Matthew 27:45-50

DARKNESS AND DEJECTION

TEXT: 27:45-50

45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. 46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? 47 And some of them that stood there, when they heard it, said, This man calleth Elijah. 48 And straightway one of them ran, took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink. 49 And the rest said, Let be; let us see whether Elijah cometh to save him.

THE SADDEST MOMENT IN HISTORY

50 And Jesus cried again with a loud voice, and yielded up his spirit.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS

a.

What do you think caused this great darkness? Why do you decide this way?

b.

How much territory do you think the darkness covered? How would you decide this?

c.

Do you see any relationship, on the one hand, between the darkness on the day Jesus died and His cry of abandonment by the Father, and, on the other hand, the outer darkness and separation from the presence of the Lord to be suffered by the damned? If so, what connection is there?

d.

What sacrifice was sacrificed every day at the ninth hour? Do you see any connection between this and Jesus-' death?

e.

Why do you suppose Jesus cried out the words, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Did He just make up these words? Why would Jesus repeat them at this terrible moment?

f.

If Jesus were somehow deity, how could He cry out to God? If He were deity, is He merely talking to Himself? If He is a man talking to God, then is He not merely human? How do you solve this puzzle?

g.

Since Jesus spoke in Aramaic, someone shouted, He calls for Elijah. On what rational basis could this confusion arise?

h.

Why did Jesus drink the wine offered Him now, when He had refused the wine mingled with gall earlier? What is the difference?

i.

When someone offered Jesus a drink, others tried to hinder him. Why would anyone object to giving the thirsty man a drink on that occasion?

j.

Can we, who so placidly read the account of Jesus-' crucifixion, really understand what that simple word crucified meant to Jesus who endured it?

PARAPHRASE AND HARMONY

About noon an unnatural darkness similar to a solar eclipse came over the whole country and lasted until three o-'clock in the afternoon. About three, Jesus shouted, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? (This means: My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?)
Some of the bystanders who heard it commented, Hey! this man is calling Elijah!
After this, since Jesus knew that His task had now been completed, in order that the Scripture might receive complete fulfillment, He said, I am thirsty.
Now there was a jug full of a diluted sour wine drink, so someone immediately ran to it, took a sponge and soaked it with the wine, put it on a hyssop stick and held it up to Jesus-' mouth to drink. But the others said, Wait, let's see if Elijah comes to save him! whereupon the first man retorted, Let me do this, let's see if Elijah is coming to take him down!
When Jesus had drunk the sour drink, He gave a mighty shout, It is finished! Father, I intrust my spirit into your hands!
With these words He bowed His head, yielded up His spirit and breathed His last.

SUMMARY

Three hours of darkness marked the last half of Jesus-' crucifixion, at the end of which He quoted the appropriate words of Psalms 22:1. Here, too, His words were twisted into an appeal to Elijah. Thirsty, Jesus asked for a drink. They gave Him the cheap, soldier's beverage. Refreshed, He triumphantly announced the successful completion of His mission, calmly committed His soul to the Father and surrendered His life.

NOTES

The darkest day in world history

Matthew 27:45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. Jesus had now been on the cross almost three hours, from roughly nine o-'clock until noon when the ominous darkness began (Mark 15:25). Although Luke's language suggests a natural solar eclipse (Luke 23:44 f.; eklipòntos), this is excluded by two physical factors:

1.

Passover's usual full moon (Exodus 12:18; Leviticus 23:5). Every Jewish month begins with a new moon. Passover occurs two weeks after the new moon, or at the time of a full moon. But a full moon demands a specific relation of the moon and sun to the earth whereby the moon can reflect the sun's light without obstruction. On the contrary, a solar eclipse is created by the moon's obstructing the sun's light. The relative positions of sun, moon and earth during an eclipse are more like their conjunction around the time of a new moon. Hence, a natural eclipse could only have occurred two weeks before this Passover when Jesus died.

2.

Even though a solar eclipse may take four hours from the first moment that the moon begins to cover the sun until it reveals it completely again, the usual duration of a total eclipse lasts rarely longer than 9 minutes, hence far shorter than the three hours indicated by the Gospel writers for this unnatural darkness.

