as Theophylact, Grotius, Bloomfield, and Barnes, to be wrongly translated in our English version. They would render them, "And what? What is my duty? What does the hour require of Me? Shall I say, Save Me," etc., etc. — I much prefer our English version as it is. I believe the question is strongly sig- nificant of the agony and conflict through which our Lord's soul was passing. — "What shall I say under this sense of pressing, overwhelming trouble? My human nature bids me say one thing, acting alone and urging me alone. My knowledge of the purpose for which I came into the world bids me say another thing. What, then, shall I say?" Such a question as this is a strong proof of our Lord's real, true humanity.
Bollock observes : " ' What shall I say? ' is the language of the highest perplexity and anxiety of mind. In the height of anguish is the height of perplexity, so that a man knows not what to say or do. The Lord found deliverance in prayer. But the perpetual cry of the lost will be, ' What shall I say? What shall I do ? ' From that perplexity and anguish they will never be delivered."
Bengel remarks : " Jesus says, ' What shall I say ? ' not, What shall I choose? Compare with this the different expression of St. Paul, ' What I shall choose I wist not, for I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart.' " (Phil. i. 22.)
Ecolampadius thinks the question means, "In what words shall I unfold my pain, or the bitterness and ingratitude of the Jews?" I prefer taking it as the language of perplexity and distress.
The presence of two natures, in our Lord Jesus Christ's person, seems clearly taught, when we compare the language used by our Lord in this verse, with the language of the fifth and seventeenth chapters of this Gospel. Here we see unmis- takably our Lord's true humanity. There, on the other hand, we see no less plainly His divinity. Here He speaks as man; there as God.
[Father, save me from this hour.~\ This is undoubtedly a prayer to be saved from, or delivered from, the agony and suffering of this hour. It is the language of a humau nature, which, though sinless, could suffer, and instinctively shrank from suffering. It would not have been real human nature if it had not so shrunk and recoiled.
The idea of the prayer is just the same as that of the prayer in Gethsemane, — " Let this cup pass from me." (Matt. xxvi. 39.)
Let us learn from our Lord's example that there is nothing sinful in praying to be delivered from suffering, so long as we do it in submission to the will of God. Theie is nothing wrong in a sick person's saying, " Father, make me well," so long as the prayer is offered with proper qualification
Bollock observes : " In agonv there is a certain forgetfulness