Now while they were going, behold, some of the guards came into the city and told the chief priests all the things that had happened.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 11. Some of the guards came into the city. It is probable they had retired a while to some place to consult what to say, and how to avoid being punished. The chief priests, after consulting upon the matter, ordered them to say, that when they were asleep, the disciples came and stole away Jesus’s body. This report was spread about every where. S. Augustin laughs at them for their blindness and folly, in bringing men in for witnesses of a fact, which they themselves own was done whilst they were asleep. Witham.—The poet, Sedulius, also is no less severe on these faithless guards:
Mentita est vox vana sibi; tamen ista figuram
Res habet egregiam, Judæis constat ademptum,
Quem nos devoto portamus pectore Christum.