And he said unto them
The twelve apostles, as they were eating the passover, it being
usual to talk and converse much at such a time; (See Gill on
Matthew
26:21). With desire have I desired to eat this
passover with you before I
suffer;
not for the sake of eating; for though he was traduced as a
glutton, and did often eat and drink in a free and familiar way,
both at the tables of Pharisees, and of publicans and sinners;
yet he was not a man given to appetite; witness his fast of forty
days and forty nights, and his great negligence of himself, which
sometimes obliged his disciples to pray him to eat; see (
John 4:31
John 4:34 ) .
Indeed, according to the Jewish canons, it was not judged proper
that a man should eat much on the day before the passover, that
he might be hungry, and eat the passover, (Nwbatb) , "with desire" F12, or
with an appetite. Our Lord may allude to this; but this was not
the thing he meant; nor merely does he say this on account of the
passover, as it was God's ordinance; though as he was made under
the law, and that was in his heart, he had a great regard to it,
and a delight in it, which he had shown in his frequent and
constant attendance on it from his youth: but though he had kept
many passovers, yet of none of them did he say what he does of
this, which was his fourth passover from his entrance on his
public ministry, and his last: two reasons are suggested in the
text why he so greatly desired to eat this passover; the one is,
because he should eat it "with" his disciples; an emphasis lies
on the phrase, "with you", to whom, and not so much to the
passover, and the eating of that, was his desire; as it is to all
his people: it was so from everlasting, when he desired them as
his spouse and bride; and in time, when he became incarnate,
suffered, died, and gave himself for them: his desire is towards
them whilst in unregeneracy, that they may be converted; and to
them when converted, notwithstanding all their backslidings and
revoltings. His desire is to their persons, and the comeliness
and beauty of them, which he himself has put upon them; and to
their graces, and the exercise of them, with which he is
ravished; and to their company and communion with them, which he
chooses and delights in: and his desire is towards their being
with him to all eternity, and which he delighted in the fore
views of from eternity; and is the joy set before him, and which
carried him through his sufferings and death; and is the amount
and accomplishment of all his prayers and intercession: and the
other reason of this his strong desire in the text is, that this
was the last passover, and that his sufferings and death were
just at hand, and which he longed to have over; not that he
desired these sufferings, for the sake of them, which could not
be agreeable to, and desirable by his human nature; but because
of the effects of them; since hereby justice would be satisfied,
the law would be fulfilled, sin atoned for, and the salvation of
his elect obtained; for whom he bore the strongest affection, and
whom he loved with a love of complacency, and whose salvation he
most earnestly desired, and even sufferings for the sake of it.