Mark 10:32

And they were in the way going up to Jerusalem; and Jesus went before them: and they were amazed; and as they followed, they were afraid. And he took again the twelve, and began to tell them what things should happen unto him,

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(32-34) And they were in the way.—See Notes on Matthew 20:17-19.

Jesus went before them.—Better, was leading the way. The word is the same as that used in Matthew 21:9; Matthew 21:31. The graphic picture of the order in which the Master and the disciples were at this time travelling is eminently characteristic of St. Mark. The special mention of “the Twelve” implies that there were other disciples, possibly the Seventy of Luke 10:1, and the “devout women” of Luke 8:1.

And they were amazed.—We have clearly in these words a vivid reproduction of states of feeling which the disciples remembered, but for which the facts related hardly give a sufficient explanation. Probably the words that had just been spoken—still more, perhaps, the look and tone which accompanied them—and the silent withdrawal from converse with them, struck all the disciples with a vague fear, and the Twelve with absolute terror.

MacLaren's Expositions

Mark

CHRIST ON THE ROAD TO THE CROSS

Mark 10:32.

We learn from John’s Gospel that the resurrection of Lazarus precipitated the determination of the Jewish authorities to put Christ to death; and that immediately thereafter there was held the council at which, by the advice of Caiaphas, the formal decision was come to. Thereupon our Lord withdrew Himself into the wilderness which stretches south and east of Jerusalem; and remained there for an unknown period, preparing Himself for the Cross. Then, full of calm resolve, He came forth to die. This is the crisis in our Lord’s history to which my text refers. The graphic narrative of this Evangelist sets before us the little company on the steep rocky mountain road that leads up from Jericho to Jerusalem; our Lord, far in advance of His followers, with a fixed purpose stamped upon His face, and something of haste in His stride, and that in His whole demeanour which shed a strange astonishment and awe over the group of silent and uncomprehending disciples.

That picture has not attracted the attention that it deserves. I think if we ponder it with sympathetic imagination helping us, we may get from it some very great lessons and glimpses of our Lord’s inmost heart in the prospect of His Cross. And I desire simply to set forth two or three of the aspects of Christ’s character which these words seem to me to suggest.

I. We have here, then, first, what, for want of a better name, I would call the heroic Christ.

I use the word to express simply strength of will brought to bear in the resistance to antagonism; and although that is a side of the Lord’s character which is not often made prominent, it is there, and ought to have its due importance.

We speak of Him, and delight to think of Him, as the embodiment of all loving, gracious, gentle virtues, but Jesus Christ as the ideal man unites in Himself what men are in the habit, somewhat superciliously, of calling the masculine virtues, as well as those which they somewhat contemptuously designate the feminine. I doubt very much whether that is a correct distinction. I think that the heroism of endurance, at all events, is far more an attribute of a woman than of a man. But be that as it may, we are to look to Jesus Christ as presenting before us the very type of all which men call heroism in the sense that I have explained, of an iron will, incapable of deflection by any antagonism, and which coerces the whole nature to obedience to its behests.

There is nothing to be done in life without such a will. ‘To be weak is to be miserable, doing or suffering.’ And our Master has set us the example of this; that unless there run through a man’s life, like the iron framework on the top of the spire of Antwerp Cathedral, on which graceful fancies are strung in stone, the rigid bar of an iron purpose that nothing can bend, the life will be nought and the man will be a failure. Christ is the pattern of heroic endurance, and reads to us the lesson to resist and persist, whatever stands between us and our goal.

So here, the Cross before Him flung out no repelling influence towards Him, but rather drew Him to itself. There is no reason that I can find for believing the modern theory of the rationalists’ school that our Lord, in the course of His mission, altered His plan, or gradually had dawning upon His mind the conviction that to carry out His purposes He must be a martyr. That seems to me to be an entire misreading of the Gospel narrative which sets before us much rather this, that from the beginning of our Lord’s public career there stood unmistakably before Him the Cross as the goal. He entertained no illusions as to His reception. He did not come to do certain work, and, finding that He could not do it, accepted the martyr’s death; but He came for the twofold purpose of serving by His life, and of redeeming by His death. ‘He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for the many.’ And this purpose stood clear before Him, drawing Him to itself all through His career.

