Mark 14:17

And in the evening he cometh with the twelve.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

MacLaren's Expositions

Mark

THE NEW PASSOVER

Mark 14:12 - Mark 14:26.

This passage falls into three sections-the secret preparation for the Passover {Mark 14:12 - Mark 14:17}, the sad announcement of the betrayer {Mark 14:18 - Mark 14:21}, and the institution of the Lord’s Supper {Mark 14:22 - Mark 14:26}. It may be interesting to notice that in the two former of these Mark’s account approximates to Luke’s, while in the third he is nearer Matthew’s. A comparison of the three accounts, noting the slight, but often significant, variations, should be made. Nothing in the Gospels is trivial. ‘The dust of that land is gold.’

I. The secret preparation for the Passover.

The three Evangelists all give the disciples’ question, but only Luke tells us that it was in answer to our Lord’s command to Peter and John to go and prepare the Passover. They very naturally said ‘Where?’ as they were all strangers in Jerusalem. Matthew may not have known of our Lord’s initiative; but if Mark were, as he is, with apparent correctness, said to have been, Peter’s mouthpiece in his Gospel, the reticence as to the prominence of that Apostle is natural, and explains the omission of all but the bare fact of the despatch of the two. The curiously roundabout way in which they are directed to the ‘upper room’ is only explicable on the supposition that it was intended to keep them in the dark till the last moment, so that no hint might leak from them to Judas. Whether the token of the man with the waterpot was a preconcerted signal or an instance of our Lord’s supernatural knowledge and sovereign sway, his employment as a silent and probably unconscious guide testifies to Christ’s wish for that last hour to be undisturbed. A man carrying a water-pot, which was woman’s special task, would be a conspicuous figure even in the festival crowds. The message to the householder implies that he recognised ‘the Master’ as his Master, and was ready to give up at His requisition even the chamber which he had prepared for his own family celebration of the feast.

Thus instructed, the two trusted Apostles left Bethany, early in the day, without a clue of their destination reaching Judas’s hungry watchfulness. Evidently they did not return, and in the evening Jesus led the others straight to the place. Mark says that He came ‘with the twelve’; but he does not mean thereby to specify the number, but to define the class, of His attendants.

Each figure in this preparatory scene yields important lessons. Our Lord’s earnest desire to secure that still hour before pushing out into the storm speaks pathetically of His felt need of companionship and strengthening, as well as of His self-forgetting purpose to help His handful of bewildered followers and His human longing to live in faithful memories. His careful arrangements bring vividly into sight the limitations of His manhood, in that He, ‘by whom all things consist,’ had to contrive and plan in order to baffle for a moment His pursuers. And, side by side with the lowliness, as ever, is the majesty; for while He stoops to arrange, He sees with superhuman certitude what will happen, moves unconscious feet with secret and sovereign sway, and in royal tones claims possession of His servant’s possessions.

The two messengers, sent out with instructions which would only guide them half-way to their destination, and obliged, if they were to move at all, to trust absolutely to His knowledge, present specimens of the obedience still required. He sends us out still on a road full of sharp turnings round which we cannot see. We get light enough for the first stage; and when it is traversed, the second will be plainer.

The man with the water-pot reminds us how little we may be aware of the Hand which guides us, or of our uses in His plans. ‘I girded thee, though thou hast not known Me,’-how little the poor water-bearer knew who were following, or dreamed that he and his load would be remembered for ever! The householder responded at once, and gladly, to the authoritative message, which does not ask a favour, but demands a right. Probably he had intended to celebrate the Passover with his own family, in the large chamber on the roof, with the cool evening air about it, and the moonlight sleeping around. But he gladly gives it up. Are we as ready to surrender our cherished possessions for His use?

