Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
Over the brook Cedron - Having finished the prayer related in the preceding chapter, our Lord went straight to the garden of Gethsemane, Matthew 26:36, which was in the mount of Olives, eastward of Jerusalem. This mount was separated from the city by a very narrow valley, through the midst of which the brook Cedron ran: see 1 Maccabees 12:37; Joseph. War, b. v. c. 2, s. 3. xii. 2. Cedron is a very small rivulet, about six or seven feet broad, nor is it constantly supplied with water, being dry all the year, except during the rains. It is mentioned in the Old Testament: II Samuel 15:23; I Kings 15:13; II Kings 23:4. And it appears the evangelist only mentions it here to call to remembrance what happened to David, when he was driven from Jerusalem by his son Absalom, and he and his followers obliged to pass the brook Cedron on foot: see II Samuel 15:23. All this was a very expressive figure of what happened now to this second David, by the treachery of one of his own disciples. This brook had its name probably from Kadar , he was black; it being the place into which the blood of the sacrifices, and other filth of the city, ran. It was rather, says Lightfoot, the sink, or the common sewer, of the city, than a brook. Some copyists, mistaking for Greek, have changed into , and thus have written , of cedars, instead of , the brook of Cedron: but this last is undoubtedly the genuine reading.
A garden - Gethsemane: see on Matthew 26:36 (note).
The Jewish grandees had their gardens and pleasure grounds without the city even in the mount of Olives. This is still a common custom among the Asiatics.
St. John mentions nothing of the agony in the garden; probably because he found it so amply related by all the other evangelists. As that account should come in here, the reader is desired to consult the notes on Matthew 26:36-47 (note). See also Mark 14:30-36 (note), and Luke 22:40-44 (note).
Other commentary entries containing this verse:
2 Samuel 15:23
John 17:1
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