The Meal, the Prayer, and the Hour of Darkness

Strictly these were two observances: the Passover lamb on the fourteenth of Nisan, and the seven days of unleavened bread that followed (Leviticus 23:5–6). By the first century the names were used for the whole festival; Josephus writes of “the feast of unleavened bread, which we call the Passover” (Antiquities 14.21).

Passover swelled Jerusalem with pilgrims and was the festival most likely to boil over; Josephus records a riot at the feast under the governor Cumanus in which thousands died (Jewish War 2.224–227). A popular teacher arrested in full view of the crowds could start exactly that.

“Iscariot” is most often explained as ish Qeriyyot, “man of Kerioth”, a town in the south of Judah (Joshua 15:25), which would make him the one Judean among Galileans; others connect it with sicarius, a dagger-man. Luke’s list of the Twelve already tagged him “which also was the traitor” (6:16).

The “captains” are strategoi, officers of the temple guard, the Levite police who kept order in the courts. Only Luke mentions them, here, at the arrest (22:52), and in Acts 4:1, where “the captain of the temple” arrests Peter and John. “Betray” is paradidomi, to hand over, the verb of the passion predictions.

“Were glad” is chairo, the verb of Zacchaeus receiving Jesus “joyfully” (19:6); here the priests rejoice. “Covenanted” is syntithemi, to agree terms, used in Acts 23:20 of the men who “agreed” to lure Paul out to be killed. Acts 1:18 says what Judas bought with the money.

“Promised” is exomologeo, a verb that elsewhere means to confess or to give thanks (“I thank thee, O Father”, 10:21); here it means he consented. “In the absence of” renders ater, a preposition that turns up in the New Testament only here and in 22:35, “without purse”.

The lambs were slaughtered in the temple courts on the afternoon of the fourteenth, “between the two evenings” (Exodus 12:6). Josephus says between the ninth and eleventh hours, and reports a count taken under the governor Cestius that came to more than a quarter of a million lambs in one year (Jewish War 6.422–425).

Only Luke names the two. Peter and John become a pair in Acts: they go up to the temple together at the hour of prayer (Acts 3:1), stand trial together (4:13), and are sent together to Samaria (8:14). Their first joint errand is to buy and prepare a lamb.

The question is practical. Deuteronomy 16:5–7 required the Passover to be eaten “in the place which the LORD thy God shall choose”, which by then meant inside Jerusalem. Jesus has been sleeping outside the city (21:37), so they need a room within the walls.

Carrying water in a jar was usually women’s work, so a man doing it would stand out in a crowded street; that is an inference, but a common one. The instruction resembles the signs Samuel gave Saul, each encounter confirming the word that predicted it (1 Samuel 10:2–7).

“Goodman of the house” is the 1611 English for the householder, oikodespotes, with no moral sense in “good”. The disciples are to say “The Master”, ho didaskalos, the teacher, which implies the owner already knows who that is.

The upper room is anagaion, a room built on the roof or the upper storey. “Furnished” is stronnymi, spread, meaning laid out with cushions or couches for reclining. After the ascension the disciples gather in “an upper room” again, though Acts 1:13 uses a different word for it.

“Made ready the passover” covers a day’s work: taking the lamb to the temple to be slaughtered, roasting it whole over fire as Exodus 12:8–9 required, and setting out the unleavened bread, the bitter herbs and the wine.

Passover was eaten at night (Exodus 12:8), so “the hour” is evening. “Sat down” is anapipto, to recline; the Mishnah says that on Passover night even the poorest in Israel must eat reclining, as free people do (Pesachim 10:1). Luke calls the Twelve “apostles”, a title he uses far more than Matthew or Mark.

“With desire I have desired” copies a Hebrew construction in which a verb is doubled with its own noun for intensity, the kind of phrase the Greek Old Testament is full of: “I have longed and longed”. The Greek is epithymia epethymesa.

“Until it be fulfilled” treats the Passover itself as a promise awaiting fulfilment. On the mount of transfiguration Moses and Elijah spoke “of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem” (9:31), and the Greek word for decease there is exodos.

The Mishnah’s order for Passover night, written down later, has four cups of wine (Pesachim 10:1–7), so Luke’s first cup may be one of them. “Divide it among yourselves” suggests Jesus does not drink from it, which the next verse makes explicit.

