(18) I speak not of you all.--The thought of their blessedness brings back again the dark thought that there is one present who will not do these things, and who cannot therefore be blessed.
I know whom I have chosen.--Comp. Note on John 6:70. The pronoun is strongly emphatic. "I (for My part) know whom I have chosen." (See next verse.)
But that the scripture may be fulfilled.--Comp. Note on John 12:38. There is an ellipsis after "but," which is most simply filled up by some such phrase as "all this was done;" "but all this was done that the Scripture . . ." (Comp. John 19:36 and Matthew 26:56.) Others would make the connection to be, "But I have chosen them that the Scripture . . ."
He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me.--Comp. especially Note on the quotation in John 2:18, from Psalms 61. The present words are a free rendering of the Greek (LXX.) of Psalm 41:9; but the LXX. follow the Hebrew more literally, and read, "hath made great his heel." This is here interpreted to mean, "lifted up his heel," which the Bible version of the Psalm gives, with the literal rendering magnified in the margin. The Prayer Book version follows the Vulgate in reading "hath laid great wait for Me."
Our Lord's quotation omits the earlier part of the verse, "Mine own familiar friend whom I trusted." He knew whom He had chosen. "He knew what was in man, and did not trust Himself to them" (John 2:24-25).
It is by no means certain that we are justified in following the title of the Psalm, and ascribing it to David. It is not improbable that here, as in Psalms 69, we have the words of Jeremiah, and the special reference to the friend is unknown. If the Psalm was by David, then, as the king was the type of Christ, Ahithophel is doubtless the type of Judas. In any case the baseness of the treachery lay in the fact that the betrayer was one who did eat bread with the psalmist. He was, as our word expresses it, a "companion" (one who breaks bread with), but to this the Orientals attached a sacredness which even the Bedouin of the desert would honour. But there was one then professing to be His Apostle, eating bread with Him, and yet planning to betray Him.
Verses 18-30. - 2. Theexclusion of the faithless disciple. This paragraph draws the circle of his cleansed ones, of those who accept him as Master and Lord in the fullest sense, more closely (at) out him. But the proceeding is tragic in the extreme; one of the twelve chosen as apostles is a traitor in disguise. The foot-washing has been an awful insufficiency in his case. He must depart before the greatest depth of the Master's love and truth can be revealed. Verse 18. - I speak net concerning you all. There is one who, though he knows these things, will not do them, is now indisposed to see any Divineness in the act and spirit of love which I am laying down as a fundamental law of my kingdom. I knowwhom (or, the individuals whom) I chose for apostles - (in John 6. the same statement is made with less definiteness, "Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you," etc.?) Judas among them - but. It is difficult to follow this construction, and to decide on the antithesis to this disjunctive.
(1) We may add, this has happened (τοῦτο γέγονεν) - i.e. this choice has been overruled, and so in its issues corresponded with the Divine purpose (ἵνα) - so that the Scripture might be fulfilled, He that eateth my bread or, bread with me, hath lifted his heel against me;
(2) we may take the ἵνα πληρωθῇ as a parenthesis, and link the ἀλλ with the quotation, "He that eateth," etc.; or
(3) we may, with Meyer, suppose that ἐξελεξάμην αὐτοῦς, "I chose them," is mentally involved here: "I chose them, and Judas among them (ἵνα), in order that the Scripture," etc. This connection would suggest a destiny and purpose which Christ knowingly corresponded with, harmonizing his plan with the Divine and prophetic program. Emphasis must be laid upon the ἐκλέγεσθαι. It refers to Christ's choice of apostles, not to the eternal election to salvation. This interpretation corresponds more closely with the text, though it savors of a fatalism foreign to the Scripture. There is, however, a true sense in which the evil-disposed man is so placed that, if he will sin, he must sin along certain well-defined lines. The forty-first psalm, from which the quotation is made, is not strictly Messianic; it is descriptive of the ideal Sufferer, the holy but outraged man, whose melancholy condition is sure to be characterized by treachery among his familiar friends. Christ implies that, if he were to fulfill this portraiture, then this bitter dreg would be put into his cup; and so he humanly made this choice, i.e. he took steps which in their tenderness of love might have saved Judas from the worst, but which were really part of a Divine plan which would vindicate his own foresight and the method of Divine government. A full understanding of the formula in Matthew and John, ἵνα ἡ γραφὴ πληρωθ῀ι, will save us from putting into these words a hopeless fatalism. Notice that the LXX. reads this passage differently, and is not so closely allied to the Hebrew: "He that eateth my leaves hath magnified against me his surreptitious despite, his tricky antagonism." Great beauty is given to the passage by the R.T. you instead of μετ ἐμοῦ, for it suggests the idea that Christ was the real Host of the twelve, the Father and Provider of his family. Christ must be regarded as the Father and Host of the entire group of guests, and the treacherous treatment of a host throughout the East is regarded as a sign of peculiar obduracy.
