Matthew 27:63

63 and said, Sir, we have mind, that that beguiler said yet living, After three days I shall rise again to life. [+saying, Sire, we have mind, for that deceiver said yet living, After three days I shall rise again.]

Matthew 27:63 Meaning and Commentary

Matthew 27:63

Saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said
Meaning Jesus; for no better name could they give him alive or dead, and they chose to continue it; and the rather to use it before Pilate, who had a good opinion of his innocence; and to let him see, that they still retained the same sentiments of him: (tyom) , "a deceiver", is with the Jews ^F24,

``a private person, that deceives a private person; saying to him there is a God in such a place, so it eats, and so it drinks; so it does well, and so it does ill.''

But which can never agree with Jesus, who was not a private person, but a public preacher; and who taught men, not privately, but openly, in the temple and in the synagogues; nor did he teach idolatry, or any thing contrary to the God of Israel, or to the unity of the divine being; or which savoured of, and encouraged the polytheism of the Gentiles. The Ethiopic version renders these words thus; "Sir, remember" as if Christ had said this to Pilate in their hearing, and therefore put him in mind of it.

While he was yet alive;
so that they owned that he was dead; and therefore could not object this to the truth of his resurrection, that he was taken down from the cross alive, and did not die:

after three days I will rise again:
now, though he said to his to his disciples privately, ( Matthew 16:21 ) ( 17:23 ) , yet not clearly and expressly to the Scribes and Pharisees; wherefore they must either have it from Judas, and lied in saying they remembered it: or they gathered it either from what he said concerning the sign of the prophet Jonas, ( Matthew 12:40 ) , or rather from his words in ( John 2:19 ) , and if so, they acted a most wicked part, in admitting a charge against him, as having a design upon their temple, to destroy it, and then rebuild it in three days; when they knew those words were spoken by him concerning his death, and resurrection from the dead: they remembered this, when the disciples did not: bad men have sometimes good memories, and good men bad ones; so that memory is no sign of grace.

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FOOTNOTES:

F24 Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 7. sect. 10.

Matthew 27:63 In-Context

61 But [Forsooth] Mary Magdalene and another Mary were there, sitting against the sepulchre.

62 And on the tother day, that is after pask even [that is after pask evening], the princes of priests and [the] Pharisees came together to Pilate,

63 and said, Sir, we have mind, that that beguiler said yet living, After three days I shall rise again to life. [+saying, Sire, we have mind, for that deceiver said yet living, After three days I shall rise again.]

64 Therefore command thou, that the sepulchre be kept into the third day; lest his disciples come, and steal him, and say to the people, He hath risen from death; and the last error shall be worse than the former. [+Therefore command thou the sepulchre to be kept till unto the third day; lest peradventure his disciples come, and steal him, and say to the people, He is risen from dead; and the last error shall be worse than the former.]

65 Pilate said to them, Ye have the keeping; go ye, keep ye as ye know how [go ye, keep ye as ye can].