“The fruit of the vine” is the wording of the Jewish blessing over wine, “who createst the fruit of the vine” (Mishnah Berakhot 6:1). The vow of abstinence points forward: the next meal Luke describes with Jesus breaking bread is at Emmaus, after the resurrection.

Took, gave thanks, brake, gave: the same four verbs as the feeding of the five thousand (9:16) and the supper at Emmaus, where he “took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them” (24:30). “Remembrance” recalls Exodus 12:14, where the Passover itself is “a memorial”.

“Shed” is ekchynno, to pour out, the sacrificial word for blood poured at the base of the altar (Leviticus 4:7). The words of verses 19b and 20 are missing from one Greek manuscript, Codex Bezae, and some old Latin copies, but nearly every other witness has them.

In Mark and Matthew the betrayer is announced before the bread and cup; Luke puts the announcement after them, so the betrayer has shared both. Psalm 41:9 had said it: “mine own familiar friend… which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.”

“Determined” is horizo, to mark out by a boundary, the root of “horizon”. Luke uses it again in Peter’s Pentecost sermon: Jesus “delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23), in the same sentence that holds his killers responsible.

In Mark each disciple asks Jesus, “Is it I?” In Luke they question one another, syzeteo, and the question is never answered at the table: no sop, no name, no departure of Judas into the night. He simply reappears at the head of the arresting party.

“Strife” is philoneikia, love of winning an argument, found only here in the New Testament. It is the second such dispute; at 9:46 “there arose a reasoning among them, which of them should be greatest”, just after Jesus had foretold his betrayal the first time.

“Benefactors”, euergetai, was an official title. Ptolemy III of Egypt was called Euergetes, and cities put it on inscriptions honouring kings and Roman patrons. Jesus names the title rulers gave themselves for the favours they handed down from above.

In a household or community the youngest did the menial work; in Acts 5:6 it is “the young men” who carry out the body of Ananias. “He that is chief” is hegoumenos, leader, the word later used for church leaders in Hebrews 13:17 and for Judas and Silas as “chief men among the brethren” (Acts 15:22).

Jesus has already pictured the reversal in 12:37: the returning master “shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them.” At this table the one reclining at the head is, by his own account, the one waiting on the rest.

“Continued” is diameno, to remain through something. Luke, unlike Mark and Matthew, never says the disciples fled at the arrest (Mark 14:50, “they all forsook him”); at the cross “all his acquaintance… stood afar off” (23:49). The praise is spoken over men about to fail, and Luke softens none of it.

“Appoint” is diatithemai, the verb from which diatheke, the “testament” or covenant of verse 20, is formed. The sentence can be heard as “I covenant to you a kingdom, as my Father covenanted one to me”: the covenant of the cup is extended into a grant of rule.

The table in the kingdom is the banquet foretold in 13:29, where many “shall sit down in the kingdom of God” from east and west. Matthew 19:28 says “twelve thrones”; Luke says only “thrones”, perhaps because one of the twelve is Judas, though that is an inference.

A name spoken twice marks a solemn address: “Martha, Martha” (10:41), and in the Old Testament “Abraham, Abraham” (Genesis 22:11), “Samuel, Samuel” (1 Samuel 3:10). “Desired to have” is exaiteomai, to demand that someone be handed over, as the Adversary asked leave to test Job (Job 1:11–12).

“Fail” is ekleipo, to give out, the word Luke uses when the sun’s light “failed” at the crucifixion (23:45). “Strengthen” is sterizo, the verb of 9:51, where Jesus “stedfastly set his face” toward Jerusalem. Peter is asked to give his brothers the steadiness Jesus showed.

Both halves of the vow come true later. Luke records Peter in prison three times in Acts (4:3; 5:18; 12:4), the last time chained between two soldiers, awaiting execution. John 21:18–19 points to the death, which early tradition places in Rome.

Nowhere else in Luke does Jesus address him by the name Peter, the name he himself gave (6:14); a verse earlier it was “Simon, Simon”. The Jewish day began at sunset, so “this day” means before this same night is over.

The list is the one given to the seventy, “carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes” (10:4), though Jesus is speaking to the Twelve, whose own instructions in 9:3 were slightly different. A scrip is pera, a traveller’s bag for provisions.

