Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents

26:17 first day of Unleavened Bread. The Festival of Unleavened Bread lasted seven days, from Nisan (March/April) 15 to 21 (cf. Lev. 23:5-6). prepare for you to eat the Passover. Preparations for the Passover were made on Thursday afternoon (Nisan 14). Jesus and the disciples ate the Passover meal after sundown on Thursday evening (now Nisan 15), with Jesus instituting the Lord's Supper later that evening. Jesus was crucified the following afternoon, Friday (still Nisan 15).

26:18 Go . . . to a certain man and say to him, . . . "I will keep the Passover at your house." Either Jesus had made prior arrangements with friends in Jerusalem in order to avoid the Jewish authorities, or the encounter was a miraculous work of God.

26:20 reclined at table. In formal dining, guests reclined on a couch that stretched around three sides of a room. The host took the center seat at a U-shaped series of low tables, surrounded by the most honored guests on either side, with the guests' heads reclining toward the tables and their feet toward the wall.

26:23 he who has dipped his hand in the dish with me. The custom was to take a piece of bread or a piece of meat in bread and dip it into a common bowl of sauce on the table. Each of those around the room had done so, therefore at this point the betrayer could have been any of the Twelve. will betray me. The height of disloyalty and betrayal is sharing a meal with a friend before turning on him.

26:24 as it is written. A reference to the suffering servant prophecies in Isaiah 42-53. woe. The certainty of divine judgment that will fall upon the one who betrays Jesus.

26:25 Rabbi. The larger group around the table address Jesus as "Lord" (v. 22), but Judas addresses him as "Rabbi," or "Teacher." There is no record of Judas ever calling Jesus "Lord." You have said so. A Greek expression that deflects responsibility back upon the one asking a question (cf. v. 64).

26:26 bread . . . this is my body. Jesus' body will be the once-and-for-all fulfillment of the ceremonies surrounding the Passover lamb and other OT sacrifices, as he will become the sacrificial atonement for the sins of the people.

26:27 cup. Most likely the third of four cups at the Passover--the cup of blessing, or the cup of redemption--corresponding to God's third promise in Ex. 6:6: "I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment."

26:28 blood of the covenant. The cup foreshadows the shedding of Jesus' blood and the absorbing of God's wrath, which opens the way for the redemption of all peoples through the new covenant relationship with God that was promised to the people of Israel (cf. Jer. 31:31, 34).

26:29 drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom. The messianic banquet (cf. 8:11; Rev. 19:9).

26:30 hymn. Perhaps the Hallel (Psalms 113-118), or perhaps the last great Hallel psalm (Psalm 136).

26:31 You will all fall away. Not just Peter, but all the disciples will forsake Jesus and run (v. 56). They will not cease being his disciples, but they will fail to stand with him in the face of persecution.

26:32 I will go before you to Galilee. Jesus will graciously restore the disciples back to fellowship with himself following their failure to stand.

26:33-35 Peter fails to heed Jesus' warning and underestimates the extreme test of faith they will all soon encounter. all the disciples said the same. They are swayed by Peter's bravado.

26:34 rooster crows. Proverbial for the arrival of the day at sunrise.