Mark 14:65

The Jewish priesthood was to be rent from the time that they condemned Christ as guilty of death; wherefore there follows, And they all condemned him to be guilty of death.

And some began to spit on him,.... The men that held him, Luk 22:6, fulfilling the prophecy in Isa 50:6; and to cover his face; with a veil, or linen cloth, to blindfold: him, as a person unworthy to behold the light: or rather, in order to make sport with him: and to buffet him; with their double fists; and to say unto him, prophesy. The Arabic version adds, "unto us, O Christ, who it is that hath buffeted thee now?" that gave thee the last blow? and to the same purpose the Ethiopic.

Solomon tells us in the book of Ecclesiastes, that one evil he has seen under the sun, is when "folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low place." (Eccles. 10:6.) We can imagine no more complete illustration of his words than the state of things we have recorded in the passage before us. We see the Son of God, "in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," arraigned as a malefactor before "the chief priests, and elders, and scribes."

"And many other things blasphemously spake they against Him" (Lu 22:65). This general statement is important, as showing that virulent and varied as were the recorded affronts put upon Him, they are but a small specimen of what He endured on that dark occasion.

Solomon tells us in the book of Ecclesiastes, that one evil he has seen under the sun, is when "folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low place." (Eccles. 10:6.) We can imagine no more complete illustration of his words than the state of things we have recorded in the passage before us. We see the Son of God, "in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," arraigned as a malefactor before "the chief priests, and elders, and scribes." We see the heads of the Jewish nation combining together to kill their own Messiah, and judging Him who will one day come in glory to judge them and all mankind. These things sound marvelous, but they are true. Let us observe in these verses, how foolishly Christians sometimes thrust themselves into temptation . We are told that when our Lord was led away prisoner, "Peter followed Him afar off, even into the palace of the high priest — and he sat with the servants, and warmed himself at the fire." There was no wisdom in this act. Having once forsaken his Master and fled, he ought to have remembered his own weakness, and not to have ventured into danger again. It was an act of rashness and presumption. It brought on him fresh trials of faith, for which he was utterly unprepared. It threw him into bad company, where he was not likely to get good, but harm. It paved the way for his last and greatest transgression — his thrice-repeated denial of his Master. But it is an experimental truth that ought never to be overlooked, that when a believer has once begun to back-slide and leave his first faith, he seldom stops short at his first mistake. He seldom makes only one stumble. He seldom commits only one fault. A blindness seems to come over his understanding. He appears to cast over-board his common sense and discretion.