Because the sun could be darkened by ways other than by a natural eclipse, Luke's language, therefore, may be justified by supernatural power: God could easily have produced a strange darkening resembling an eclipse. God was not entirely absent; rather, by His withdrawing the world's light, He manifested His presence and concern. But evidence of His presence did not stop here (Matthew 27:51 ff.).

Did the darkness extend over the entire earth or only of some significant area of Judea or Palestine? The cause of the darkness determines its extent. Since the sun's light failed (Luke 23:45), it would normally affect all the earth's entire daylight hemisphere. Thus, it is clear that all the land (pâsan tèn gên) may well mean that more than just the entire region surrounding Jerusalem was enveloped in darkness. (Cf. Mark 15:33 = Luke 23:44.) Neither is impossible with God. But the former seems better supported.

What meaning should be given to this phenomenon?

1.

Neither in prophecy nor in Jewish traditional expectations was the darkness a sign directly or specifically connected with the death of the Messiah (Edersheim, Life, II, 605).

2.

It was not Nature protesting against the wickedness of Jesus-' execution nor mourning His wretchedness. This view fails to explain why Nature waited three hours to act. Further, it animistically gives personality to what are but elements in the natural world, the impersonal creative expressions of God's word. Even so, God could utilize these natural elements as a superhuman, audiovisual means to protest violently against the death of their Creator. (Cf. Matthew 27:51-53.) It is as if heaven and earth were in convulsion, mourning Him who created them. In the timing of these phenomena coincidental with the death of Christ, there is a hint that all creation depends on Him, for He sustains it by His mighty word and that earth's destiny ultimately rises or falls with Him (Hebrews 1:3; Colossians 1:17; 2 Peter 3:5-7).

3.

In apocalyptic language the turning of the sun into darkness is a popular symbol for a radical change in world affairs, because these changes often involve great judgments of God (Isaiah 5:30; Isaiah 13:10; Isaiah 50:3; Isaiah 60:2; Joel 2:10; Joel 2:31; Joel 3:14 f.; Amos 5:18; Amos 5:20; Amos 8:9 f.; Revelation 6:12 ff.; cf. 2 Peter 2:17). Though these and such poetic allusions as Jeremiah 15:9 or Job 9:7 are not pertinent to the Messiah's death nor to be taken literally, nevertheless, a people embued with these concepts, by an association of ideas would be prone to think first of God's judgment as the ultimate cause of this literal effect in nature.

4.

Did God screen the last tormented hours of His Son's life from the curious stares of jeering crowds? Was it also relief from the sun during its hottest brilliance?

5.

Was this a miraculous heavenly sign Jesus-' enemies had demanded? (Cf. Exodus 10:21 ff.) Although this could have happened by natural causes, the marvelous coincidence with Jesus-' suffering points to a supernatural origin. In context with the other-worldly events on that day (Matthew 27:51-53), the darkness may have been only a prelude aiming to capture the attention of the most calloused, stirring them to reflection on the odd coincidence between the death of that Galilean Prophet and these signs from heaven. Who indeed was He for whom these portents speak?

6.

Because Jesus-' cry of abandonment came in close connection with the end of the darkness (Matthew 27:45 f.), the darkness is suggestive of the outer darkness and utter separation from the presence of the Lord to be suffered by those who do not let Jesus-' suffering be the price of their redemption. (Cf. Matthew 8:12; Matthew 22:13; Matthew 25:30; 2 Peter 2:17; Jude 1:13; 2 Thessalonians 1:9.)

Because the crowd seems to be considerably less vociferous at the end of the phenomenal black-out, the terror of the darkness must have quieted the bitter enthusiasm of a majority of the mockers. Mostly His friends and the soldiers remain. Luke 23:48 may mean that many simply did not dare leave in the darkness.

... Stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. (Isaiah 53:4)

Matthew 27:46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? The Lord had been hanging on the cross nearly six hours from midmorning until midafternoon, around three o-'clock. (Cf. Mark 15:25; Mark 15:33.)

