Mark 14.42-52: Jesus’s arrest.

“Look, the one who’s turning me in is coming.” And just as Jesus was speaking, Judah of Kerioth approached the Twelve. With him was a crowd carrying machetes and sticks, with the head priests, scribes, and elders.

The one who turned Jesus in had given them a signal, saying, “Whoever I greet as a friend, is he. Grab him and take him away. No mistakes.” Immediately going to Jesus, he said to him, “Rabbi!” and kissed him hello; so they grabbed and arrested him.

One of the bystanders, pulling out a machete, struck the head priest’s slave, and cut off his ear.

In reply, Jesus told them, “You come out with machetes and sticks to snatch me away, like I’m an insurgent. Daytime, I was with you in the temple, teaching. You didn’t arrest me then. But this—it’ll fulfill the scriptures.”

Abandoning Jesus, everyone fled. There was some teenager following him who was naked, wearing a toga. They arrested him, but he abandoned his toga and fled naked.

—

Judah bar Simon of Kerioth, whom we know as Judas Iscariot, had earlier conspired with the Judean leaders to help them arrest Jesus of Nazareth. Here, he led a mob to Gethsemane to arrest his rabbi—right after he greeted him, and kissed him hello. That was their signal—he didn’t intend to greet anyone else that way. Nor, he probably figured, would anyone greet him that way either. Which says all kinds of things about Judah.

The mob.

I’ve heard people object to the idea that the head priests, scribes, and elders were among the mob, as Mark describes. They figured such important people wouldn’t wish to get their hands dirty. They don’t realize these folks had a reputation as thugs: They got their hands dirty all the time.

[Ananias] also had servants who were very wicked, who joined themselves to the boldest sort of the people, and went to the thrashing-floors, and took away the tithes that belonged to the priests by violence, and did not refrain from beating such as would not give these tithes to them. So the other high priests acted in the like manner, as did those his servants, without any one being able to prohibit them; so that [some of the] priests, that of old were wont to be supported with those tithes, died for want of food.

—Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 20.9.2.

This wasn’t a group of people whom the head priests had gathered together for the sole purpose of capturing Jesus. This was their usual group of lowlifes. And Jesus wasn’t the only person they’d ever arrested or beaten or done away with.

You have to remember Judea was no democracy: It was occupied by the army of a foreign king, and the head priests were collaborators who were willing to do anything to stay in power. And so long that the Romans kept them in power, they were okay with abusing that power. The “tithes of the priests” Josephus referred to in the quote above, didn’t belong to the head priests; they belonged to the common priests. That’s right: The head priests were stealing from their subordinates, and letting them starve. That’s the kind of people they were.

So you can see why people were so eager for Messiah to overthrow these priests—and why the head priests were so eager to put down any would-be Messiah who cropped up.

Slashing the slave.

The mob grabbed Jesus. Then somebody, whom Mark identified as a bystander, decided to pull out a mákhaira/“machete,” a long work-knife. He slashed at the mob with it, cutting off the ear of one of the head priest’s slaves. John identifies this slave’s name as Malchus—and the name of the knife-wielder as Simon Peter.

Now, tradition has it that Mark was written by John Mark, whose source for a lot of this information was Peter himself. If true, it’s interesting that Peter didn’t admit he was the guy with the knife. After all, he was willing to admit to all sorts of other dumb behavior. But then again, tradition doesn’t say Peter wrote this gospel; Mark did, and likely tapped more than one source. Maybe multiple guys were claiming they did it, so Mark left the name out. Maybe more than one guy pulled a machete, and in the melée they weren’t sure who cut whom.

Regardless, in the other gospels Jesus put a stop to it—by healing Malchus and rebuking his would-be defenders. In Mark, Jesus only commented how there was no reason they couldn’t arrest him in the daylight… but then again, this fulfilled prophecy.

Which prophecy?

Funny thing: Neither Mark nor Matthew, the gospels which quote Jesus as saying, “But this—it’ll fulfill the scriptures,” refer to any specific prophecy which was fulfilled by this nighttime arrest. Was there one?

No. Nothing about Messiah getting arrested at night, in secret, by a mob. None of those specifics.

Hence most Christians figure Jesus was speaking generally about his arrest and trial and execution. Not about the specifics. It was prophesied Messiah would suffer many things. However it started—with a public arrest in the middle of the temple, or a secret arrest in a garden at night—his suffering began, just as the scriptures foretold. That’s what Jesus meant.

And, just as Jesus foretold, his students bailed on him. Even though they swore they wouldn’t. But Jesus was fine with that: He wanted them to get away. He alone intended to go through what was next. Not them. Nor us.

One of the escaping followers was almost arrested, but apparently he ran away naked. And there’s been a lot of odd speculation about this guy, partly because Mark is the only gospel he’s in—Matthew and Luke didn’t bother to include this story. Tradition claims this was John Mark himself, inserting himself into his gospel. While that’s an interesting idea, I don’t know what basis there is for saying so. Or, for that matter, why he was wearing nothing but a toga in the middle of the night. In real life, odd things happen, sometimes without meaning, and they help make a story sound more authentic because we know that’s just how life works. Maybe that’s why Mark included it. Oh well.