The garment is the himation, the outer cloak. The law counted it so necessary that a cloak taken in pledge had to be returned by sundown, since it was a poor man’s blanket (Exodus 22:26–27). To sell it for a sword is to give up the last thing a man would part with.

Isaiah 53 is quoted outright nowhere else in Luke’s Gospel; Acts 8:32–33 quotes verses 7–8 to the Ethiopian. It is fulfilled in plain sight at 23:33: “there they crucified him, and the malefactors.” “Have an end” is telos echei, both “reach their goal” and “are coming to a close”.

Machaira covers anything from a long knife to a short sword; some have suggested the two were knives used for the lamb, which is possible but unprovable. “It is enough” is hikanon estin, close to God’s reply to Moses in the Greek of Deuteronomy 3:26, “Let it suffice thee; speak no more unto me.”

Luke never names Gethsemane and never mentions a garden; he says only “the mount of Olives” and, in the next verse, “the place”. Nor does he separate Peter, James and John from the rest. All the disciples follow him there together.

The instruction takes up the last petition of the prayer Jesus taught them in Luke, “lead us not into temptation” (11:4). Of that prayer, this is the line he hands back to them on the last night.

“Was withdrawn” is apospao, to tear away or be drawn off, a strong verb. A stone’s cast is near enough to be heard. Kneeling is Luke’s posture of prayer: Stephen (Acts 7:60), Peter (9:40) and Paul (20:36) all kneel, where Jews more usually stood, as the Pharisee and publican did in 18:11–13.

In the prophets the cup is the cup of God’s wrath: “the cup of his fury” (Isaiah 51:17), “the wine cup of this fury” (Jeremiah 25:15). In the oldest manuscripts Luke’s version of the Lord’s prayer lacks “Thy will be done” (11:2); the words appear in Luke here instead, prayed by Jesus himself.

In Mark and Matthew angels minister to Jesus after the temptation in the wilderness; Luke has no angel there (4:13) and one here instead. “Strengthening” is enischyo, which recurs in Acts 9:19, when Saul took food after his blindness and “was strengthened”.

“Agony” is agonia, found only here in the New Testament; in ordinary Greek it was the tension of an athlete before the contest, the agon. “Great drops” is thromboi, clots or thick drops, the word behind the English “thrombosis”. “More earnestly” is ektenesteron, from the word Acts 12:5 uses for the church praying for Peter “without ceasing”.

Mark and Matthew have Jesus return to the sleeping disciples three times; Luke has a single return. The rising from prayer is noted because it is the posture Jesus will ask of them in the next verse.

“Rise” is anistemi, the same verb used of Jesus rising from prayer a verse earlier: he asks them to do what he has just done. Luke omits Mark’s “the spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak”, and closes the scene with the same warning about temptation that opened it.

Luke says Judas “drew near unto Jesus to kiss him”, but he never says the kiss was given: Jesus speaks first. “He that was called Judas” keeps a certain distance, as though the name were now a label. He is described as “one of the twelve” in the same breath.

In no other place in the Gospels does Jesus address Judas by name. He calls himself “the Son of man”, the title of the predictions: “the Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of men” (9:44). The word “betrayest” is the same verb of handing over.

Only Luke has the disciples ask permission before anyone strikes. “What would follow” is to esomenon, “what was about to be”. The two swords of verse 38 are now in their hands, and the question tests what Jesus meant by them.

Only Luke and John specify the right ear. A mutilated ear could be a deliberate insult: Josephus tells how Antigonus cut off the ears of his uncle Hyrcanus to disqualify him from ever being high priest again (Antiquities 14.366). Whether anything so pointed was meant here, Luke does not say.

“Suffer ye thus far” can be addressed to the disciples, “no more of this”, or to the arresting party, “let them go this far”, and it has been read both ways. Luke alone records that Jesus touched the ear and healed it.

Only Luke puts the chief priests themselves at the arrest, alongside the temple captains and elders. “A thief” is lestes, a bandit or insurgent, the word for the robbers of the Jericho road (10:30). Staves are xyla, wooden clubs, the weapons of a posse rather than soldiers.

