Who both killed the Lord Jesus
For though Pilate condemned him to death, and the Roman soldiers
executed the sentence, yet it was through the malice and envy of
the Jews that he was delivered to him, who brought charges
against him, and insisted upon the crucifixion of him; and who
are therefore said to have taken him with wicked hands, and
crucified and slain him; and to have killed the Prince of life,
and to have been the betrayers and murderers of him; and
therefore it is no wonder that such persons should persecute the
followers of Christ, whether in Judea or elsewhere:
and their own prophets;
whom God sent unto them; these they not only mocked and misused,
and persecuted, but many of them they put to death, as Isaiah and
others; and though this was done by their fathers, yet the
present generation were the children of them that killed the
prophets; and showed themselves to be of the same principles, and
by their practices approved of what they had done: hence our Lord
addresses the city of Jerusalem thus, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
that killest the prophets", ( Matthew
23:31 Matthew
23:34 Matthew
23:37 ) . The Vulgate Latin and Ethiopic versions leave out
the phrase "their own", and so does the Alexandrian copy; but it
stands in the Syriac and Arabic versions, and is rightly
retained, it having an emphasis in it; these prophets being of
their own nation, born among them, and raised up in the midst of
them, and sent unto them particularly, and yet were so used; and
therefore it need not seem strange that they should treat in an
ill manner persons of a lower character, that did not agree with
them; the consideration of which serves to support under reproach
and persecution; see ( Matthew 5:12
) .
And have persecuted us;
the apostles of Christ; have drove us out of our own country, and
pursued us from place to place, and caused us to flee from one
city to another:
and they please not God:
though they reckoned themselves his chosen people, the favourites
of heaven, and whom God delighted in; but neither their persons
nor their actions were pleasing to him, their carnal minds being
enmity to him, to his law and to his Gospel; and they in the
flesh, or in an unregenerate estate, and without faith in Christ,
without which it is impossible to please God, and their actions
such as before described:
and are contrary to all men;
not only Christians, but Heathens; to all the Gentiles, who are
called all men, the nations of the world, the world, and the
whole world; they were contrary to these, both in their religious
and civil principles, and had an aversion to them, of which the
following is a full instance.