Matthew 27:45

Matthew 27:45. N ow from the sixth hour. Twelve o'clock. The nailing to the cross took place at nine o'clock (Mark 15:25: ‘It was the third hour'). John (John 19:14) says that it was' about the sixth hour,' when Pilate presented our Lord to the people for the last time. Whatever be the explanation of that passage, we accept the accuracy of the verse before us, confirmed by the statements of Mark and Luke. From midday to three o'clock in the afternoon, usually the brightest part of the day, there was a darkness. Besides the testimony of the three Evangelists, early Christian writers speak of it and appeal to heathen testimony to support the truth. It could not have been an ordinary eclipse, for the moon was full that day. Although an earthquake followed (Matthew 27:51), yet even that was no ordinary earthquake, and the obscuration was too entire and too long continued to be the darkness which often precedes an earthquake. It was a miraculous occurrence designed to exhibit the amazement of nature and or the God of nature at the wickedness of the crucifixion of Him who is the light of the world and the sun of righteousness. To deny its supernatural character seems to impair this design. If Jesus of Nazareth is what the Gospels represent Him to be, the needs of humanity ask Him to be, and the faith of the Christian finds Him to be, the supernatural here seems natural.

Over all the land. Possibly only the whole land of Judea; the main point being the fact in Jerusalem. Still it may refer to the whole world, i.e., where it was day, especially as the heathen notices of what is generally supposed to be the same event, justify an extension beyond Judea. Heubner : Suidas relates that Dionysius the Areopagite (then a heathen), saw the eclipse in Egypt, and exclaimed: ‘Either God is suffering, and the world sympathizes with Him, or else the world is hurrying to destruction.'