Verse 46
And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? and some of them that stood there, when they heard it, said, This man calleth Elijah. And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink.
The inconsistency in supposing that Elijah's Lord would call upon him for aid only indicates the utter failure of the Pharisees to see in Christ the true Son of God. They were aware, of course, of Jesus' claim to be the Son of God (see Matthew 27:40,43), but they rejected it out of hand. Incidentally, their quotation of Jesus' claim, as witnessed in Matthew 27:40 and Matthew 27:43, shows conclusively that Christ made that claim in its highest, that is, its supernatural sense. The "Son of God," as Jesus claimed to be, was thought by the Pharisees to be capable of coming down from the cross, and in that they were right. He was capable of it, but it was not his will to do so. Note too that even at that late hour the Pharisees still did not know that John the Baptist was "that Elijah which was to come."
On Christ's receiving the vinegar, see under Matthew 27:34. In this instance it must be viewed as an act of mercy, prompted by his saying, "I thirst."
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