“Stretched forth no hands” picks up 20:19, where they “sought to lay hands on him” and did not dare. “The power of darkness” is the exact phrase of Colossians 1:13, God “hath delivered us from the power of darkness”, and the darkness returns at the sixth hour of the crucifixion (23:44).

Luke named Annas and Caiaphas as high priests at 3:2 but names neither here. “Afar off” is makrothen, the position of the publican who stood “afar off” (18:13), and of Jesus’ acquaintance at the cross (23:49).

“Hall” is aule, the open courtyard of a large house, not an indoor hall; the fire is lit in the open air. Jerusalem stands about 2,500 feet up, and nights at Passover can be cold, which John states and Luke leaves to be inferred from the fire.

“By the fire” is literally “toward the light”, pros to phos: the firelight is on his face. The maid is a paidiske, a slave girl. “Earnestly looked” is atenizo, to fix one’s gaze, Luke’s word for the synagogue at Nazareth, whose eyes “were fastened on him” (4:20).

The first denial follows the wording Jesus foretold in verse 34 almost exactly: “that thou knowest me” becomes “I know him not.” Jesus had said in 12:9 that “he that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God”.

In Mark the same maid speaks again; in Luke the second accuser is a man, heteros in the masculine. Peter answers “I am not”, ouk eimi. Before the council, Jesus will answer “I am” (verse 70).

“Confidently affirmed” is diischyrizomai, to keep insisting, used in the New Testament only here and in Acts 12:15, where the servant girl Rhoda insists that Peter really is at the door. Galilean Aramaic was known for slurring its guttural consonants, and the Talmud preserves jokes about it (Eruvin 53b).

The third denial is the vaguest, a pretence of not understanding the question at all. “While he yet spake” is the phrase used when the crowd arrived with Judas in verse 47: in both, events overtake a man in mid-sentence.

In Luke the council does not meet until daybreak (verse 66), so Jesus is held in the courtyard through the night, within sight of the fire. The narration calls him “the Lord” twice in one verse, once for the look and once for the word Peter remembers.

“Went out” reverses verse 55, where he “sat down among them”. The words “wept bitterly” are identical to Matthew 26:75, and several Old Latin manuscripts leave this verse out of Luke; the Greek manuscripts all have it.

“Mocked” is empaizo, the verb of the third passion prediction, “he shall be mocked” (18:32), now fulfilled to the letter. “Smote” is dero, originally to flay or skin, and in common use to beat.

The Greek writer Pollux describes a game in which a blindfolded player must guess who struck him (Onomasticon 9.129); the guards may be playing something like it. The demand “Prophesy” comes minutes after Jesus’ prophecy about Peter has been fulfilled in the same courtyard.

“Blasphemously spake” is blasphemeo. In Mark the council condemns Jesus for blasphemy (Mark 14:64); Luke has no blasphemy charge, and uses the word instead for what his guards say against him.

Luke has a single hearing at daybreak, where Mark has a night trial followed by a morning consultation. The later Mishnah required capital cases to be tried by day (Sanhedrin 4:1). “The elders of the people” is presbyterion, the council of elders, the word Paul uses of this same body in Acts 22:5.

The answer echoes Jeremiah before King Zedekiah, who demanded a straight word from him: “If I declare it unto thee, wilt thou not surely put me to death? and if I give thee counsel, wilt thou not hearken unto me?” (Jeremiah 38:15).

They have already done exactly this. When Jesus asked about John’s baptism, “they answered, that they could not tell” (20:7). The words “nor let me go” are missing from the oldest manuscripts.

“Hereafter” is apo tou nyn, “from now on”. Luke drops Mark’s “coming in the clouds of heaven” and keeps only the session at God’s right hand, beginning now. Stephen will see it from his own trial: “the Son of man standing on the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56).

Only Luke divides the question in two, Christ in verse 67 and Son of God here. “Art thou then the Son of God?” sounds like the devil’s “If thou be the Son of God” (4:3). Luke’s reader has heard the title from Gabriel (1:35) and the voice at the baptism.

Luke has called no witnesses at all; he omits the false witnesses of Mark 14:55–59. So “any further witness” is ironic. “Of his own mouth” echoes the nobleman’s verdict in the parable of the pounds: “Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee” (19:22).