Commentary
John Lightfoot on Luke 23:53
Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae. Browse this work.
[Wrapped it in linen.] "Mar Zutra saith, that out of the linen in which they wrapped up books, when it grew old they made shrouds for the dead of the precept; for this is to their disgrace." The Gloss adds, "That they do it of the linen wherein they fold up the book of the Law." Him who had suffered death by the sentence of the Sanhedrim, or magistrate, they were wont to call the dead of the precept, because he was executed according to the precept: and such a one to them was our Jesus. Now as to one that was condemned to death by the magistrate, they had an opinion that by how much the more disgracefully they dealt with him, by so much the greater atonement was made for him. Hence that expression, "They did not openly bewail him, that that very setting him at nought" (no man lamenting him) "might redound to his atonement." And from thence, perhaps, if the women at Jerusalem had bewailed any other person as they bewailed our Saviour, that other person might have said, "Ye daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, lest ye cut short my atonement": but Christ speaks to them upon a far different account. And under this notion they wrapped one that had been so executed, in some ragged, torn, old, dirty windingsheets; that this disgrace, being thrown upon him, might augment his expiation. But this good Arimathean behaves himself otherwise with Jesus, as having conceived quite another opinion concerning him.
John Lightfoot, Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae, Luke 23:53. Public domain.
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