Matthew 26:36

§ 131. THE AGONIES OF GETHSEMANE, Matthew 26:36-46 .

36. Unto a place called Gethsemane Supposing the last paragraph to be out of the order of time, we must connect this verse to Matthew 26:30. We suppose the supper-room to have been situated somewhere upon the eastern brow of Mount Zion. (See note on Mark 14:13.) From the supper-room we must trace our Lord going forth over the “great bridge” of the Tyropoeon; passing through the temple precincts, and through the great front temple gate, (or perhaps through what was equivalent to the present St. Stephen’s gate;) descending the valley of Jehoshaphat; crossing the brook Kedron, (about where its dry channel is now spanned by a small bridge of a single arch,) and walking, followed by the eleven, toward the ascent of Olivet. In a level space between the Kedron and the foot of the hill is a yard or garden, which, from the ancient olive trees there, is called Gethsemane, or the press of oil. There is still at the base of the Mount of Olives a secure enclosure, signalized by several most venerable olive trees, surrounded by a stone wall to designate the spot. Stanley says: “In spite of all the doubts that can be raised against their antiquity or the genuineness of their site, the eight aged olive trees, if only by their manifest difference from all others on the mountain, have always struck even the most indifferent observers. They will remain, so long as their already protracted life is spared, the most venerable of their race on the surface of the earth; their gnarled trunks and scanty foliage will always be regarded as the most affecting of the sacred memorials in or about Jerusalem, the most nearly approaching to the everlasting hills themselves in the force with which they carry us back to the events of the Gospel history.” Captain Lynch says that these olives are one thousand years old; and as the olive tree reproduces from the same root, these trees are the radical descendants from the same germ as those of our Saviour’s time. By the word place is generally understood a villa or cluster of houses, to which the garden was an appendage.