fervency of the love of Christ. IMPROVEMENT. SECT. 10--13 WE may well assure ourselves, that the same Divine peneclxviii. tration and prophetic discernment which enabled the blessed Luke Jesus thus circumstantially to foretell to his disciples those most xxii. contingent occurrences which were to determine the place where they should prepare the passover, would also open to him a prospect of all that was to follow. All the scenes that were to be passed through on this fatal night, and the succeeding black and bloody day, were, no doubt, attentively viewed: the agony of the garden, the traiterous kiss of Judas, the cowardly flight of all the other apostles, the insults of his seemly victorious and successful enemies, the clamorous accusations, the insolent buffetings, the scourges, the thorns, the nails, the cross and all that he was to endure upon it from the hand of God and men. Yet behold, with all these in his view, he goes on with a holy alacrity, and this sun of righteousness, rejoiceth as a champion to run his race! 15 (Psal. xix. 5.) Yea, when he is sitting down to the paschal supper (though therein was exhibited, in a most lively emblem, the bitterness of his own sufferings,) he utters these gracious and emphatical Words, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer. John So justly might it be said of him, as we see it is, that having xiii. 1. loved his own, which were in the world, he loved them to the end. O blessed Jesus, may the ardour, the courage, and the permanency of our love to thee, bear at least some little proportion to that wherewith thou hast condescended to love us! May we long, from time to time, to celebrate with thee that Christian passover which thou hast ordained to succeed the Jewish, as the memorial Luke of thy sacrifice! Yea, may we long for the last solemnity of this kind, which will ere long come, after which we shall no more 16, 18 drink with thee of the fruit of the vine, till it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God! In the mean time may we be cheered with thy love, which is indeed far better than wine, (Cant. i. 3.) and, thus suppported with those reviving cordials which thy gospel administers, may we keep ourselves in the love of God, and in the patient expectation of thy final, most glorious, and welcome appearance! (2 Thess. iii. 5. and Jude, ver. 21.) xxii. SECT, The disciples at supper contend who should be greatest. SECT. CLXIX. Christ rebukes the ambition which his disciples most unseasonably expressed as they were sitting down to supper, by washing their feet, and adding several excellent admonitions to the exercise of humility, immediately before the eating of the paschal lamb. Luke XXII. 24-27. John XIII. 2-3—17. JOHN XIII. 2.— AND supper being ended, JOHN XIII. 2.— a 277 SECT. clxix. John NOW when our Lord had thus sate down to eat the passover with his disciples (as was said before,) supper being come, and the antepast or introduction to it having been dispatch-XIII. 2. ed, as above: Just in the interval between that Luke and the serving up the paschal lamb, there was XXII.24 them a most unseasonable contention among them", LUKE XXII. 24.There was also a strife among them, which of a Supper being come.] The reasons brought by Bishop Kidder (in his Demonstration of the Messiah, part iii. chap. 3, p. 60, 61,) by Dr. Lightfoot (Hor. Heb. on Mat. xxvi. 6,) and since by Dr. Whitby (in his notes on this place,) to prove that this supper was not the passover, but another supper at Bethany a night or two before, I have briefly obviated in the paraphrase or notes on the places on which they are grounded; and therefore cannot think it material to trouble the reader with a particular detail of them. The chief reasons which determine me to the contrary opinion (besides some others, of which a good summary is given in Dr. Guyse's valuable Note on this place) are these such a disposition of the story best suits several of the circumstances of the paschal supper, (particularly the contention about superiority, and the inquiry about Judas, both which must, on the other hypothesis, have been superseded;) and the propriety of it is especially evinced from John xiii. 38. where our Lord says to Peter, The cock shall not crow till thou hast denied me thrice; which must be spoken the very night Jesus was betrayed, and yet is 'so connected with this story of washing the disciples' feet by ver. 21. and ver. 31. that they cannot without great violence be separated and it is certain, John xiii. 1. will have a peculiar energy according to this plan; which therefore most critics have followed. The reader will observe here that I have rendered as you supper being come, which is the sense in which the word is often used elsewhere: thus John xxi. 4. pwing yeropterns is when morning was come; Acts xii. 18. xvi, 35. nas : as evens, when day was come; and Acts xxi. 50. σιγες γενομένης when silence was made; in all which places, and in many more that might easily be collected from the Greek writers, it would be absurd to translate the word ended. Nay, Luke iv. 42. γενομένης ημέρας, signifies then the day was coming on. (Compare Mark i. 35. note f, Vol. VI. p. 196.) It is indeed an ambiguous term; but the rendering above is here to be preferred, (1.) Because it was much more natural to wash the feet of guests before than after supper. (2.) Because it is expressly said, in ver. 1. to have been done before the passover, which, if the preceding reason be admitted, determines the point. (3.) Because part of the discourse, which John mentions as happening after the feet were washed, is mentioned by the other evangelists as passing at supper; nay, John himself, when ha speaks, in ver. 26. of Christ's dipping the sop, and giving it to Judas after this, plainly shews that supper was not ended.— As the latter part of this 2d verse comes in by way of parenthesis, I have transposed that clause, and inserted it afterwards in ver. 21. to introduce what relates to Judas in the next section ; a freedom which will, I hope, be easily excused. b There was a contention among them.] If the reasoning above be allowed, we must certainly transpose Luke's account of this contention about superiority; for none can imagine it should follow immediately after Christ had been giving them so affecting a lesson of humility. But Luke seems less exact in the order of this story than other evangelists; and particularly reates what passed concerning the person that Mm 2 vas |