Matthew 27:51

The veil of the temple] Two veils, a cubit apart, hung before the Holy of Holies. They are said to have been 40 cubits (60 ft.) long, 20 wide, and of the thickness of the palm of the hand. Both were rent. Josephus, for obvious reasons, does not record this event.

The significance of the rending of the veil is variously understood. Some see in it a sign that the old covenant was at an end, the sacrifices abolished, and the divine presence withdrawn from the Temple, even the Holy of Holies being now made common ground, open to the feet of all. Others who regard the Holy of Holies as a type of heaven, and the rest of the Temple as a type of earth, see in the rending of the veil the removing of the barrier between heaven and earth, the reconciling of God and man through the death of Christ: cp. Hebrews 10:19; Hebrews 10:20.

The earth did quake] Probably to be connected with the rending of the veil. 'In the Gospel (according to the Hebrews) we read that the lintel of the Temple of infinite size was broken and divided. Josephus also relates that the angelic powers, who once presided over the Temple, then together cried out, Let us depart from these abodes' (Jerome). The statement of Josephus, however, refers to a later period. Rocks rent] 'It would not be right altogether to reject the testimony of travellers to the fact of extraordinary rents and fissures in the rocks near the spot' (Alford); 'To this day Golgotha is a proof of it, where the rocks were rent on account of Christ' (St. Cyril of Jerusalem, 315-386 a.d.).