Matthew 27:51

‘And the earth quaked, and the rocks were torn asunder,’

Not only was the veil torn in two but ‘the earth quaked and the rocks were torn asunder’. The heavenly veil was torn in half, the earthly rocks were ‘rent asunder’. Creation itself was bearing witness to what had happened to God’s Son. This might indicate that the rendings were intended to indicate strong reaction on the part of God, similar to the rending of garments, or that God was acting to reveal His anger at what had been man’s response to His Son. This would tie in with 2 Samuel 22:7-8 (also Psalms 18:6-7), ‘in my distress I called on YHWH, I called to my God. From His Temple He heard my voice, and my cry came to His ears. Then the earth reeled and rocked, the foundations of the Heaven trembled and quaked because He was angry.’ When we consider that behind these words is also the idea of a kind of resurrection, ‘the cords of Sheol were round about me, the snares of death came on me -- He sent from on high and took me, He raised me from many waters -- He brought me forth also into a large place, He delivered me because He delighted in me’ ( 2Sa 22:6 ; 2 Samuel 22:17; 2 Samuel 22:20), and that the Psalm ends with, ‘great deliverance gives He to His king, and shows loving kindness to His Anointed One (Messiah), to David and to his seed for evermore’ (Matthew 27:51), the application is clear. The fact that the Psalm is repeated twice in Scripture confirms its importance.

It is thus tempting from this Psalm to combine the three incidents. YHWH hears the voice of His Son, tears aside the curtain in the Holy of Holies, (or at the door of His Sanctuary), comes out in His anger and causes the earth to reel and the rocks to be rent asunder (compare Nahum 1:6), and then from the opened tombs brings forth resurrected saints as witnesses to His Son and as the firstfruits of what He has accomplished. As in the days of Ezekiel the Temple is no longer to be seen as His Dwellingplace, nor Jerusalem as a fit place for the bodies of His ‘holy ones’. (Many Jews made great efforts to be buried near Jerusalem).

However, previously the High Priest had torn His garment at what he considered to be the blasphemy of Jesus, so we might see here that God has rent in half the veil in the Temple and torn asunder the rocks on the ground in order to indicate how He felt about the blasphemy committed on His Son. On top of this, the rending of the rocks is probably also to be seen as preparatory to what follows in the opening of the tombs.