Luke 23:50

And, behold, there was a man named Joseph, a counseller; and he was a good man, and a just:

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(50-56) Behold, there was a man named Joseph.—See Notes on Matthew 27:57-61; Mark 15:42-47. St. Luke agrees with St. Mark in calling him a “counsellor,” but the epithets, “good man and just,” are peculiar to him. The adjective for good is not often applied to persons in the New Testament. In Acts 11:24 it is used of Barnabas; in Romans 5:7 it represents a higher excellence than that of the man who is simply just.

Benson Commentary

Luke 23:50-56. There was a man named Joseph, a good man, and a just — One who united in his character the two great principles of morality — justice and benevolence. The same had not consented to the counsel and deed of them — Though he was a member of the council which condemned Jesus, he did not join them in their unjust sentence, having either declined being present when the sentence was passed, or having remonstrated against it. This man went unto Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus, &c. — See this paragraph explained at large in the notes on Matthew 27:57-61, and Mark 15:42-47.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

23:50-56 Many, though they do not make any show in outward profession, yet, like Joseph of Arimathea, will be far more ready to do real service, when there is occasion, than others who make a greater noise. Christ was buried in haste, because the sabbath drew on. Weeping must not hinder sowing. Though they were in tears for the death of their Lord, yet they must prepare to keep holy the sabbath. When the sabbath draws on, there must be preparation. Our worldly affairs must be so ordered, that they may not hinder us from our sabbath work; and our holy affections so stirred up, that they may carry us on in it. In whatever business we engage, or however our hearts may be affected, let us never fail to get ready for, and to keep holy, the day of sacred rest, which is the Lord's day.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

See the Matthew 27:57-61 notes; Mark 15:42-47 notes.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

Lu 23:47-56. Signs and Circumstances Following His Death—His Burial.

(See on [1739]Mt 27:51-56; [1740]Mt 27:62-66; and [1741]Joh 19:31-42).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Ver. 50-53. See Poole on "Matthew 27:57", and following verses to Matthew 27:60.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And behold, there was a man named Joseph,.... See Gill on Matthew 27:57.

a counsellor; Mark says, he was an "honourable" one; he was either one of the council of the high priest, or a member of the great sanhedrim; See Gill on Mark 15:43.

and he was a good man, and a just; he was kind and beneficent in his temper, and just, and righteous in his life and actions; a like character is given of Joseph the husband of Mary, the mother of our Lord, Matthew 1:19.

Geneva Study Bible

{17} And, behold, there was a man named Joseph, a counsellor; and he was a good man, and a just:

(17) Christ, through his well known burial, confirms both the truth of his death as well as his resurrection, by the plain and evident witness of Pilate.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

Luke 23:50-56. See on Matthew 27:57-61; Mark 15:42-47. Luke follows Mark with abbreviations, although with some peculiarities.

ὑπάρχ.] belonging to βουλ.

δίκαιος] justus, in the narrower meaning; see the following parenthesis. It is a special side of ἀγαθός (excellent).

Luke 23:51. οὐκ ἦν συγκ.] was not in agreement with their decision. Comp. on Luke 23:19; and as to συγκατατίθεμαι, assentior, see Locella, ad Xen. Eph. p. 209.

κ. τῇ πράξει] and to the practice, the evil act. See on Romans 8:13; Colossians 3:9. Comp. Xen. Anab. vii. 6. 17.

αὐτῶν] τῶν βουλευτῶν, as is implied in βουλευτής, Luke 23:50, Winer, p. 132 [E. T. 182].

Luke 23:52. οὗτος] recapitulating, Kühner, II. p. 330.

Luke 23:53. λαξευτῷ] hewn in stone (Deuteronomy 4:49), therefore neither dug nor built.

οὗ οὐκ ἦν κ.τ.λ.] Comp. Luke 19:30; a more definite mode of expressing the καινῷ, in Matthew. Comp. John 19:41. In respect of the emphatically cumulative negatives, see Winer, p. 443 [E. T. 626].

Luke 23:54. And it was the preparation day (the day of preparation for the Sabbath, πρόσαββατον). Even here (comp. on Mark 15:42) no trace of a festival day is to be found in the day of Jesus’ death. Comp. Luke 23:26; Luke 23:56.

ἐπέφωσκε] elsewhere of the breaking of the natural day (of the day light; see Matthew 28:1); but here of the legal daybreak, which began with sunset. Not an inaccuracy of expression, in which only prevailed the idea of the beginning of the day, but according to the Jewish mode of expression, which still, moreover, gave to the legal beginning of the day, at the closing in of night, the name of איר, on account of the lighting of the lamps, which the natural evening made necessary. See the passages from the Rabbinical writers in Lightfoot, p. 892 f. Comp. Ev. Nicod. 12. That this mode of designation specially applied to the beginning of the Sabbath, on account of the Sabbath lights (see Lightfoot, Zeger, Clarius, Wetstein, Kuinoel, Bleek, and others), cannot be proved. The imperfect means: it would begin, was on the point of beginning. See Bernhardy, p. 373.

Luke 23:55. κατακολουθ.] following after, going after from the place of the cross, Luke 23:49, to the place of the grave, Luke 23:53. In the New Testament the word is found again only in Acts 16:17; comp. Jeremiah 17:16; Polyb. vi. 42. 2; Long. iii. 15. The meaning: “as far as down there into the grave,” is an addition of Lange’s; in κατά is found the idea of going after.

Luke 23:56. μέν] to which corresponds the δέ, Luke 24:1; hence at the end of the chapter only a comma is to be placed.