13:18-30 Our Lord had often spoken of his own sufferings and death, without such trouble of spirit as he now discovered when he spake of Judas. The sins of Christians are the grief of Christ. We are not to confine our attention to Judas. The prophecy of his treachery may apply to all who partake of God's mercies, and meet them with ingratitude. See the infidel, who only looks at the Scriptures with a desire to do away their authority and destroy their influence; the hypocrite, who professes to believe the Scriptures, but will not govern himself by them; and the apostate, who turns aside from Christ for a thing of naught. Thus mankind, supported by God's providence, after eating bread with Him, lift up the heel against Him! Judas went out as one weary of Jesus and his apostles. Those whose deeds are evil, love darkness rather than light.
I speak not of you all. What he had before said on the one hand, "ye are not all clean", John 13:11, for one of them was not; and on the other hand, when he put an "if" upon, or seemed to doubt of their knowing and doing these things, John 13:17; or what he was about to say concerning his being betrayed, this he did not speak of them all:
I know whom I have chosen; not to apostleship, for they were all chosen to that, Judas as well as the rest, but to grace and glory, to everlasting salvation and happiness; of these he was well assured, that they were all clean, pure, and spotless, in the sight of God; were truly regenerated by the Spirit of God, and had an experimental and practical knowledge of the things he recommended by his example, and would be the happy persons he spake of;
but he observes, so it is, and will come to pass, that there is one of you which will betray me:
that the Scripture may be fulfilled: Psalm 41:9, as it literally (b) was in Judas's betraying Christ. The passage is by many interpreted either of Ahithophel, or of some other counsellor of Absalom's, or of Absalom himself; and is applied to their conduct, with respect to David, at the time of their rebellion against him; and which is thought to be typical of the treatment Christ met with from an apostle of his: but we do not find that, at the time of that rebellion, David was sick, or had any disease upon him, from whence they might hope for his death; it does not seem, as though it could be literally understood of David at all, and of the behaviour of any of his servants; but most properly of David's son, the Messiah, Jesus, with whom everything in the psalm agrees; and particularly this verse, which so plainly describes Judas, and expresses his base ingratitude, hypocrisy, and malice: the former part of the text is not cited, "yea, mine own familiar friend", or "the man of my peace, in whom I trusted"; though it fully agrees with him, he being admitted to great familiarity with Christ, and lived peaceably with him; and who was intrusted by him with the bag, into which the money was put, which was ministered, either for the sustenance of him and his apostles, or for the use of the poor: but our Lord thought fit to cite no more of it than what follows, that being sufficiently descriptive of him; and especially at this present time, when he was at table with his Lord.
He that eateth bread with me, hath lift up his heel against me; he sat down with him at table frequently, and ate bread with him; and was doing so, when Satan put it into his heart to betray him; which is strongly expressed, by "lifting up" his "heel against him"; and sets forth the ingratitude, wickedness, and cruelty of him; who, like an unruly horse, that has thrown his rider, spurns at him, to destroy him; and also the insidious manner in which he did it; he supplanted, he tripped him, as wrestlers do, in order to cast him down to the ground, and then trample upon him, and triumph over him: he first "laid snares for him", as Jarchi explains the phrase used in the "psalm", and then "he magnified his heel", he behaved proudly and haughtily to him.
(b) See my Book of the Prophecies of the Messiah, &c. p. 168, &c.
I know whom I have chosen.--Comp. Note on John 6:70. The pronoun is strongly emphatic. "I (for My part) know whom I have chosen." (See next verse.)
But that the scripture may be fulfilled.--Comp. Note on John 12:38. There is an ellipsis after "but," which is most simply filled up by some such phrase as "all this was done;" "but all this was done that the Scripture . . ." (Comp. John 19:36 and Matthew 26:56.) Others would make the connection to be, "But I have chosen them that the Scripture . . ."
He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me.--Comp. especially Note on the quotation in John 2:18, from Psalms 61. The present words are a free rendering of the Greek (LXX.) of Psalm 41:9; but the LXX. follow the Hebrew more literally, and read, "hath made great his heel." This is here interpreted to mean, "lifted up his heel," which the Bible version of the Psalm gives, with the literal rendering magnified in the margin. The Prayer Book version follows the Vulgate in reading "hath laid great wait for Me."
Our Lord's quotation omits the earlier part of the verse, "Mine own familiar friend whom I trusted." He knew whom He had chosen. "He knew what was in man, and did not trust Himself to them" (John 2:24-25).
It is by no means certain that we are justified in following the title of the Psalm, and ascribing it to David. It is not improbable that here, as in Psalms 69, we have the words of Jeremiah, and the special reference to the friend is unknown. If the Psalm was by David, then, as the king was the type of Christ, Ahithophel is doubtless the type of Judas. In any case the baseness of the treachery lay in the fact that the betrayer was one who did eat bread with the psalmist. He was, as our word expresses it, a "companion" (one who breaks bread with), but to this the Orientals attached a sacredness which even the Bedouin of the desert would honour. But there was one then professing to be His Apostle, eating bread with Him, and yet planning to betray Him.
