And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.
| Word | Greek | Strong’s | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| And | δὲ de | G1161 | but · conjunction |
| for | ἀπὸ apo | G575 | "off · preposition |
| fear | φόβου phobou | G5401 | alarm or fright · noun — genitive singular masculine |
| him | αὐτοῦ autou | G846 | the reflexive pronoun self · personal pronoun — genitive singular masculine |
| keepers | τηροῦντες tērountes | G5083 | perhaps akin to G2334 (θεωρέω)) · verb — present active participle, nominative plural masculine |
| shake | ἐσείσθησαν eseisthēsan | G4579 | to rock (vibrate · verb — aorist passive indicative, 3rd person plural |
| and | καὶ kai | G2532 | and · conjunction |
| became | ἐγενήθησαν egenēthēsan | G1096 | to cause to be ("gen"-erate) · verb — second aorist passive deponent indicative, 3rd person plural |
| as | ὡσεί hōseí | G5616 | as if |
| dead | νεκροί.¶ nekroi | G3498 | dead (literally or figuratively · adjective — nominative plural masculine |
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men--Is the sepulchre "sure" now, O ye chief priests? He that sitteth in the heavens doth laugh at you.
And for fear of him the keepers did shake,.... Though they were soldiers, Roman soldiers and veterans, who had been used to terrible sights in the field of battle; were men of courage, and fearless of danger; and yet were seized with a panic, and every limb of them shook and trembled at the sight of the angel, for fear he was come as an executioner of divine vengeance upon them; who had been concerned in the crucifixion of Christ, had watched him as he hung upon the cross, and now his body in the sepulchre: and even supposing no consciousness of guilt in them, or dread of punishment from him; yet such was the glory and majesty in which he appeared, of which they had never seen the like befor…
Read the whole note in the consoleMatthew 28:1-7 Matthew 28:1-7 Mark 16:1-7 Luke 24:1-8 1. Now in the evening of the Sabbaths, [298] which began to dawn towards the first of the Sabbaths, came Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, to see the sepulcher. 2. And lo, there was a great earthquake; for the angel of the Lord came down from heaven, and approached, and rolled away the stone from the door, and sat upon it. 3. And his countenance was like lightning, and his raiment was white as snow. 4. And through fear of him the guards trembled, and became as dead men. 5. But the angel answering, said to the women, Fear not; for I know that you seek Jesus, who was crucified. 6. He is not here; for he is risen, as he said. Come, see…
Read the whole note in the consoleThe discovery of the empty tomb and the various resurrection appearances are presented with different emphases in each of the four Gospels. Matthew focuses on the reunion in Galilee, the attempt on the part of the Jewish leaders to discredit the resurrection, and the significance of the resurrection for the salvation of the world. 28:1 Mary Magdalene (see 27:56): The mention of two women as witnesses lends credibility to the historicity of the account—an inventor of tales would not have used women as witnesses, since a woman’s testimony was considered less reliable than a man’s.
These who had not the faith of love were shaken with a panic fear; and they who would not believe the truth of the resurrection become themselves as dead men.
(Serm. 75.) For they kept watch over Him with a purpose of cruelty, not with the solicitude of affection. And no man can stand who is forsaken by his own conscience, or troubled with a sense of guilt. Hence the Angel confounds the wicked, and comforts the good.
The guards lay like dead men in a trance of terror, but the Angel speaks comfort not to them, but to the women, saying, Fear not ye; as much as to say, Let them fear with whom unbelief abides; but do ye who seek the crucified Jesus hear that He has risen again, and has accomplished what He promised.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Henry, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, Clarke, Gill, Calvin and Keil & Delitzsch are in the public domain; Tyndale Open Study Notes © Tyndale House Publishers, CC BY-SA 4.0 — all from the Free Use Bible API (bible.helloao.org). Rashi: the Rosenbaum & Silbermann Pentateuch (public domain) and the Judaica Press and Metsudah Tanakh (CC BY), via Sefaria. Spurgeon's Treasury of David: public domain (lyteword's markdown edition, CC0).
