John 18:1-7
Suggested further reading: Genesis 3:1-7
Henry observes, `The office of the priest was to teach and pray
and offer sacrifice. Christ, after teaching and praying, applies
himself to make atonement. He had said all he had to say as a prophet.
He now addresses himself to his work as a priest.'
The Cedron here mentioned is the same as the Kidron
named more than once in the Old Testament. The word `brook'
means, literally, a `winter torrent', and this, according to all travellers,
is precisely what the Kidron is. Excepting in winter, or after rains,
it is merely the dry bed of a watercourse. It lies on the east side
of Jerusalem, between the city and the Mount of Olives. It is the
same Kidron which David passed over weeping when obliged to
flee from Jerusalem by the rebellion of Absalom (2 Sam. 15:23). It
is the same Kidron by the side of which Asa burnt the idol of
his mother Maachah (2 Chr. 15:16), and into which Josiah cast
the dust of the idolatrous altars which he destroyed (2 Kings 23:12).
Lampe says that the way by which our Lord left the city was
the way by which the scapegoat, Azazel, was annually sent out into
the wilderness on the great Day of Atonement.
Bishop Andrews says that `The first breach made by the
Romans, when Titus took Jerusalem, was at the brook Cedron,
where they took Christ.'
There can be little doubt that this garden is the same as
the `place called Gethsemane'.
Almost all commentators notice the curious fact that the fall
of Adam and Eve took place in a garden, and Christ's passion
also began in a garden, and the sepulchre where Christ was laid was
in a garden, and the place where he was crucified was in a
garden (John 19:41).
Augustine remarks, `It was fitting that the blood of the
Physician should there be poured out, where the disease of the sick man
first commenced.'
For meditation: Even the new universe will contain a river in
a garden (Rev. 22:1-2).
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