John 18:1

John 18:1. When Jesus had spoken these things, he went forth with his disciples over the winter-torrent Kidron. The last discourse of Jesus to His disciples and His intercessory prayer to His Father have been spoken; and, from the upper room in which we have already seen that this took place, Jesus now ‘went forth ' to meet the fate that had been prepared for Him. More than this seems, however, to be expressed by the word ‘went forth.' It is the solemn word by which the Evangelist would express the free surrender of Himself by Jesus to His approaching fate (comp. its use in John 18:4). It is the continuation of His ‘going forth' from the Father (chap. John 8:42).

Descending the steep slope then which here leads from the temple-mount into the valley bounding Jerusalem on the east, Jesus first crossed the brook which flowed down the valley, although in a course at that date much nearer the temple walls than is indicated by its present channel. Some doubt exists as to the precise meaning of the name given to the brook. The Greek words may signify either ‘The Kidron ' or ‘The Cedars,' there being evidence to show that a tree of dark foliage, probably a species of cedar, is known in the Talmud by the name Cedrun. The first signification seems, however, to be the more probable, and the apparently plural termination of the original may be easily explained: it is the Grecising of the Aramaic name ending in ‘on,' as Enon, Kishon, Arnon. The context compels us to ask whether the name is used only in its geographical force, or whether it is associated in the Evangelist's mind with any of those deeper ideas so often connected by him with names. The epithet affixed to it guides us to a solution of this question. It is the only occasion on which in the New Testament the term ‘winter torrent ' is applied to the Kidron, a term derived from that word ‘winter ' which we have already found used in this Gospel with a reference deeper than to the season of the year (chap. John 10:22); while in the Old Testament it is the symbol of tribulation, trial, and judgment (Psalms 18:4; Psalms 110:7; Psalms 124:4: Jeremiah 47:2). The Hebrew name Kidron again is derived from a verb signifying to be black or dirty, hence to mourn or to be distressed, mourners being wont to cover themselves with sackcloth and ashes (Psalms 35:13-14; Psalms 38:6; Psalms 42:9; Psalms 43:2). Putting these considerations together, we cannot doubt that the Evangelist sees in the Kidron the stream of trouble, the ‘winter-torrent ' of sorrow and affliction. If we may suppose that the stream took its name from the dark colour given to its waters by the blood of the sacrifices drained off into its course from the temple-mount, the meaning involved in the language before us will be still more striking. It was over this brook that David passed in the darkest hour of his history, that in which he fled from Absalom (2 Samuel 15:23). When, accordingly, we observe that the quotation in John 13:18 is from a Psalm (Psalms 41) in which the events of that sad day are commemorated, and that the quotation is made in illustration of these last scenes of the life of Jesus, it seems clear that we are invited to behold in this crossing of the black mountain-torrent the crossing of the true David, ‘the King of Israel' (chap. John 12:13), in the hour of a still deeper anguish than that in which His great prototype had been involved.

Where was a garden, into the which he entered, himself and his disciples. The garden is that of Gethsemane; not so much a garden in our sense of the word as an orchard, a garden with trees, and these, as appears from the derivation of its Hebrew name, olives. Peculiar attention is drawn to the leading person of the scene by the addition of the word ‘Himself.'