Pilate said unto them, You have guards: go your way, make it as sure as you can.
Read Chapter 27
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
Pilate said unto them, Ye have a watch (i.e, the soldiers assigned you for His crucifixion; use them now to guard Him in the grave).
Go your way, make it as sure as ye can. Guard Him as ye know how (Vulg.), i.e, in the best way ye know. I leave to your skill and prudence the mode of doing it. I do not wish to interfere any more in this matter. "As if taught by experience," says S. Chrysostom, "he does not wish to act with them any further."
Some take the word (Îχετε) imperatively, Take ye, summon ye the guard. But it is more forcible to consider it in the indicative mood, "Ye have," &c. (So Vulg, Arab, and A. V.)
You have a guard; supposed to be a company of Roman soldiers, destined for the guard of the temple: (Bible de Vence) or, may take a guard; go, and make it secure; which they did, sealing the stone, and placing guards at the monument. Providence ordered this, to make Christ's resurrection more certain and evident. (Witham)
What then says Pilate? You have a watch; make it as sure as you can. And they made it sure, sealing the sepulchre, and setting the watch. He suffers not the soldiers alone to seal, for as having learned the things concerning Christ, he was no longer willing to co-operate with them. But in order to be rid of them, he endures this also, and says, Do ye seal it as you will, that you may not have it in your power to blame others. For if the soldiers only had sealed, they might have said (although the saying would have been improbable and false, yet nevertheless as in the rest they cast aside shame, so in this too they might have been able to say), that the soldiers, having given up the body to be stolen, gave His disciples opportunity to feign the history concerning His resurrection, but now having themselves made it sure, they are not able to say so much as this.
Do you see how they labor for the truth against their will? For they themselves came to Pilate, themselves asked, themselves...