II. The sad announcement of the traitor {Mark 14:18 - Mark 14:21}.

As the Revised Version indicates more clearly than the Authorised, the purport of the announcement was not merely that the betrayer was an Apostle, but that he was to be known by his dipping his hand into the common dish at the same moment as our Lord. The prophetic psalm would have been abundantly fulfilled though Judas’s fingers had never touched Christ’s; but the minute accomplishment should teach us that Jewish prophecy was the voice of divine foreknowledge, and embraced small details as well as large tendencies. Many hands dipped with Christ’s, and so the sign was not unmistakably indicative, and hence was privately supplemented, as John tells us, by the giving of ‘the sop.’ The uncertainty as to the indication given by the token is reflected by the reiterated questions of the Apostles, which, in the Greek, are cast in a form that anticipates a negative answer: ‘Surely not I?’ Mark omits the audacious hypocrisy of Judas’s question in the same form, and Christ’s curt, sad answer which Matthew gives. His brief and vivid sketch is meant to fix attention on the unanimous shuddering horror of these faithful hearts at the thought that they could be thus guilty-a horror which was not the child of presumptuous self-confidence, but of hearty, honest love. They thought it impossible, as they felt the throbbing of their own hearts-and yet-and yet-might it not be? As they probed their hearts deeper, they became dimly aware of dark gulfs of possible unfaithfulness half visible there, and so betook themselves to their Master, and strengthened their loyalty by the question, which breathed at once detestation of the treason and humble distrust of themselves. It is well to feel and speak the strong recoil from sin of a heart loyal to Jesus. It is better to recognise the sleeping snakes, the possibilities of evil in ourselves, and to take to Christ our ignorance and self-distrust. It is wiser to cry ‘Is it I?’ than to boast, ‘Although all shall be offended, yet will not I.’ ‘Hold Thou me up, and I shall be safe.’

Our Lord answers the questions by a still more emphatic repetition of the distinctive mark, and then, in Mark 14:21, speaks deep words of mingled pathos, dignity, and submission. The voluntariness of His death, and its uniqueness as His own act of return to His eternal home, are contained in that majestic ‘goeth,’ which asserts the impotence of the betrayer and his employers, without the Lord’s own consent. On the other hand, the necessity to which He willingly bowed is set forth in that ‘as it is written of Him.’ And what sadness and lofty consciousness of His own sacred personality and judicial authority are blended in the awful sentence on the traitor! What was He that treachery to Him should be a crime so transcendent? What right had He thus calmly to pronounce condemnation? Did He see into the future? Is it the voice of a Divine Judge, or of a man judging in his own cause, which speaks this passionless sentence? Surely none of His sayings are more fully charged with His claims to pre-existence, divinity, and judicial authority, than this which He spoke at the very moment when the traitor’s plot was on the verge of success.

III. The institution of the Lord’s Supper {Mark 14:22 - Mark 14:26}.

Mark’s account is the briefest of the three, and his version of Christ’s words the most compressed. It omits the affecting ‘Do this for remembering Me,’ which is pre-supposed by the very act of instituting the ordinance, since it is nothing if not memorial; and it makes prominent two things-the significance of the elements, and the command to partake of them. To these must be added Christ’s attitude in ‘blessing’ the bread and cup, and His distribution of them among the disciples. The Passover was to Israel the commemoration of their redemption from captivity and their birth as a nation. Jesus puts aside this divinely appointed and venerable festival to set in its stead the remembrance of Himself. That night, ‘to be much remembered of the children of Israel,’ is to be forgotten, and come no more into the number of the months; and its empty place is to be filled by the memory of the hours then passing. Surely His act was either arrogance or the calm consciousness of the unique significance and power of His death. Think of any mere teacher or prophet doing the like! The world would meet the preposterous claim implied with deserved and inextinguishable laughter. Why does it not do so with Christ’s act? Christ’s view of His death is written unmistakably on the Lord’s Supper. It is not merely that He wishes it rather than His life, His miracles, or words, to be kept in thankful remembrance, but that He desires one aspect of it to be held high and clear above all others. He is the true ‘Passover Lamb,’ whose shed and sprinkled blood establishes new bonds of amity and new relations, with tender and wonderful reciprocal obligations, between God and the ‘many’ who truly partake of that sacrifice. The key-words of Judaism-’sacrifice,’ ‘covenant,’ ‘sprinkling with blood’-are taken over into Christianity, and the ideas they represent are set in its centre, to be cherished as its life. The Lord’s Supper is the conclusive answer to the allegation that Christ did not teach the sacrificial character and atoning power of His death. What, then, did He teach when He said, ‘This is My blood of the covenant, which is shed for many’? The Passover was a family festival, and that characteristic passes over to the Lord’s Supper. Christ is not only the food on which we feed, but the Head of the family and distributor of the banquet. He is the feast and the Governor of the feast, and all who sit at that table are ‘brethren.’ One life is in them all, and they are one as partakers of One.