But, further, Christ’s character teaches us what is the highest form of such strength and tenacity, viz., gentleness. There is no need to be brusque, obstinate, angular, self-absorbed, harsh, because we are fixed and determined in our course. These things are the caricatures and the diminutions, not the true forms nor the increase, of strength. The most tenacious steel is the most flexible, and he that has the most fixed and definite resolve may be the man that has his heart most open to all human sympathies, and is strong with the almightiness of gentleness, and not with the less close-knit strength of roughness and of hardness. Christ, because He is perfect love, is perfect power, and His will is fixed because it is love that fixes it. So let us take the lesson that the highest type of strength is strength in meekness, and that the Master who, I was going to say, kept His strength of will under, but I more correctly say, manifested His strength of will through, His gentleness, is the pattern for us.

II. Then again, we see here not only the heroic, but what I may call the self-sacrificing Christ.

We have not only to consider the fixed will which this incident reveals, but to remember the purpose on which it was fixed, and that He was hastening to His Cross. The very fact of our Lord’s going back to Jerusalem, with that decree of the Sanhedrim still in force, was tantamount to His surrender of Himself to death. It was as if, in the old days, some excommunicated man with the decree of the Inquisition pronounced against him had gone into Rome and planted himself in the front of the piazza before the buildings of the Holy Office, and lifted up his testimony there. So Christ, knowing that this council has been held, that this decree stands, goes back, investing of set purpose His return with all the publicity that He can bring to bear upon it. For this once He seems to determine that He will ‘cause His voice to be heard in the streets’; He makes as much of a demonstration as the circumstances will allow, and so acts in a manner opposite to all the rest of His life. Why? Because He had determined to bring the controversy to an end. Why? Was He flinging away His life in mere despair? Was He sinfully neglecting precautions? Was the same fanaticism of martyrdom which has often told upon men, acting upon Him? Were these His reasons? No, but He recognised that now that ‘hour’ of which He spoke so much had come, and of His own loving will offered Himself as our Sacrifice.

It is all-important to keep in view that Christ’s death was His own voluntary act. Whatever external forces were brought to bear in the accomplishment of it, He died because He chose to die. The ‘cords’ which bound this sacrifice to the horns of the altar were cords woven by Himself.

So I point to the incident of my text, as linking in along with the whole series of incidents marking the last days of our Lord’s life, in order to stamp upon His death unmistakably this signature, that it was His own act. Therefore the publicity that was given to His entry; therefore His appearance in the Temple; therefore the increased sharpness and unmistakableness of His denunciations of the ruling classes, the Pharisees and the scribes. Therefore the whole history of the Passion, all culminating in leaving this one conviction, that He had ‘power to lay down His life,’ that neither Caiaphas nor Annas, nor Judas, nor the band, nor priests, nor the Council, nor Pilate, nor Herod, nor soldiers, nor nails, nor cross, nor all together, killed Jesus, but that Jesus died because He would. The self-sacrifice of the Lord was not the flinging away of the life that He ought to have preserved, nor carelessness, nor the fanaticism of a martyr, nor the enthusiasm of a hero and a champion, but it was the voluntary death of Him who of His own will became in His death the ‘oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.’ Love to us, and obedience to the Father whose will He made His own, were the cords that bound Christ to the Cross on which He died. His sacrifice was voluntary; witness this fact that when He saw the Cross at hand He strode before His followers to reach that, the goal of His mission.

