Matthew 26:56

But all this is come to pass that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples left him, and fled.

The Lord here mentioned a fact known perfectly to him but utterly unknown to the evil multitude participating in his arrest, and that was the fact that all of them were positively engaged at the very moment in the fulfillment of prophecy concerning Christ. That fact is reiterated throughout Matthew. Note that it was usually the enemies of Christ who fulfilled the sacred and prophetic Scriptures regarding Christ. Carlin noted that:

Those wicked men were ignorantly working out the eternal purpose of God. They were guilty, all of them, more or less; but their will was free. But yet, in the mystery and divine foreknowledge and the overruling providence of God, which is so infinitely above our reach, they were bringing to pass the utterances of God through the prophets. The scriptures must be fulfilled.[22]

Why was it at that particular time that the disciples forsook him and fled? "THEN all the disciples left him, and fled." Why THEN, at that particular time? It could have been what certainly must have appeared to the disciples as the most impractical way in which Christ met the crisis and challenge of that hour. He had rejected any fighting. Instead, he directed an appeal to the multitude which, under the circumstances, had no more chance than a snowball in a furnace. The Jerusalem rabble was as irresponsible as the Parisian mob during the Terror, and the disciples knew it. Christ also knew it; but his words were directed, not to the moment, but to the centuries. It was important for all generations to know of the dastardly conduct of the plotters against the Saviour and of the wretched mob that arrested him. Christ's apostles were not yet children of the ages, but only of the hour; therefore, they acted upon the hour's impulse, and fled.