According to Mark, they did not buy the spices till later. See on Mark 16:1. In Luke there is no offence against the Jewish observance (Schenkel), which assuredly was well enough known to him, but there is a trace of the working day in the tradition which he follows. Comp. on Luke 23:26; John 18:28; John 13:29; Bleek, Beitr. p. 137. Ebrard on Olshausen, p. 53 f., gives explanations which are only evasions, but which are of the less importance, as in this place Luke, with his inconsequent notice, stands alone.

Expositor's Greek Testament

Luke 23:50-56. The burial (Matthew 27:57-61, Mark 15:42-47).

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

50-54. Joseph of Arimathaea. The taking down from the Cross. The Entombment.

50. a counseller] i.e. a member of the Sanhedrin, and therefore (as one of the 70 most distinguished members of the ruling classes) a person of great distinction. St Mark (Mark 15:43) calls him ‘an honourable councillor.’ Godet somewhat fancifully sees in St Mark’s description of him the Roman ideal; as in St Luke’s ‘good and just,’ the Greek ideal (καλὸς κἀγαθός); and in St Matthew’s ‘a rich man,’ the Jewish ideal.

a good man, and a just] The first word describes his moral character, the latter his strict religious life as an orthodox Jew. Romans 5:7.

Bengel's Gnomen

Luke 23:50. Ἀγαθὸς καὶ δίκαιος, a man good and just) Romans 5:7.[266] Every man that is ἀγαθὸς, good, is also ΔΊΚΑΙΟς, just; not vice versâ. Luke mentions the whole (ἈΓΑΘῸς, the genus) before the part (ΔΊΚΑΙΟς, the species). Paul observes the difference between these words more strictly.

[266] The man who fulfils his lawful duty towards others, and no more, is called δίκαιος, Hebr. צדיק. He who also confers benefits on others is ὅσιος, הסיד. Ἀγαθὸς approaches to the latter; one perfect in all the offices of piety, generous, large-minded, and a benefactor to men.—E. and T.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 50-56. - The entombment. The sequence of events which immediately followed the death of Christ appears to have been as follows. Our Lord expired apparently soon after 3 p.m. The "even" alluded to by St. Matthew and St. Mark began at 3 p.m. and lasted till sunset, about 6 p.m., when the sabbath commenced. Some time, then, between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. Joseph of Arima-thaea went to Pilate to ask for the body of Jesus. The governor was surprised, not at the request, but at hearing that Jesus was dead already (Mark 15:44), and, to assure himself of the fact, sent to inquire of the centurion on duty at the crosses. Some. where about the same time, probably a little later in the "evening," but still before 6 p.m., the Jews, i.e. the Sanhedrin leaders, came to Pilate with a request that the death of the three crucified might be hastened by their legs being broken, in order that their bodies hanging on the crosses might not pollute the very sacred day which followed. (It would be the sabbath, and the day of the Passover.) This terrible, but perhaps merciful, end to the tortures of the cross seems not to have been uncommon in Jewish crucifixion inflicted by the Roman authority. Crucifixion with this and all its attendant hinters was abolished by the first Christian emperor Constantine in the fourth century. The two thieves apparently expired under this treatment. The soldiers, however, when they looked on the form hanging on the central cross, found the Crucified, as we know, dead already. To make sure of this, one of the executioners thrust his spear deeply into the side of the motionless body of Jesus, "and forthwith came there out blood and water" (John 19:33, 35). Upon this, in accordance with the permission of the governor already obtained, the body of the Lord was delivered to Joseph of Arimathaea and his friends. Verses 50, 51. - And, behold, there was a man named Joseph, a counsellor; and he was a good man, and a just: (the same had not consented to the counsel and deed of them; ) he was of Arimathaea. This Joseph was a member of the Sanhedrin, a personage of high distinction in Jerusalem, and evidently of great wealth. It is especially mentioned that his vote in the supreme council was not given when the death of Jesus was determined on. Nicodemus and his costly offering of spices for the entombment is only mentioned by St. John (John 19:39). Arimathaea, the place whence this Joseph came, is famous in Jewish history, being identical with Ramathaim Zophim, the "Ramah of the watchers," the native town of Samuel. Each evangelist speaks of Joseph in high terms, and each in his own way. "Luke styles him 'a counsellor, good and just;' he is the καλὸς κὰγαθός, the Greek ideal. Marl; calls him 'an honourable counsellor,' the Roman ideal. Matthew writes of him as 'a rich man:' is not this the Jewish ideal?" (Godet). And St. John, we might add, chooses another title for this loved man, "being a disciple of Jesus:" this was St. John's ideal. In Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus we have specimens of a class of earnest and devout Jews, perhaps not uncommon at that time - men who respected and admired our Lord as a Teacher, and half believed in him as the Messiah (the Christ), arid yet from many mixed and various motives shrank from confessing him before men till after the cross had been endured. It was not only the Resurrection which so enormously increased the number and raised the character of the followers of Jesus. When he was gone, men reflected on the inimitable life, on the deep, heart-searching teaching, on the confirmatory works of power; and when the news of the Resurrection came, the little wavering, half-hearted band of follower's and hearers became in a few months a great host, and in a few years they had spread over the then civilized world. There is a strange but interesting tradition which tells how this Joseph of Arimathaea came to Great Britain about A.D. , and settled in Glastonbury, and there erected a humble Christian oratory, the first in England. The miraculous thorn of Glastonbury, long supposed to bud and blossom every Christmas Day, was reported to have sprung from the staff which Joseph stuck in the groined as he stopped to rest himself on the hill-top. Luke 23:50

Vincent's Word Studies

Councillor

See on Mark 15:43. Matthew calls him rich; Mark, honorable; Luke, good and just.