Matthew 26:17

The chapter opens with Jesus telling his disciples that the Passover is two days away and that he will be betrayed and crucified. It goes on to the plot of the chief priests and elders, the anointing at Bethany, which Jesus calls a preparation for his burial, and Judas’s agreement to betray him (Matthew 26:1–16). The disciples’ practical question about the meal is asked under that shadow.

The Passover was one of the great yearly feasts of Israel. It remembered the night God delivered his people from slavery in Egypt, when each household killed a lamb and put its blood on the doorposts, and the blood was the sign that kept death from that house (Exodus 12:1–14). Moses told the elders how to keep it and how to explain it to their children, with the promise that “the LORD will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you” (Exodus 12:21–27). By the time of Jesus the feast had been kept for over a thousand years. Families and groups gathered in Jerusalem, a lamb was sacrificed at the Temple, and it was roasted and eaten inside the city with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, which recalled the haste of the departure and the bitterness of the bondage.

The verb for “prepare”, hetoimázō, means to make ready, and there was a good deal to make ready. Jerusalem was crowded with pilgrims, so a group had to find a ritually clean room, buy the lamb, and see to the bread and everything else the meal required. The disciples come to Jesus of their own accord and ask where he wants it done, which shows that they look to him to lead them in keeping the feast.

Jesus answers with instructions that show he already knows where the meal will be. The disciples are to go into the city, find a certain man, and give him a message from “the Master”. The word is didáskalos, which means teacher or instructor. The disciples carry a teacher’s word to a householder, and the householder acts on it.

The message begins, “My time is at hand.” The word for time, kairós, means a set or proper time, an occasion, where another Greek word, chronos, speaks of time as it passes. “At hand” is engýs, which means near. So Jesus is saying that the set time for his suffering, death and resurrection is close. John says the same of this evening: “Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end” (John 13:1). His death comes at its proper time, as part of God’s plan, and he walks toward it with his eyes open.

“I will keep the passover at thy house with my disciples” settles the place. Jesus chooses the house himself, and in doing so he arranges the meal that we know as the Last Supper.

Matthew tells the whole errand in one short sentence. A disciple, mathētḗs, is a learner or pupil, and here the learners put their teacher’s instructions into practice. “Appointed” is syntássō, to arrange or to direct, so what Jesus gave them was a definite instruction and they treated it as one. “Made ready” is hetoimázō again, the same verb they used in their question. What they asked to do in verse 17 they have done by verse 19.

Finding the room, buying the lamb and preparing the table was plain work, and the Last Supper rested on it. Jesus says that those who do what he commands are his friends (John 15:14), and he compares the person who hears his words and does them to a wise man who built his house on a rock (Matthew 7:24–27). The disciples obey here before they can see what this meal will become. Their obedience is a small picture of Christ’s own, for he came into the world to do the will of God (Hebrews 10:5–7).

“Even” is ópsios, the evening. The Passover meal began at twilight, as the 14th of Nisan passed into the 15th, so Matthew’s note of the hour places Jesus at the table exactly when Israel sat down to remember its deliverance.

“Sat down” translates anakeîmai, which means to recline. Reclining was the customary posture at festive meals among the Jews of that day, and at the Passover it spoke of freedom and rest, in contrast to slaves, who ate standing. Jesus takes his place as the host of a meal that celebrates liberation on the night before he dies to set his people free from sin.

“With the twelve” tells us that the whole company of the apostles is there. Their number recalls the twelve tribes of Israel, and it includes Judas. Jesus shares this last meal with all of them, knowing what one of them has already agreed to do. Luke records the meal at greater length (Luke 22:14–20), and Paul hands on what the Lord did that night, a meal that looks back to his death and forward to his coming (1 Corinthians 11:23–26).

The announcement comes “as they did eat”. To share a meal, and the Passover above all, was an act of fellowship and trust, and to betray a man whose table you shared was treachery of the worst kind. Jerusalem was tense at the feast, under Roman rule and with the religious authorities watching Jesus closely, so handing him over to them was a deadly act.

Jesus opens with “Verily”, the word amḗn, a strong affirmation that calls for the disciples’ full attention. “Betray” is paradídōmi, which means to hand over or deliver up. The verb can be used in a neutral sense, of entrusting or passing something on, and here it means delivering a man to his enemies. Judas has already bargained with the chief priests to do it for thirty pieces of silver (Matthew 26:14–16).

The hardest words are “one of you”. The danger comes from inside the circle of those closest to him. Jesus had known from the beginning who would betray him (John 6:64), and he had already told the disciples that he would be betrayed, killed and raised (Matthew 17:22–23). Scripture had spoken of it too. Psalm 41 tells of betrayal by a familiar and trusted friend (Psalm 41:9), and Jesus applies that verse to this night so that when it happened his disciples would believe (John 13:18–19).

The disciples are “exceeding sorrowful”. The verb lypéō speaks of grief and distress, and sphódra, “exceeding”, strengthens it. Their sorrow shows how much they love him and how shocking the thought is.

Then “every one of them” speaks. Hékastos means each one, so the question comes from the disciples one by one. They call him “Lord”, kýrios, a title for one who has authority, and the way they frame the question matters. The Greek begins with mḗti, a word that looks for the answer “no”. Each man hopes to hear that he is innocent, and each still asks.