Matthew quotes Jesus verbatim in Aramaic, then translated the meaning into Greek for his non-Aramaic readers. In what sense did God forsake Jesus? His choice of words, Psalms 22:1, is not coincidental, but intentional and highly revealing.

1.

It can be validly argued that David simply prophesied Jesus-' suffering on the cross; as does Lenski (Matthew, 1118): For it is not due to the fact that David wrote this line that Christ made it his cry on the cross, but because Christ would thus cry out on the cross David wrote it as a prophet. However, other equally reverent views are also possible.

2.

It is not the cry of personal guilt nor because God did not approve of Jesus-' obedient life and ministry. Otherwise, why justify Him so completely by the convincing stamp of approval given in the resurrection?

3.

Nor is this an abandonment of Jesus-' humanity by His deity, the splitting of His divine-human personality. (Cf. Philippians 2:5-11.) His unique unity of mind, purpose and nature with the Father is not now interrupted (John 10:30). Only He who has fully experienced the comradeship of equality with God can know what it means to suffer its loss by being so completely forsaken by Him. Jesus does not sense a loss of part of Himself, but of the fellowship of God.

4.

Rather, the source of this unaccustomed inaccessibility to the divine Throne lies in His very humanness, for it is as God's creature, as Man, that He cries out. (Cf. John 8:29.) Incarnation means He completely shared in our humanity (Hebrews 2:14; Hebrews 4:15). Is it a human cry crushed out of ANY GODLY MAN who struggles with the torment over the injustice of his suffering, life and death, evil and good? Otherwise why express Himself in the precise words of the Psalmist's complaint (Psalms 22:1)? He really felt the intensely depressing loneliness all of us feel at such an hour, and this cry gives appropriate words to His pain. Jesus knew in that moment what we go through: He has been there (Hebrews 5:7-9; 1 Peter 2:21)! But there is much more.

5.

His cry reveals a psychological abandonment by God that was morally necessary to render Jesus-' victory more glorious and meaningful to man. As Man at His weakest, stripped of any help unavailable to any other man, He defeated Satan and all he could hurl at Him in this last supreme effort (2 Corinthians 13:4; see notes on Matthew 4:2 f.). All who are tempted must see that in Jesus of Nazareth God's adversary has been met and defeated by One who, though deserted to die, remained completely able to parry his every temptation with unconquerable determination and courage! By His having to undergo all the fury and hate of God's enemy as do we, He became the more amply qualified to be our Lord and Savior. But so much more conclusively He also condemned yielding to sin and wiped out every whining justification on the ground of the weakness of our human condition or that we feel abandoned by God to our fate. He has been there and won! His classic victory has shown us all how.

6.

The awful accumulation of sin of the entire human race was being borne by Him who considered intolerable the slightest suggestion of sin. This takes us into the very essence of atonement. Far more than any other, THIS Man must feel the awesome loneliness and isolation of the sinner, not through any fault of His own, but because He deliberately chose to become the sin-bearer of the entire human race (Isaiah 53:6; Matthew 20:28; Romans 5:6 ff.; 2 Corinthians 5:15; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 2:20; Galatians 3:13; 1 Timothy 2:6; Titus 2:14; Hebrews 9:12; Hebrews 9:26; Hebrews 9:28; Hebrews 10:10; 1 Peter 1:19). In this cry for the hearing of the whole human race of which He is the only completely voluntary member, He shouts the true meaning of unrepented sin and its consequences: a holy God cannot look upon evil (Habakkuk 1:13). Nothing could remove the sin Jesus bore, except His own death. His God-forsaken humanness gives real meaning to His sacrifice. Until this was completed, perhaps the Father was forced by His own character and love for Jesus to turn His gaze from His own dear Son. The only Man who deserved to live is facing the wrath of God, the curse and sentence of death, the wages of sin. He underwent the ultimate horror of separation from God that we might not have to (Hebrews 13:5)! He bore our curse and our burdens alone (Isaiah 53:4-6; Isaiah 53:10). His grief, pain, loneliness and desolation were real. And should He NOT cry out? Was this not the very definition of hell: to be segregated from the light of the Father's face, tormented by Satan's worst and responsible for the accumulated sin of all of Adam's race?

