Luke 23:47-49

Third Cycle: Close of the Account of the Passion, Luke 23:47-56.

Vers. 47-49. These verses describe the immediate effects of our Lord's death, first on the Roman centurion (Luke 23:47), then on the people (Luke 23:48), lastly on the followers of Jesus (Luke 23:49).

Mark says of the centurion: When he saw. These words relate to the last cry of Jesus and to the event of His death. In Matthew and Luke this same expression refers to all the events which had just passed.

Luke gives the saying of this Gentile in the simplest form: This was a righteous man; that is to say: He was no malefactor, as was supposed. But this homage implied something more; for Jesus having given Himself out to be the Son of God, if He was a righteous man, must be more than that. Such is the meaning of the centurion's exclamation in the narratives of Matthew and Mark. Twice on the cross Jesus had called God His Father; the centurion could therefore well express himself thus: He was really, as He alleged, the Son of God!

As the centurion's exclamation is an anticipation of the conversion of the Gentile world, so the consternation which takes possession of the Jews on witnessing the scene (Luke 23:48) anticipates the final penitence and conversion of this people (comp. Zec 12:10-14). The word θεωρία, that sight, alludes to the feeling of curiosity which had attracted the multitude.

Among the acquaintance of Jesus spoken of Luke 23:49 there must have been some of His apostles. This is the necessary inference from the word πάντες, all. Μακρόθεν, afar off, discovers the fear which prevailed among them. John and Mary had come nearer the cross (John 19:26-27).

Luke does not name till later any of the women present. Matthew and Mark here designate Mary Magdalene, of whom John also speaks; Mary the mother of James and Joses, probably the same whom John calls Mary the wife of Cleopas, and aunt of Jesus; with the mother of the sons of Zebedee, whom Mark calls Salome, and whom John leaves unmentioned, as he does when members of his own family are in question.

The Syn. do not speak of the mother of Jesus. We ought probably to take in its literal sense the words: “ From that hour that disciple took her unto his own home” (John 19:27). The heart of Mary was broken on hearing the deeply tender words which Jesus had spoken to her, and she withdrew that same hour, so that she was not present at the end of the crucifixion, when the friends of Jesus and the other women came near. Εἰστήκεισαν, they stood, is opposed to ὑπέστρεφον, they returned (Luke 23:48). While the people were leaving the cross, His friends assembled in sight of Jesus. The words: beholding these things, refer not only to the circumstances attending the death of Jesus, but also, and above all, to the departure of the terrified multitude. This minute particular, taken from the immediate impression of the witnesses, betrays a source in close connection with the fact.