Matthew 27 Study Notes

27:35-36 Crucifixion was a horrifying and torturous means of execution. Naked victims were tied or nailed (Jn 20:25) to a cross. The victim might remain alive for days, and after death they were often consumed by dogs, carrion birds, or insects. Josephus described crucifixion as “the most wretched of all ways of dying” (War 7.5.4). Cicero (106-43 BC) said that crucifixion so frightened Roman citizens that they refused to speak the word cross.

27:37 A wooden placard called a titulus was often tied around the criminal’s neck as hemarched to death. This sign announced the reason for his crucifixion. When Jesus arrived at Golgotha, the placard was nailed over his head. Although Roman crosses were sometimes shaped like X or T, the placement of the titulus on Jesus’s cross shows that it was shaped like a lowercase letter “t.”

27:38-44 Jesus’s final temptation was to abandon the cross. But “although he was the Son, he learned obedience from what he suffered” and thereby was “perfected” so that “he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him” (Heb 5:8-9). “It was the power of love, not nails, that kept him there” (Robert H. Mounce).

Stauroo originally referred to building a fence by driving stakes into the ground. Stakes could easily be used as instruments of death, and impalement became an early form of execution. Through the Roman practice of crucifixion, stauroo eventually came to refer primarily to the common form of execution—tying or nailing someone to a cross and leaving them hanging until they died. The vast majority of the occurrences of stauroo refer to the manner of Jesus’s death, though the NT mentions others who died by crucifixion (Mt 23:34; 27:38). Crucifixion was occasionally used as a metaphor for the Christian life (Mt 16:24; Gl 5:24; 6:14), an image emphasizing the believers’ identification with Christ and his suffering and death. It thus became a subject of boasting among Christians (Gl 6:14), for their crucified Savior was also the risen Lord and Messiah (Ac 2:36; 4:10; 1Co 1:23; 2:2; 2Co 13:4).

27:45 The bystanders naturally interpreted the darkness as God’s judgment (Am 8:9). While they likely thought the judgment was against Jesus (as if he were a heretic), in light of his later resurrection they came to see the darkness as judgment against the sin that Jesus became on our behalf (2Co 5:21).

27:46-49 Jesus’s lament quotes Ps 22:1. The psalm reads as if it were written by someone standing near the cross (see esp. Ps 22:7-8,14-18). Jesus’s cry expressed the alienation from God that he endured as he bore the Father’s wrath against sin. Although Jesus elsewhere addressed God as “Father,” he addressed him merely as my God in this verse.

27:50-51 Jesus’s death at 3:00 p.m. coincided with the afternoon sacrifice. Thus the priests were present in the temple to observe the rending of the curtain. The curtain of the sanctuary separated the holy of holies from the rest of the temple. According to the Mishnah, it was sixty feet long, thirty feet wide, and as thick as a man’s palm. It was so heavy that it took three hundred men to lift it when it was wet (m. Shek. 8:5). That it was torn in two from top to bottom shows that it was torn by God. This signified that Jesus’s death granted sinners new access to God (Heb 6:19-20; 10:19-20).

27:52-53 Although the tombs were ruptured at the time of Jesus’s death, the saints did not depart from them until after Jesus’s resurrection. This demonstrated that Jesus’s victory over death guaranteed that God would also raise his people (1Co 15:20).

27:54 Gentiles again recognized and confessed Jesus’s true identity. This hints at God’s worldwide plan for salvation (see note at 28:19).

27:55-56 Mary the mother of James and Joseph was probably the mother of two of Jesus’s lesser-known disciples (Mk 15:40).

27:57-61 Joseph, a member of the Sanhedrin (Mk 15:43), had opposed their condemnation of Jesus (Lk 23:50-51). Though Jesus taught that rich people cannot enter God’s kingdom by their own efforts, Joseph is proof that God can save anyone by his grace (Mt 19:24-26). The bodies of crucified victims were normally allowed to rot on the cross, but Pilate respected Jewish scruples and allowed the dead to be buried.

27:62-64 The Jewish leaders may have been remembering Jesus’s resurrection prediction in Mt 12:38-40. They misjudged the disciples, whose grief was such that they had no notion of Jesus rising from the grave.

27:65 Pilate sent a detachment of soldiers to protect the tomb from disciples who might attempt to stage a fake resurrection. The Greek term for the detachment does not specify the number of soldiers in the unit.

27:66 The seal consisted of wax bearing the imprint of an official Roman seal. This ensured that no one could tamper with the tomb without being detected. Any unauthorized persons who broke the seal defied the authority of Rome and could be punished by death.