THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW - Chapter 27 - Verse 44

Verse 44. The thieves also. The robbers, or highwaymen. Luke says Lu 23:39 that one of them aid it, and that the other reproved him and was penitent. The account in Luke may, however, easily be reconciled with that in Matthew, by supposing that, at first, both of them reviled the Saviour, and that it is of this fact that Matthew speaks. Afterwards one of them relented, and became penitent— perhaps from witnessing the patient sufferings of Christ. It is of this particularly that Luke speaks. Or it may be, that what is true of one of the malefactors, is by Matthew attributed to both. The evangelists, when for the sake of brevity they avoid particularizing, often attribute to many what is said or done by single persons, meaning no more than that it was done by some one or more of them, without specifying the one. Compare Mr 7:17, with Mt 15:15; Mr 5:31, with Lu 8:45; Lu 9:13, with Joh 6:8,9.

Cast the same in his teeth. This is a most unhappy translation. It means in the original, simply, they upbraided him, or reproached him in the same manner.