His cry, My God, expresses no conflict with the divine purpose, but a first-hand experience of the price demanded by His total cooperation with the divine plan. Even near the extreme limit of His strength and oppressed by His sense of being forsaken, His My God breathes the same unwavering confidence and obedient spirit of His earlier Not my will but yours be done. He is determined not to surrender His godly trust. This God is not deity of others, but His God. Whatever theological impact His sense of abandonment by God has, His life ended like His suffering began, in prayer, Father. (Luke 23:34; Luke 23:46), conscious of His communion with God. (Cf. John 16:32.)

For the sensitive Hebrew, this significant choice of words would communicate His application of the entire Psalms 22 to His own life situation. Hebrews entitled literary works by their opening line. Genesis is entitled Bereshith = In the beginning.; Exodus becomes Veeleh shmoth. These are the names.; Leviticus is Vayyikra-', And he called., etc. Psalms 113 is called Hallel from its opening word. A dying Christian, unable to finish the phrase, Nearer My God to Thee. would communicate to those at his bedside that he was thinking of that great hymn. In a similar way, Jesus, whose whole soul was permeated with Scripture, may have been expressing Himself in the words of Psalms 22 precisely because of the appropriateness of the Psalmist's words to communicate His immediate situation. The attentive believer could discern how truly and completely Jesus was experiencing even the loneliness of abandonment by God Himself. And yet, in the presence of despair and tragedy, He shouted with poignant power to uncomprehending disciples everywhere that in God's Word lie power, hope and security. Man can live confident of every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, but he can also die that way!

Just as He withstood Satan's original temptations by unshaken dependence on God's Word, so He beat Satan down at the final challenge in the same way. If in the shadow of the cross, He sang the Scripture (Matthew 26:30), should it be thought strange that this godly Man should rivet His attention on the purpose of God by hurling at His own unrelieved pain and the injustice of His suffering the words of God expressed in this Psalm? Like Jesus-' suffering, the Psalm begins in despondency and depression. But the final word sings of invincible faith in the glorious victory of God: ... dominion belongs to the Lord and He rules over the nations (Psalms 22:31)! To express the greatest moments of our lives is there any language like that of Scripture whereby we identify with something eternal, objective and grander than our poor feeble words can conceive? How much more so for the Son of God who thought those words first?!

This cry, according to Matthew's text, begins in Hebrew, Eli, and concludes in Aramaic, whereas Mark, according to the best manuscripts, reports Jesus-' words all in Aramaic. (Cf. A Testual Commentary, 70, 120.)

At the ninth hour every day the second daily sacrifice was offered in the Temple. (Cf. Acts 3:1; Numbers 28:1-8; Numbers 29:6; 1 Chronicles 16:40; 2 Chronicles 2:4; 2 Chronicles 13:11; Ezra 3:3; Ezra 9:4 f.; Psalms 141:2; Daniel 8:11-13; Daniel 9:21; Daniel 11:31; Daniel 12:11.)

Matthew 27:47 And some of them that stood there, when they heard it, said, This man calleth Elijah. Who said this? Definitely Jews, because a Roman soldier could hardly be expected to know of the Jewish scribes-' erroneous expectation that this undying prophet would return to earth (Matthew 17:10; cf. 2 Kings 2:11; Malachi 4:5 f.). Several motives for their reaction are possible:

1.

Perhaps because His mouth and throat were dry, as shown by His later request for a drink, and His breathing difficult as His chest muscles strained, the hubbub and noise combined with the similar-sounding words to hinder many from hearing the words clearly.

2.

Perhaps because the words are Aramaic, some Hellenistic Jew who understood little Hebrew or Aramaic could mistake the word Eli for a prayer to Elijah (Elei) not understanding the rest of the sentence. But the bilingual Jews present could have corrected the misconception based on mere linguistic error.

3.

