Matthew 26:31

γέγραπται. See note ch. Matthew 2:5.

πατάξω κ.τ.λ. Zechariah 13:7. The words do not literally follow the Hebrew. Both Hebrew and LXX. have imperative for future. The difference in form is as slight in Hebrew as in Greek (πατάξω, πάταξον). The context describes the purification of Jerusalem in the last days—‘in that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem’—the discomfiture of the false prophets, and the victory of Jehovah on the Mount of Olives.

It may be fitly remembered that the Valley of Jehoshaphat (in N.T. the Valley of Kedron) according to the most probable view derived its name—the Valley of the Judgment of Jehovah—not from the king of Judah, but from the vision of Joel (Matthew 3:2; Matthew 3:9-17), of which the prophecy of Zechariah is the repetition in a later age. If so, there is deep significance in the words recurring to the mind of Christ, as He trod the very field of Jehovah’s destined victory. The prophecy carried on from age to age rested here in its fulfilment. Nor is it irreverent to believe that the thought of this vision brought consolation to the human heart of Jesus as he passed to his supreme self-surrender with the knowledge that He would be left alone, deserted even by his chosen followers.