Matthew 26:55-56

Jesus complains of the manner of His apprehension. ἐν ἐκ. τ. ὥρᾳ, connects with ἐκράτησαν αὐτόν in Matthew 26:50. Having said what was necessary to the bellicose disciple, Jesus turns to the party which had come to arrest Him, here called τοῖς ὄχλοις. ὡς ἐπὶ λῃστὴν, etc.: the words may be taken either as a question or as a statement of fact. In either case Jesus complains that they have arrested Him as if He were a robber or other criminal. A robber as distinct from a thief (vide Trench, Synonyms) is one who uses violence to possess himself of others' property, and Christ's complaint is in the first place that they have treated Him as one who meant to offer resistance. But the reference to His past habit in the sequel seems to show that He has another complaint in His mind, viz., that they have regarded Him as one hiding from justice. The allusion is to the invasion of His privacy in the garden, and the implied suggestion that they have put a false construction on His presence there. They think He has been seeking escape from His fate when in fact He has been bracing Himself up for it! To what misconstruction the holiest and noblest actions are liable, and how humiliating to the heroic soul! It was thoroughly characteristic of Jesus that He should feel the humiliation, and that He should at once give expression to the feeling. This against Brandt (p. 6), who thinks this utterance in no respect appropriate to the situation. καθʼ ἡμέραν, etc.: Jesus asks in effect why they did not apprehend Him while, for several days in succession, He sat in the temple precincts teaching. To this it might be replied that that was easier said than done, in midst of a miscellaneous crowd containing not a few friends of the obnoxious teacher (so Brandt). But what Jesus is concerned to point out is, not the practicability of arrest in the temple, but that His behaviour had been fearless. How could they imagine that a man who spoke His mind so openly could slink away into hiding-places like an evil-doer? Brandt remarks that the complaint is addressed to the wrong persons: to the underlings rather than to the hierarchs. It is addressed to those who actually apprehended Jesus, whoever they were. Who composed that crowd it would not be easy in the dark to know.