III. I venture to regard the incident as giving us a little glimpse of what I may call the shrinking Christ.

Do we not see here a trace of something that we all know? May not part of the reason for Christ’s haste have been that desire which we all have, when some inevitable grief or pain lies before us, to get it over soon, and to abbreviate the moments that lie between us and it? Was there not something of that feeling in our Lord’s sensitive nature when He said, for instance, ‘I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened until it be accomplished’? ‘I am come to send fire upon the earth, and O! how I wish that it were already kindled!’ Was there not something of the same feeling, which we cannot call impatient, but which we may call shrinking from the Cross, and therefore seeking to draw the Cross nearer, and have done with it, in the words which He addressed to the betrayer, ‘That thou doest, do quickly,’ as if He were making a last appeal to the man’s humanity, and in effect saying to him, ‘If you have a heart at all, shorten these painful hours, and let us have it over’? And may we not see, in that swift advance in front of the lagging disciples, some trace of the same feeling which we recognise to be so truly human? Christ did shrink from His Cross. Let us never forget that He recoiled from it, with the simple, instinctive, human shrinking from pain and death which is a matter of the physical nervous system, and has nothing to do with the will at all. If there had been no shrinking from it there had been no fixed will. If there had been no natural instinctive drawing back of the physical nature and its connections from the prospect of pain and death, there had been none of the heroism of which I am speaking. Though it does not become us to dogmatise about matters of which we know so little, I think we may fairly say that that shrinking never rose up into the regions of Christ’s will; never became a desire; never became a purpose. Howsoever the ship might be tossed by the waves, the will always kept its level equilibrium. Howsoever the physical nature might incline to this side or to that, the will always kept parallel with the great underlying divine will, the Father’s purpose which He had come to effect. There was shrinking which was instinctive and human, but it never disturbed the fixed purpose to die. It had so much power over Him as to make Him march a little faster to the Cross, but it never made Him turn from it. And so He stands before us as the Conqueror in a real conflict, as having yielded Himself up by a real surrender, as having overcome a real difficulty, ‘for the joy that was set before Him, having endured the Cross, despising the shame.’

IV. So, lastly, I would see here the lonely Christ.

In front of His followers, absorbed in the thought of what was drawing so near, gathering together His powers in order to be ready for the struggle, with His heart full of the love and the pity which impelled Him, He is surrounded as with a cloud which shuts Him ‘out from their sight,’ as afterwards the cloud of glory ‘received Him.’

What a gulf there was between them and Him, between their thoughts and His, as He passed up that rocky way! What were they thinking about? ‘By the way they had disputed amongst themselves which of them should be the greatest.’ So far did they sympathise with the Master! So far did they understand Him! Talk about men with unappreciated aims, heroes that have lived through a lifetime of misunderstanding and never have had any one to sympathise with them! There never was such a lonely man in the world as Jesus Christ. Never was there one that carried so deep In His heart so great a purpose and so great a love, which none cared a rush about. And those that were nearest Him, and loved Him best, loved Him so blunderingly and so blindly that their love must often have been quite as much of a pain as of a joy.

In His Passion that solitude reached the point of agony. How touching in its unconscious pathos is His pleading request, ‘Tarry ye here, and watch with Me!’ How touching in their revelation of a subsidiary but yet very real addition to His pains are His words, ‘All ye shall be offended because of Me this night.’ Oh, dear brethren! every human soul has to go down into the darkness alone, however close may be the clasping love which accompanies us to the portal; but the loneliness of death was realised by Jesus Christ in a very unique and solemn manner. For round Him there gathered the clouds of a mysterious agony, only faintly typified by the darkness of eclipse which hid the material sun in the universe, what time He died.

And all this solitude, the solitude of unappreciated aims, and unshared purposes, and misunderstood sorrow during life, and the solitude of death with its elements ineffable of atonement;-all this solitude was borne that no human soul, living or dying, might ever be lonely any more. ‘Lo! I,’ whom you all left alone, ‘am with you,’ who left Me alone, ‘even till the end of the world.’

So, dear brethren, ponder that picture that I have been trying very feebly to set before you, of the heroic, self-sacrificing, shrinking, solitary Saviour. Take Him as your Saviour, your Sacrifice, your Pattern; and hear Him saying, ‘If any man serve Me, let him follow Me, and where I am there shall also My servant be.’