People wonder why all of them asked when only one was guilty. They asked because they were shaken, humble, and aware of their own weakness. None of them points at another, and none suspects Judas, which shows how well he had hidden himself. Each knew he was capable of failing his Lord, and the rest of the chapter proves them right, when Peter denies him and the others flee (Matthew 26).

Scripture commends this way of looking at ourselves. David prays that God would search him and know his heart (Psalm 139:23–24). Paul tells the Corinthians, “Examine yourselves” (2 Corinthians 13:5), and tells the Philippians to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). The word of God is quick and powerful, and every heart lies open before him (Hebrews 4:12–13).

Jesus answers with a sign. At the Passover table the guests dipped bread or herbs into shared dishes, such as the bitter herbs or a sweet fruit paste. “Dippeth” is embáptō, to dip in, built from en (“in”) and báptō (“to dip”), and the “dish” is a trýblion, a bowl that the company shared. To eat from one bowl was a sign of unity and trust.

So the mark of the betrayer is the mark of a friend. Jesus says that the man is one who eats from his own dish, which narrows the circle and still leaves the name unspoken. It is Psalm 41 again, the trusted companion turned against him. The verb paradídōmi comes back here (“the same shall betray me”), built from pará (“beside”) and dídōmi (“to give”).

“Son of man” is the name Jesus most often uses for himself. It speaks of his true humanity, and it comes from Daniel’s vision of one like the Son of man who comes with the clouds and is given an everlasting kingdom (Daniel 7:13–14). “As it is written of him” points to what the Old Testament foretold of the Messiah’s suffering, in Isaiah’s song of the servant and in the psalm of the righteous sufferer (Psalm 22). Isaiah says the servant is wounded for the sins of others (Isaiah 53:5–6). Paul later sums up the gospel in the same terms, that Christ died for our sins and rose again according to the scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3–4).

“Goeth” is a calm word for a man walking to his death. Jesus is carrying out what Scripture said, and he does it of his own will.

Then the sentence turns on “but”. “Woe” is ouaí, a cry that holds both grief and denunciation, and it declares the judgment coming on “that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed”. The title stands in both halves of the sentence, once for the one who goes as Scripture said and once for the one who is betrayed, so the plan of God and the guilt of the betrayer are held side by side. Matthew goes on to tell of Judas’s remorse and death (Matthew 27:3–5), and Peter speaks of his end and of the choosing of another to take his place (Acts 1:16–20).

Matthew names him as “Judas, which betrayed him”, so that we hear his question knowing what he is. His name, Ioúdas, means “praise”, which sits strangely on the man who bears it here. He “answered”, joining in after the others have spoken, and he asks the same question they asked. He already knows the answer, because the bargain has been made, so his question is a pretence kept up in front of the rest.

He addresses Jesus as “Master”, and the word is rhabbí, a title of respect for a teacher. The others had said “Lord”, kýrios. The English word “Master” also stood in verse 18, where it translated a different Greek word, didáskalos.

Jesus replies, “Thou hast said.” The Greek is sý eipas, from sý, the pronoun “thou”, written out here as Greek does for emphasis, and épō, “to say”. It is a Semitic way of saying yes, with the sense “It is as you say.” The answer is direct, and it sets the truth on Judas’s own lips. Jesus confirms his guilt quietly and spares him a public denunciation, which leaves Judas to feel the weight of his own words. Later that night Judas comes with a crowd and betrays the Son of man with a kiss (Luke 22:47–48).

The whole account of the supper (Matthew 26:17–30) is set at a Passover table because Jesus is what the Passover pointed to. Paul says so plainly: “Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us” (1 Corinthians 5:7–8). John the Baptist had called him the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), and Isaiah had pictured the servant brought as a lamb to the slaughter (Isaiah 53:7).

The blood of the first lambs protected Israel from death in Egypt. The blood of Christ delivers from sin and death, and it establishes the new covenant that Jeremiah had promised, in which God forgives sin (Jeremiah 31:31–34). The yearly remembrance of a rescue from slavery gives way to a sacrifice offered once for all. Jesus himself had spoken of his flesh and blood as the food and drink of eternal life (John 6:53–56).

So the disciples’ question about where to eat the Passover leads to the night when the feast found its meaning. While they prepared a lamb, Jesus was preparing to be one. He who knew no sin was made sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21), and God’s love is shown in this, that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

This passage shows us a Lord who knew everything that was coming and went to it of his own will. He knew the house, the hour, the betrayer and the cross, and he still sat down to eat with all twelve. His death was the set time arriving, exactly as Scripture had said, and so our salvation rests on the purpose of God.

It also shows a Lord who has been betrayed by a friend at his own table. Anyone who has been wronged by someone close has a Saviour who knows that grief from the inside, and who saw the worst a trusted companion could do taken up into God’s purpose to save.

He knows each heart at his table now as fully as he knew those twelve. The eleven show us the fitting answer to being known like that, which is to ask him honestly about ourselves before we look at anyone else. Judas shows the danger of a respectful word that covers a heart already set against him.

And there is the quiet obedience of verse 19. Two words from Jesus were enough for the disciples to go and get a room ready, and God used that small errand for the supper at which his Son gave himself to his people. The gift at the centre of the passage is Christ himself, given so that whoever believes in him should have everlasting life (John 3:16).