Matthew 26:18

18. Go into the city The city of Jerusalem, for a paschal lamb could be eaten at no other place. The Jews of the present day do not eat the paschal lamb at their annual passover. They only celebrate the feast of unleavened bread, which, as we have before said, followed the passover.

To such a man This was a very indefinite direction; and perhaps Matthew only gives the substance of what Mark gives more explicitly. As they entered the city they would find a water carrier, whom they should follow and he would guide them to the householder, who would furnish them a room. Such a man A man I will not name. The man will occur by human accident; but free will and human accident all operate under the clear-seeing eye of God’s foreknowledge. God clearly sees what man will freely do. As God sees how man will freely do, so he does most wisely adjust his plans. So God carries out his vast projects by taking and interweaving man’s free acts into his complex plans.

This direction very much resembles the sending the disciples to find in a miraculous manner the beast on which he should ride into Jerusalem, as well as the miracle of finding the coin in the fish’s mouth. For even if we suppose, with some commentators, that our Lord had intimated beforehand to some wealthy friend, as Joseph or Nicodemus, that he would take the last passover upon earth at his house, still, finding the pitcher-bearer was a supernatural contingency. The reason of such proceedings on the part of our Lord, which some commentators are so puzzled to find, is clearly to manifest to all around that he foresees all the events and sufferings before him. That is, he marches forward in a foreseen path of duty, and his sufferings are undergone in a perfectly voluntary manner. John 10:18.

The Master saith The word master is correlative to the word disciple; and thus it is clearly implied that the householder is a follower of Jesus. Indeed, when we recollect that the rulers were afraid of the multitudes, as being adherents of Jesus, we may reasonably infer that the number of those who would call him “Master” was not few. My time is at hand My time of suffering, previous to which I have promised to eat the paschal lamb at your house. And this language clearly implies that the man was our Lord’s disciple, that he clearly understood what was meant by the phrase “my time,” and that he was fully ready to appreciate the honour of furnishing the room for our Lord’s use. During passover week the houses of Jerusalem were hospitably open to the comers from the different parts of Palestine to celebrate the passover.