An old ecclesiastical legend conies into my mind at the moment, which tells how an emperor won the true Cross in battle from a pagan king, and brought it back, with great pomp, to Jerusalem; but found the gate walled up, and an angel standing before it, who said, ‘Thou bringest back the Cross with pomp and splendour. He that died upon it had shame for His companion; and carried it on His back, barefooted, to Calvary.’ Then, says the chronicler, the emperor dismounted from his steed, cast off his robes, lifted the sacred Rood on his shoulders, and with bare feet advanced to the gate, which opened of itself, and he entered in.

We have to go up the steep rocky road that leads from the plain where the Dead Sea is, to Jerusalem. Let us follow the Master, as He strides before us, the Forerunner and the Captain of our salvation.

Benson Commentary

Mark 10:32-34. They were in the way to Jerusalem, and Jesus went before them: and they were amazed — At his courage and intrepidity, considering the treatment which he had himself told them he should meet with there: and as they followed, they were afraid — Both for him and themselves: nevertheless, he judged it best to prepare them, by telling them more particularly what was to ensue. The rulers at Jerusalem had issued out a proclamation against our Lord, immediately after the resurrection of Lazarus, and probably promised a reward to any that would apprehend him, John 11:57. This might be the reason why the disciples were astonished at the alacrity which their Master showed in this journey to the capital city, and afraid while they followed him. In such circumstances our Lord knew that a repetition of the prophecy concerning his own sufferings was proper; because it showed the disciples they were entirely voluntary. And as he told them expressly that they had been predicted by the prophets, and consequently decreed of old by God, the opposition that he was to meet with, though it would end in death, instead of weakening their faith, ought to have increased it; especially as he informed them at the same time that he would rise again the third day. Behold we go up to Jerusalem, &c. — See on Matthew 20:18-19.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

10:32-45 Christ's going on with his undertaking for the salvation of mankind, was, is, and will be, the wonder of all his disciples. Worldly honour is a glittering thing, with which the eyes of Christ's own disciples have many times been dazzled. Our care must be, that we may have wisdom and grace to know how to suffer with him; and we may trust him to provide what the degrees of our glory shall be. Christ shows them that dominion was generally abused in the world. If Jesus would gratify all our desires, it would soon appear that we desire fame or authority, and are unwilling to taste of his cup, or to have his baptism; and should often be ruined by having our prayers answered. But he loves us, and will only give his people what is good for them.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

See the notes at Matthew 20:17-19.

Mark 10:32

Jesus went before him - In the manner of an intrepid, fearless leader and guide, exposing "himself" to danger and death rather than his followers.

And they rather amazed ... - They were afraid that evil would befall him in the city; that the scribes and Pharisees, who had so often sought to kill him, would then do it. Their fear and amazement were increased when he told them what would befall him there. They were amazed that, when he knew so well what would happen, he should still persevere in going up to the city.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

Mr 10:32-45. Third Explicit and Still Fuller Announcement of His Approaching Sufferings, Death, and Resurrection—The Ambitious Request of James and John, and the Reply. ( = Mt 20:17-28; Lu 18:31-34).

Third Announcement of His approaching Sufferings, Death, and Resurrection (Mr 10:32-34).

32. And they were in the way—on the road.

going up to Jerusalem—in Perea, and probably somewhere between Ephraim and Jericho, on the farther side of the Jordan, and to the northeast of Jerusalem.

and Jesus went before them—as Grotius says, in the style of an intrepid Leader.

and they were amazed—or "struck with astonishment" at His courage in advancing to certain death.

and as they followed, they were afraid—for their own safety. These artless, lifelike touches—not only from an eye-witness, but one whom the noble carriage of the Master struck with wonder and awe—are peculiar to Mark, and give the second Gospel a charm all its own; making us feel as if we ourselves were in the midst of the scenes it describes. Well might the poet exclaim:

"The Saviour, what a noble flame

Was kindled in His breast,

When, hasting to Jerusalem,

He march'd before the rest!"