(1) We may add, this has happened (τοῦτο γέγονεν) - i.e. this choice has been overruled, and so in its issues corresponded with the Divine purpose (ἵνα) - so that the Scripture might be fulfilled, He that eateth my bread or, bread with me, hath lifted his heel against me;
(2) we may take the ἵνα πληρωθῇ as a parenthesis, and link the ἀλλ with the quotation, "He that eateth," etc.; or
(3) we may, with Meyer, suppose that ἐξελεξάμην αὐτοῦς, "I chose them," is mentally involved here: "I chose them, and Judas among them (ἵνα), in order that the Scripture," etc. This connection would suggest a destiny and purpose which Christ knowingly corresponded with, harmonizing his plan with the Divine and prophetic program. Emphasis must be laid upon the ἐκλέγεσθαι. It refers to Christ's choice of apostles, not to the eternal election to salvation. This interpretation corresponds more closely with the text, though it savors of a fatalism foreign to the Scripture. There is, however, a true sense in which the evil-disposed man is so placed that, if he will sin, he must sin along certain well-defined lines. The forty-first psalm, from which the quotation is made, is not strictly Messianic; it is descriptive of the ideal Sufferer, the holy but outraged man, whose melancholy condition is sure to be characterized by treachery among his familiar friends. Christ implies that, if he were to fulfill this portraiture, then this bitter dreg would be put into his cup; and so he humanly made this choice, i.e. he took steps which in their tenderness of love might have saved Judas from the worst, but which were really part of a Divine plan which would vindicate his own foresight and the method of Divine government. A full understanding of the formula in Matthew and John, ἵνα ἡ γραφὴ πληρωθ῀ι, will save us from putting into these words a hopeless fatalism. Notice that the LXX. reads this passage differently, and is not so closely allied to the Hebrew: "He that eateth my leaves hath magnified against me his surreptitious despite, his tricky antagonism." Great beauty is given to the passage by the R.T. you instead of μετ ἐμοῦ, for it suggests the idea that Christ was the real Host of the twelve, the Father and Provider of his family. Christ must be regarded as the Father and Host of the entire group of guests, and the treacherous treatment of a host throughout the East is regarded as a sign of peculiar obduracy.
I know whom I have chosen; not to apostleship, for they were all chosen to that, Judas as well as the rest, but to grace and glory, to everlasting salvation and happiness; of these he was well assured, that they were all clean, pure, and spotless, in the sight of God; were truly regenerated by the Spirit of God, and had an experimental and practical knowledge of the things he recommended by his example, and would be the happy persons he spake of;
but he observes, so it is, and will come to pass, that there is one of you which will betray me:
that the Scripture may be fulfilled: Psalm 41:9, as it literally (b) was in Judas's betraying Christ. The passage is by many interpreted either of Ahithophel, or of some other counsellor of Absalom's, or of Absalom himself; and is applied to their conduct, with respect to David, at the time of their rebellion against him; and which is thought to be typical of the treatment Christ met with from an apostle of his: but we do not find that, at the time of that rebellion, David was sick, or had any disease upon him, from whence they might hope for his death; it does not seem, as though it could be literally understood of David at all, and of the behaviour of any of his servants; but most properly of David's son, the Messiah, Jesus, with whom everything in the psalm agrees; and particularly this verse, which so plainly describes Judas, and expresses his base ingratitude, hypocrisy, and malice: the former part of the text is not cited, "yea, mine own familiar friend", or "the man of my peace, in whom I trusted"; though it fully agrees with him, he being admitted to great familiarity with Christ, and lived peaceably with him; and who was intrusted by him with the bag, into which the money was put, which was ministered, either for the sustenance of him and his apostles, or for the use of the poor: but our Lord thought fit to cite no more of it than what follows, that being sufficiently descriptive of him; and especially at this present time, when he was at table with his Lord.
He that eateth bread with me, hath lift up his heel against me; he sat down with him at table frequently, and ate bread with him; and was doing so, when Satan put it into his heart to betray him; which is strongly expressed, by "lifting up" his "heel against him"; and sets forth the ingratitude, wickedness, and cruelty of him; who, like an unruly horse, that has thrown his rider, spurns at him, to destroy him; and also the insidious manner in which he did it; he supplanted, he tripped him, as wrestlers do, in order to cast him down to the ground, and then trample upon him, and triumph over him: he first "laid snares for him", as Jarchi explains the phrase used in the "psalm", and then "he magnified his heel", he behaved proudly and haughtily to him.
(b) See my Book of the Prophecies of the Messiah, &c. p. 168, &c.