More likely it was the malicious irony of prejudice. What bilingual Aramaic-speaking Jew would have mistaken this citation of Psalms 22:1 for an invocation of the prophet Elijah? It is plausible that those who heard the original cry understood it all too well. But their unbelieving bias against Jesus made a crude pun of it by turning Eli into Elias thus devising but another form of heartless ridicule. They had insisted that God save Him. Now, when God would not rescue Him, they ridicule as if Jesus had turned to Elijah. If Elijah was scheduled to come before the Messiah, Jesus Himself could not be the Messiah. By implication, He is ridiculed as appealing to the forerunner of the very Christ He claims to be (cf. Matthew 11:11; Matthew 11:14; Matthew 17:10-13).

My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. (Psalms 22:15).

They gave me vinegar for my thirst (Psalms 69:21).

Matthew 27:48 And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink. This sentence of Matthew does not appear to fit the context of the preceding verse. What does the reaction of the man, who ran straightway to prepare Jesus a drink, have to do with His cry of abandonment (Matthew 27:46) or the conclusion that He was appealing to Elijah (Matthew 27:47)? John's account removes this obscurity: straightway after crying out His sense of abandonment. Jesus also said, I thirst (John 19:28 f.).

The fact that straightway one of them ran sounds like instant military obedience to orders (from the centurion?). Crucifixion was normally an ordeal that lasted a day or two, depending on the endurance of its victims. Because terrible thirst also characterized this torture, that a sponge and vessel of vinegar were present argue that this was the normal way the soldiers gave drink to the executed. Drinking from a cup would be difficult for the crucified to manage, hence the other method: a sponge filled with vinegar fastened to a reed. The commonness of the method appears to argue, therefore, that giving Him a drink was not unusual but a normal kindness offered any dying man. John reported what kind of stick it was, i.e. hyssop. Since the crosses need not have been tall to accomplish their purpose, the soldiers could almost reach Him to give Him a drink (Luke 23:36). So, a short hyssop stick to reach the lips of the crucified.

As its name implies, the vinegar drink was sour (òxos) in taste. But the soldiers who brought it for their own lunch called it posca, the regular diluted sour wine of the military. It relieved thirst more effectively than water and, because it was cheaper than regular wine, it was a favorite beverage of the lower ranks of society and of those in moderate circumstances (Arndt-Gingrich, 577; cf. Ruth 2:14). Although He had turned down drugged wine before. Jesus accepted this wine because of His severe thirst and since this wine was not anesthetic. Instead, it gave Him the needed clarity of mind and voice for the last effort of His life. Just as Jesus would not begin His suffering drugged by myrrhed wine, so now He would not leave it so weak He could not talk. He would go out with power. The drink provided the energy for what He must do next.

Could a Hebrew reader miss the connection between this and Psalms 22:15 or Psalms 69:21?

Matthew 27:49 And the rest said, Let be; let us see whether Elijah cometh to save him. Despite the uncanny midday darkness just concluding, these skeptics continue to scoff at the possibility of a spectacular intervention of the supernatural to rescue Jesus (to take him down from the cross, Mark 15:36).

Matthew 27:50 And Jesus cried again with a loud voice, and yielded up his spirit. Again (= Matthew 27:46) The drink cleared His throat and refreshed Him sufficiently so that, summoning what remained of His dying energy and with a voice still strong with life, He could shout triumphantly the victory cry of the completed mission: It is finished (John 19:30)! Who would NOT shout, if He was sure his entire life work on earth was perfectly completed, the aim and purpose of Scriptures fulfilled, the redemption of man realized and God's will done?!

Articulate to the very last, He appropriately yielded up his spirit in the unshaken confidence and prayer of a loyal Son in full, familiar fellowship with God, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit (Luke 23:46; cf. Psalms 31:5)! He lay down His life calmly, without reluctance, sure.

That He yielded up his spirit is fact, but what this means our limited experience of death may not permit us to know.

1.

It seems to be a quibble to say that none of the Gospel writers say, He died, but used, rather, the euphemism, He yielded up his spirit (apheken tò pneôma) whereby Jesus-' death per sè is thought to be His own voluntary act. However, when the identical idiom is used to describe the death of other people, would it mean they too laid down their lives, i.e. died as an act of their will (LXX of Genesis 35:18; 1Es. 4:21; cf. Acts 7:59)? Further, the Epistles do not consider He died a misleading expression, but utilize it almost exclusively. Consequently, it is questionable whether the Gospel writers intended that this euphemism bear the theological sense of He caused Himself to die.