Cowper

And he took again the twelve—referring to His previous announcements on this sad subject.

and began to tell them what things should happen unto him—"were going to befall Him." The word expresses something already begun but not brought to a head, rather than something wholly future.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Ver. 32-34. See Poole on "Matthew 20:17", and following verses to Matthew 20:19. This is at least the third time that our Saviour instructs his disciples as to his passion, toward which he was now going, and that with such a readiness, that, to the amazement of his disciples, he led the way, and outwent them. It is observable that Christ here describeth his sufferings more particularly than before. He tells them here that he should be first

delivered to the chief priests and the scribes, and they should condemn him. Then they should

deliver him to the Gentiles, ( such were the Romans and Pontius Pilate), and they should

mock him, scourge him, spit on him, put him to death, but he should rise again the third day. Luke adds, Luke 18:34, They understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken. How hardly do we believe what seems contrary to our interests! But we are to hear for the time to come. This premonition was afterwards of use to them, they remembered the words of Jesus when the things were come to pass. Preachers’ words are not lost, though at present they be not believed or hearkened to.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And they were in the way,.... Upon the road, having left the coasts of Judea on the further side of Jordan:

going up to Jerusalem; to the passover there, which was to be in a short time, and where Christ was to suffer and die; for this was the last journey he took, and the last passover he was to eat there:

and Jesus went before them; as their forerunner, their guide and leader, with unconcernedness and intrepidity; though he knew what would befall him, and what designs were forming against him: and this he did to inspire his disciples with courage, and to leave them an example that they should tread in his steps:

and they were amazed; at his readiness to go up to Jerusalem, and the cheerful Spirit he discovered, when he had so many, and such powerful enemies at that place, in going to which he exposed himself to the greatest dangers.

And as they followed; for they did not choose to leave him, but were determined to continue with him at all events, though

they were afraid; what would be the consequence of it to themselves, as well as to him; for they being his followers, could not expect any other than ill usage from his enemies.

And he took again the twelve; the disciples, as he had done before, Mark 8:31,

and began to tell them what things should happen unto him; being what were determined by God, agreed unto by himself, and foretold in the Scriptures; for these were not casual and contingent events.

Geneva Study Bible

{6} And they were in the way going up to Jerusalem; and Jesus went before them: and they were amazed; and as they followed, they were afraid. And he took again the twelve, and began to tell them what things should happen unto him,

(6) The disciples are again prepared not to be overcome by the foretelling unto them of his death, which was at hand, and in addition about his life, which would most certainly follow.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

Mark 10:32-34 See on Matthew 20:17-19. Comp. Luke 18:31-33. Mark is more detailed and more characteristic than Matthew.

ἦσαν δὲ ἐν τῇ ὁδῷ] The occurrence with the rich young man had happened, while they went out εἰς ὁδόν, Mark 10:17; now they were on the way (ἀναβαίνοντες is not to be taken with ἦσαν). Jesus moves on before “more intrepidi ducis” (Grotius), and the disciples were amazed; but they who followed were afraid,[139] for the foreboding of a serious and grave future had taken hold of them, and they beheld Him thus incessantly going, and themselves being led, to meet it! See Mark 10:24-26, the μετὰ διωγμ., Mark 10:30, and the declaration, Mark 10:31. Comp. John 11:7-16.

πάλιν] refers neither to Mark 11:31 (de Wette), where there is nothing said of any παραλαμβάνειν, nor to Mark 9:35 (Fritzsche), where the ἐφώνησε τοὺς δώδεκα, which happened in the house, is withal something entirely different; but to—what is just related—the partial separation of Jesus from His disciples on the way, after they had previously gone together. Only in part had they followed Him fearfully; most of them had remained behind on the way amazed; He now made a pause, and took again to Himself all the Twelve (hence in this place there is put not merely αὐτούς, but τοὺς δώδεκα).

ἤρξατο] so that He broke the previous silence.

Mark 10:34. The Gentiles are the subject of ἐμπαίξ as far as ἀποκτ. (comp. Matthew). Instead of ἀποκτενοῦσιν Matthew has the definite, but certainly later, crucifying.

