Mark 8:31

OLBGrk;

Our Lord is elsewhere said to have taught his disciples, according as they were able to bear, or to hear, what he spake unto them. He did not at the first teach them that he must suffer death: the doctrine of the cross of Christ was like new wine not fit to be put into old bottles; yet necessary to be taught them, lest when they saw it soon after they should have been offended, as indeed they were to some degree, notwithstanding the premonition they had of it. With the doctrine of his suffering, he joins also the doctrine of his resurrection the third day: so saith Matthew. Mark saith, after three days, meta, which seemeth to be a difference between the two evangelists, and also a difficulty, when it is certain that our Saviour did not lie three entire days in the grave. But either Mark reckons the time from his first being betrayed and apprehended, so it was after three days; and Matthew speaketh only of the time which he lay in the grave, that was but part of three days; or else it was the fault of our translators to translate meta, after, because indeed it often so signifies, whereas it sometimes signifies in, which had better fitted this text, to make it agree with Matthew. This is Grotius's and Beza's observation, (see his notes on the text), and is abundantly justified by Matthew 27:64, where his adversaries desired of Pilate that the sepulchre might be made fast ewv thv trithv hmeras until the third day, because he had said while he was alive, Meta treiv hmerav egeiromai, After three days I will arise, which if they had understood of after the third day fully spent, they would not have petitioned that the sepulchre should have been made fast only until the third day, but it is plain they understood it the third day he would rise. So after three days here is, after the third day is come, not after the third day is past, which neither agrees with Matthew nor yet with the truth. If any desire further to make out this notion, he may read the learned Beza's larger notes on this verse.