2.

The question is complicated by the fact that this expression may be no more than an apt euphemism for He expired or He breathed His last (exépneusen, Mark 15:37 = Luke 23:46). Does this expression mean that death was taking charge of His body, so He committed Himself, i.e. His personality, His mind, will, emotions, conscience and imagination, to God? (Cf. 1 Peter 4:19.)

It would seem, therefore, that this prayer alone, not His death itself, was His own deliberate act. It is His prayer which expresses in what sense He yielded up his spirit when He simply surrendered His life, His real self, back to God the Giver. (Cf. Acts 7:59; Ecclesiastes 12:7.) It cannot mean that, unwilling to wait until natural causes took their course, He willed Himself to die in a self-chosen moment by a death bordering on suicide. Although these supernatural options were potentially available for the unique Son of God, His experience of death would be less like our own, if He saved Himself from a prolonged natural death, unless we could do the same. His laying down His life to take it up again refers not merely or specifically to this instant of death,although, of course, it includes itbut, rather, to that absolute freedom of choice whereby He submitted voluntarily to His entire passion. (Cf. John 10:17 f; John 19:30.) To think that Jesus died of natural causes does not detract from the grandeur or voluntary character of His death, because the Son of God could have foreseen these natural causes and prepared for them in harmony with every phase of His atonement. So, although the moral and juridical results of His death are vastly different from ours, the Scriptures do not describe its cause on any basis other than its physical similarity to ours. (Cf. Hebrews 2:9-17; Hebrews 5:7 ff.)

Jesus died after only a few hours on the cross. Pilate was surprised that He were already dead, since, as implied by the Jews-' request for the summary execution of those crucified (John 19:31), sometimes several days passed before death overtook the crucified. Therefore, Jesus-' relatively rapid death may be attributed principally to the terrible scourging from which many men died before getting to the cross. Exhaustion played an important part, because, if Jesus-' discomfort on the cross was augmented by His inability to breathe except by repositioning His body, His ability to do this was limited to His physical strength already weakened by scourging, hunger and fatigue, ending in suffocation. It is certain that the spear would and did not kill Him, because when that happened, He had already died (John 19:33 f.). Some suggest that heart failure or rupture would explain both His death and the issuing of blood and water. However, medical authorities are not agreed on the exact cause of His death. The fact that He died is authenticated by His executioners, so we need not go further. To investigate the physical cause is a matter of medical interest, not a dogma of faith.

Do the poetic expressions of Psalms 22:14; Psalms 69:20 help define the solution? Other expressions from these Psalms are taken literally, why not these? Perhaps only in the sense that what was true of the Psalmist could be infinitely more appropriate of the Christ. The Psalmist spoke more truth than he understood. (Cf. 1 Peter 1:10 ff.; Luke 10:24.) Even so, such exegesis involves a figurative application to the Psalmist, but literal one to Christ. The bare, literal fulfillment is not all that God wants man to see. In this sense it is not shallow sentimentalism to think that Jesus died of a broken heart, because the literal fact points to the higher reality: it hurt Him deeply to bear the guilt and penalties of our sin! Our sinfulness killed Him. Beyond His chosen mortality, is it impossible that the psychological burden He bore literally crushed the life out of Him? Until we understand the psychosomatic equation of our own being, we shall not begin to be able to analyze what happened when Jesus died. Here is where analysis must give way to humble gratitude and worship.

FACT QUESTIONS

1.

At what hour did the unusual darkness occur? How long did it last?

2.

What is the only saying of Jesus quoted by Matthew verbatim?

3.

What did Jesus mean to communicate by this? To whom was it addressed?

4.

What, if anything, does Psalms 22 have to do with the crucifixion? Give details.

5.

How did someone give Jesus a drink?

6.

What did they offer Him to drink? Why offer Him this?

7.

What objection was made to this kindness and why? What is the meaning of Let be?

8.

About what time did Jesus die?

9.

Explain what is meant by He yielded up His spirit.

10.

What sacrifice was killed at the Temple at the ninth hour? What else occurred normally at that same time in the Temple?