Word Pictures in the New Testament - David Cox

Word Pictures in the NT [Matthew: Chapter 27].
hands I commend my spirit." John (Joh 19:30) gives {It is
finished} (\tetelestai\), though which was actually last is not
clear. Jesus did not die from slow exhaustion, but with a loud
cry. {He breathed out} (\exepneusen\, Mr 15:37), {sent back his
spirit} (Mt 27:50), {gave up his spirit} (\pared•ken to
pneuma\, Joh 19:30). "He gave up his life because he willed it,
when he willed it, and as he willed it" (Augustine). Stroud
(_Physical Cause of the Death of Christ_) considers the loud cry
one of the proofs that Jesus died of a ruptured heart as a result
of bearing the sin of the world.
27:51 {Was rent} (\eschisth•\). Both Mark (Mr 15:38) and Luke
(Lu 23:45) mention also this fact. Matthew connects it with the
earthquake, "the earth did quake" (\h• g• eseisth•\). Josephus
(_War_ VI. 299) tells of a quaking in the temple before the
destruction and the Talmud tells of a quaking forty years before
the destruction of the temple. Allen suggests that "a cleavage in
the masonry of the porch, which rent the outer veil and left the
Holy Place open to view, would account for the language of the
Gospels, of Josephus, and of the Talmud." This veil was a most
elaborately woven fabric of seventy-two twisted plaits of
twenty-four threads each and the veil was sixty feet long and
thirty wide. The rending of the veil signified the removal of the
separation between God and the people (Gould).
27:52 {The tombs were opened} (\ta mn•meia ane•ichth•san\). First
aorist passive indicative (double augment). The splitting of the
rocks by the earthquake and the opening of tombs can be due to
the earthquake. But the raising of the bodies of the dead after
the resurrection of Jesus which appeared to many in the holy city
puzzles many today who admit the actual bodily resurrection of
Jesus. Some would brand all these portents as legends since they
appear in Matthew alone. Others would say that "after his
resurrection" should read "after their resurrection," but that
would make it conflict with Paul's description of Christ as the
first fruits of them that sleep (1Co 15:20). Some say that
Jesus released these spirits after his descent into Hades. So it
goes. We come back to miracles connected with the birth of Jesus,
God's Son coming into the world. If we grant the possibility of
such manifestations of God's power, there is little to disturb
one here in the story of the death of God's Son.
27:54 {Truly this was the Son of God} (\al•th•s theou huios •n
houtos\). There is no article with God or Son in the Greek so
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