always kept at the full moon» when an eclipse of the sun is im- possible.
[Over all the earth.'] Tlie marginal reading of this expression seems preferable, — " over all the land." There seems no necessity for supposing that the darkness extended beyond Palestine. Our Lord's ministry was specially directed to Israel, and the land of Israel was the land to which all miracles connected with His life and death were coiifined. See the same expression in Luke xxi. 23.
It is difficult to imagine any miraculous sign better calculated to arrest the attention of all people, and to strike awe into all minds than this sudden and unexpected darkness. It necessarily stopped all business and obliged all men to be still, and think what could be its cause.
46. — [The sun was darkened.] We are not meant to regard this as a sign, or miracle, distinct from the darkness spoken of in the preceding verse. It is simply an amplification of the same fact, and intended to show how deep and intense the darkness was.
[The veil of the temple was rent.] This miracle must have been as striking and terrible to the priests who ministered in the temple, as the darkness was to the inhabitants of Palestine. It signified the opening of the way into the holiest by Christ's death, — the passing away of the Jewish dispensation, — and the* revelation of the Gospel way of salvation to all mankind.
Doddridge remarks, " This being a high day, it is probable that Caiaphas the high priest might now be performing the solemn act of burning incense before the veil, which, if he did, it is astonishing that his obstinate heart should not be impressed with so awful and significant a phenomenon. There is no room to doubt that many of the other priests who had a hand in Christ's death saw the pieces of the veil, which considering its texture and other circumstances, must as fully have convinced them of this extraordinary fact, as if they had been present."
46. — [Cried with a loud voice.] This expression, as well as all the verse, deserves particular notice. It shows that there was something peculiar and uncommon about our Lord's death. A dying man's voice is generally not " loud," but feeble.
To this circumstance, as well as to the expression " he gave up the ghost," all the best commentators from Ambrose down- wards, very properly direct our attention. It is evident, they tell us, that the Lord Jesus did not die because He was obliged, but because He chose voluntarily and of His own free will to submit to death. His death was " his own act." He " offered himself without spot to God."
Alford, after Stier, remarks that '* none of the evangelists say that Jesus (2i^, although that expression is ever after used of