The Lord’s Supper is a visible symbol of the Christian life, which should not only be all lived in remembrance of Him, but consists in partaking by faith of His life, and incorporating it in ours, until we come to the measure of perfect men, which, in one aspect, we reach when we can say, ‘I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.’

There is a prophetic element, as well as a commemorative and symbolic, in the Lord’s Supper, which is prominent in Christ’s closing words. He does not partake of the symbols which He gives; but there comes a time, in that perfected form of the kingdom, when perfect love shall make all the citizens perfectly conformed to the perfect will of God. Then, whatsoever associations of joy, of invigoration, of festal fellowship, clustered round the wine-cup here, shall be heightened, purified, and perpetuated in the calm raptures of the heavenly feast, in which He will be Partaker, as well as Giver and Food. ‘Thou shalt make them drink of the river of Thy pleasures.’ The King’s lips will touch the golden cup filled with un-foaming wine, ere He commends it to His guests. And from that feast they will ‘go no more out,’ neither shall the triumphant music of its great ‘hymn’ be followed by any Olivet or Gethsemane, or any denial, or any Calvary; but there shall be ‘no more sorrow, nor sin, nor death’; for ‘the former things are passed away,’ and He has made ‘all things new.’

Benson Commentary

Mark 14:17-25. In the evening he cometh with the twelve — See notes on Matthew 26:20-29. This is my blood of the new testament — Or, covenant; that is, this I appoint to be a perpetual sign and memorial of my blood, as shed for establishing the new covenant, that all who shall believe in me, may receive all its gracious promises. I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, &c. — That is, I shall drink no more before I die: the next wine I drink will not be earthly, but heavenly.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

14:12-21 Nothing could be less the result of human foresight than the events here related. But our Lord knows all things about us before they come to pass. If we admit him, he will dwell in our hearts. The Son of man goes, as it is written of him, as a lamb to the slaughter; but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed! God's permitting the sins of men, and bringing glory to himself out of them, does not oblige them to sin; nor will this be any excuse for their guilt, or lessen their punishment.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

See this passage explained in the notes at Matthew 26:20-35.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

Mr 14:12-26. Preparation for, and Last Celebration of, the Passover—Announcement of the Traitor—Institution of the Supper. ( = Mt 26:17-30; Lu 22:7-23, 39; Joh 13:21-30).

See on [1501]Lu 22:7-23; [1502]Lu 22:39; and see on [1503]Joh 13:10, 11; [1504]Joh 13:18, 19; [1505]Joh 13:21-30.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Ver. 17-21. See Poole on "Matthew 26:20", and following verses to Matthew 26:25, where is opened whatever is necessary for the understanding of these words, in which nothing of moment is varied, save only that Matthew reports Judas as being at this time particularly discovered. John hath nothing of this, unless the supper mentioned John 13:1-38 were this supper, of which more shall be said in its order.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And in the evening he cometh with the twelve. In the afternoon, as it is very reasonable to suppose, Christ set out from Bethany with the rest of the twelve, with the other nine, and came to Jerusalem; where they were joined by Judas, who had covenanted with the chief priests to betray him, and by Peter and John, who had been sent before to prepare the passover; and when it was night, when the second evening had took place, he went with all twelve of them to the house, where the provision to eat the passover together was made for them; See Gill on Matthew 26:20.

Geneva Study Bible

And in the evening he cometh with the twelve.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

Mark 14:17-25. See on Matthew 26:20-29. Comp. Luke 22:14-23.

μετὰ τῶν δώδεκα] Those two are to be conceived as having returned after the preparation.