[139] According to the reading οἱ δὲ ἀκολ. ἐφοβοῦντο; see the critical remarks. The matter, namely, is to he conceived in this way, that the majority of the disciples stayed behind on the way in perplexity, but those among them who followed Jesus as He went forward did so only fearfully. As to this use of οἱ δέ, see on Matthew 28:17.

Expositor's Greek Testament

Mark 10:32-34. Third prediction of the Passion (Matthew 20:17-19, Luke 18:31-34).

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

32–34. Predictions of the Passion

32. they were in the way] Our Lord would seem to have now descended from Ephraim to the high road in order to join the caravans of Galilæan pilgrims going up to Jerusalem. St Mark gives a special prominence to this critical period in His human history: He describes (a) the prophetic elevation and solemnity of soul which He displayed; (b) His advancing before them as the destined Sufferer, (c) the awe of the disciples as they followed Him.

and Jesus went before them] “After the manner of some leader who heartens his soldiers by choosing the place of danger for himself.” Trench, Studies, p. 216.

and as they followed] Or, according to the better reading, and they that followed, as though there were two bands of the Apostles, of whom one went foremost, while the others had fallen behind. “There are few pictures in the Gospel more striking than this of Jesus going forth to His death, and walking alone along the path into the deep valley, while behind Him, in awful reverence, and mingled anticipations of dread and hope—their eyes fixed on Him, as with bowed head He preceded them in all the majesty of sorrow—the disciples walked behind and dared not disturb His meditations.” Farrar, Life, ii. p. 179.

And he took again] This was for the third time. The two previous occasions are described in (a) Mark 8:31, in the neighbourhood of Cæsarea Philippi, just after St Peter’s confession, and (b) Mark 9:30-32, shortly afterwards, during the return to Capernaum. The particulars are now more full and more clear than ever before. St Matthew (Matthew 20:17) distinctly tells us that this mournful communication was made privately to the Apostles.

Bengel's Gnomen

Mark 10:32. Ἐθαμβοῦντο, they were amazed [fear-struck]) They knew not themselves the reason why. Often something, which does not fall under the vision [the ken] of the mind or of the eye, affects another sense; Daniel 10:7. They were fear-struck [shuddered with amazement] on account of Jesus, who went before: they were afraid, on account of their own selves, who were following Him. By this shuddering amazement and fear, they were divested of their opinion and hope of earthly things, if not completely, as, for instance, in the case of James and John [Mark 10:35, etc.], yet in part.—ἤρξατο, He began) Already He had begun before, ch. Mark 8:31; but now He began to speak more fully and at large. And this even as yet was but the beginning.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 32. - They were now going up from Jericho to Jerusalem, going up with Christ to his cross and his death. He went before them, eagerly leading the way for his timid disciples, who were now beginning to realize what was about to happen, and that he would be condemned and crucified. Therefore the evangelist adds, they were amazed (Greek, ἐθαμβοῦντο); the same word which is used at ver. 24. The words in the original, according to the best reading, make a distinction between the utter amazement of the disciples and the fear of the others who followed (οἱ δὲ ἀκολουθοῦντες ἐφοβοῦντο). St. Mark draws a distinction between the disciples, who would be following him, though at a little distance, and the mixed company, who were also following him, though at a greater distance. The whole scene is before us. Our blessed Lord, with an awful majesty on his countenance, and eager resolution in his manner, is pressing forwards to his cross. "How am I straitened until it be accomplished!" His disciples follow him, amazed and bewildered; and even the miscellaneous crowd, who no doubt gazed upon him with keen interest as the great "Prophet that should come into the world," felt that something was going to happen, though they knew not what - some-thing very dreadful; and they too were afraid. In the case of the disciples, Bede says that the chief cause of their amazement was their own imminent fear of death. They were amazed that their Master should hasten forward with such alacrity to his cross, and they feared lest they too should have to suffer with him. He took again the twelve; and once more impressed upon them the dread realities which were awaiting him. They were still slow of apprehension; they required to be told again and again. Mark 10:32

Vincent's Word Studies

Were amazed

The sudden awe which fell on the disciples is noted by Mark only.