Mark 14:18 f. ὁ ἐσθίων μετʼ ἐμοῦ] not said for the purpose of making known the fact, but the expression of deeply painful emotion.

εἷς καθεῖς] man by man. See on this expression of late Greek, wherein the preposition is adverbial, Wetstein in loc.; Winer, p. 223 [E. T. 312]; Buttmann, neut. Gr. p. 27 [E. T. 30].

καὶ ἄλλος] an inaccuracy of expression, as though there had been previously said not εἷς καθεῖς, but merely εἷς. Mark in particular might be led into this inaccuracy by his graphic manner.

Mark 14:20. ὁ ἐμβαπτ.] not at this moment, and so not a definite designation of the traitor (as Bleek will have it), for after Mark 14:19 it is certain that the eating was not immediately proceeded with (comp. on Matthew 26:23); but neither is it generally: “qui mecum vesci consuevit,” Beza; but, like ὁ ἐσθίων μετʼ ἐμοῦ, Mark 14:18, referring generally to this meal, and withal more precisely indicating the traitor to this extent, that he was one of those who reclined nearest to Jesus, and who ate with Him out of the same dish. According to Lange, indeed, the hand of Judas made a “movement playing the hypocrite,” and met the hand of the Lord, while the latter was still in the dish, in order with apparent ingenuousness to receive the morsel. A harmonistic play of fancy, whereof nothing appears in the text.

Mark 14:24. εἶπεν] namely, while they drank, not before the drinking. A deviation from Matthew and Luke, but not inappropriate, as Jesus gives the explanation not afterwards (in opposition to de Wette), but at the time of the drinking[164] (ἐστί). A very immaterial difference, to be explained not from Mark’s mere love for alteration (de Wette), but from a diversity of the tradition, in respect to which, however, the greater simplicity and independence on the form of the ecclesiastical observance, which mark the narrative in Mark, tell in favour of its originality (in opposition to Baur).

ΤῸ ΑἿΜΆ ΜΟΥ Τῆς ΔΙΑΘΉΚΗς] my covenant-blood, as Matthew 26:28. The definition, “the new covenant,” came in later; as also “for the forgiveness of sins” is a more precise specification from a further stage of development.[165] Comp. on Matthew 26:28. And the direction, “Do this in remembrance of me,” is first added in Paul (twice over) and in Luke. See on 1 Corinthians 11:24.

[164] Comp. also Rückert, Abendm. p. 72.

[165] But observe how the idea of reconciliation is already in the case of Mark implied in the simple ὑπὲρ πολλῶν. Even Baur (neut. Theol. p. 102) acknowledges this, but thinks that these very words contain a later modification of the narrative.

Expositor's Greek Testament

Mark 14:17-21. The presence of a traitor announced (Matthew 26:20-25, Luke 22:21-23).

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

17–21. Commencement of the Supper. Revelation of the Traitor

17. in the evening] “It was probably while the sun was beginning to decline in the horizon that Jesus and the disciples descended once more over the Mount of Olives into the Holy City. Before them lay Jerusalem in her festive attire. White tents dotted the sward, gay with the bright flowers of early spring, or peered out from the gardens and the darker foliage of the olive-plantations. From the gorgeous Temple buildings, dazzling in their snow-white marble and gold, on which the slanting rays of the sun were reflected, rose the smoke of the altar of burnt offering.… The streets must have been thronged with strangers, and the flat roofs covered with eager gazers, who either feasted their eyes with a first sight of the Sacred City for which they had so often longed, or else once more rejoiced in view of the well-remembered localities. It was the last day-view which the Lord had of the Holy City—till His resurrection!” Edersheim’s The Temple and its Services, pp. 194, 195.

he cometh with the twelve] Judas must have stolen back to Bethany before daylight, and another day of hypocrisy had been spent under the penetrating glance of Him Who could read the hearts of men.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 17. - And when it was evening he cometh with the twelve. It was in the evening that the lamb was to be eaten. Peter and John having returned from their preparation, the twelve (including Judas Iscariot) all went back with their Master to Jerusalem. Mark 14:17