Now is my soul troubled - The mention of his death brought before him its approaching horrors, its pains, its darkness, its unparalleled woes. Jesus was full of acute sensibility, and his human nature shrunk from the scenes through which he was to pass. See Luke 23:41-44.

What shall I say? - This is an expression denoting intense anxiety and perplexity. As if it were a subject of debate whether he could bear those sufferings; or whether the work of man's redemption should be abandoned, and he should call upon God to save him. Blessed be his name that he was willing to endure these sorrows, and did not forsake man when he was so near being redeemed! On the decision of that moment - the fixed and unwavering purpose of the Son of God depended man's salvation. If Jesus had forsaken his purpose then, all would have been lost.

Father, save me - This ought undoubtedly to have been read as a question - "Shall I say, Father, save me?" Shall I apply to God to rescue me? or shall I go forward to bear these trials? As it is in our translation, it represents him as actually offering the prayer, and then checking himself. The Greek will bear either interpretation. The whole verse is full of deep feeling and anxiety. Compare Matthew 26:38; Luke 12:50.

This hour - These calamities. The word "hour," here, doubtless has reference to his approaching sufferings the appointed hour for him to suffer. Shall I ask my Father to save me from this hour - that is, from these approaching sufferings? That it might have been done, see Matthew 26:53.

But for this cause - That is, to suffer and die. As this was the design of his coming as he did it deliberately - -as the salvation of the world depended on it, he felt that it would not be proper to pray to be delivered from it. He came to suffer, and he submitted to it. See Luke 23:42.

Now is my soul troubled - Our blessed Lord took upon him our weaknesses, that he might sanctify them to us. As a man he was troubled at the prospect of a violent death. Nature abhors death: God has implanted that abhorrence in nature, that it might become a principle of self preservation; and it is to this that we owe all that prudence and caution by which we avoid danger. When we see Jesus working miracles which demonstrate his omnipotence, we should be led to conclude that he was not man were it not for such passages as these. The reader must ever remember that it was essentially necessary that he should be man; for, without being such, he could hot have died for the sin of the world.

And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour - Και τι ειπω; πατερ, σωσον με εκ της ὡρας ταυτης· which may be paraphrased thus: And why should I say, Father, save me from this hour? when for this cause I am come to this hour. The common version makes our blessed Lord contradict himself here, by not attending to the proper punctuation of the passage, and by translating the particle τι what, instead of why or how. The sense of our Lord's words is this: "When a man feels a fear of a sudden or violent death, it is natural to him to cry out, Father, save me from this death! for he hopes that the glory of God and his welfare may be accomplished some other way, less dreadful to his nature: but why should I say so, seeing for this very purpose, that I might die this violent death for the sins of mankind, I am come into the world, and have almost arrived at the hour of my crucifixion."

Now is my soul troubled,.... At the hardness and unbelief of the Jews, and the rejection of them, when the Gentiles would be called, and converted, by which he would be glorified: and at the conduct and carriage of his disciples to him, he had a foreknowledge of; at the betraying of him by one, and the denial of him by another, and the flight of them all from him; and at the devil, and the furious and violent attack he knew he would make upon him, though he had obliged him to leave him, when he assaulted him before, and knew he could find nothing in him now, and that as God, he was able to destroy him; but this was to be done by him, as man, and by lying too: he was in his human soul troubled at the thoughts of his death, though it was his Father's will, and he had agreed to it, and was for the salvation of his people, his heart was so much set upon; yet it was terrible to the human nature, and especially as attended with the wrath of God; at the apprehensions of which, his soul was exceedingly troubled; not as about to fall on him on his own personal account, but as being the surety of his people, and as having their sins upon him to satisfy angry and injured justice for:

and what shall I say? this question he puts, as being in the utmost distress, and difficulty, as if he knew not what to say; and yet not as advising with his disciples, what was to be said or done in his case; but is rather used to introduce another question, as the following words may be formed: shall I say,

father, save me from this hour? as requesting his Father, that he might be strengthened under his sufferings and death, and carried through them, and out of them; or rather as deprecating them, desiring the cup might pass from him, as he afterwards did; and then the sense is, shall I put up such a petition to my Father, to save me from sorrows, sufferings, and death? no, I will not: the human nature through frailty might prompt him to it, and he be just going to do it, when he corrects himself, saying;

but for this cause came I unto this hour: this hour or time of sorrow and suffering was appointed for him; it was fixed in the covenant of grace, and Christ had agreed to it; he was sent into this world, and he came into it, on account of this hour; and was preserved hitherto for this purpose; and was now come to Jerusalem, and was there at this instant, for that very reason, namely, to suffer and die. And since this was the case, he would not put up such a petition to his Father, but the following one.

My soul

See reff. on John 12:25. The soul, ψυχή, is the seat of the human affections; the spirit (πνεῦμα) of the religious affections.

Is troubled (τετάρακται)

The perfect tense; has been disturbed and remains troubled. The same verb as in John 11:33. Notice that there it is said. He groaned in the spirit (τῷ πνεύματι). His inward agitation did not arise from personal sorrow or sympathy, but from some shock to His moral and spiritual sense.

What shall Isay?

A natural expression out of the depths of our Lord's humanity. How shall I express my emotion? Some commentators connect this with the following clause, shall I say, Father, save me, etc. But this does not agree with the context, and represents a hesitation in the mind of Jesus which found no place there.

Save me

The shrinking from suffering belongs to the human personality of our Lord (compare Matthew 26:39); but the prayer, save me from this hour, is not for deliverance from suffering, but for victory in the approaching trial. See Hebrews 5:7. The expression is very vivid. "Save me out of this hour."

For this cause

Explained by glorify thy name. For this use, namely, that the Father's name might be glorified.

{6} Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this {c} hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.

(6) While Christ went about to suffer all the punishment which is due to our sins, and while his divinity did not yet show his might and power so that the satisfaction might be fully accomplished, he is stricken with the great fear of the curse of God, and so he cries and prays, and desires to be released: yet nonetheless he prefers the will and glory of his Father before all things, and his Father allows this obedience even from heaven.

(c) That is, of death which is now at hand.

12:27 Now is my soul troubled. It is the shadow of the cross and the tomb. The best comment on this verse is to compare it with the account of the agony in the garden. Here he exclaims:

Father, save me from this hour. There, If it be possible, let this cup pass from me (Mt 26:39). Here, he adds:

But for this cause came I unto this hour. There, Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done (Lu 22:42). Here the perfect resignation that follows the struggle in his soul is in the prayer, Father, glorify thy name (Joh 12:28).

12:27 Now is my soul troubled - He had various foretastes of his passion. And what shall I say? - Not what shall I choose? For his heart was fixed in choosing the will of his Father: but he laboured for utterance. The two following clauses, Save me from this hour - For this cause I came - Into the world; for the sake of this hour (of suffering) seem to have glanced through his mind in one moment. But human language could not so express it.

27, 28. Now is my soul troubled-He means at the prospect of His death, just alluded to. Strange view of the Cross this, immediately after representing it as the hour of His glory! (Joh 12:23). But the two views naturally meet, and blend into one. It was the Greeks, one might say, that troubled Him. Ah! they shall see Jesus, but to Him it shall be a costly sight.

and what shall I say?-He is in a strait betwixt two. The death of the cross was, and could not but be, appalling to His spirit. But to shrink from absolute subjection to the Father, was worse still. In asking Himself, "What shall I say?" He seems as if thinking aloud, feeling His way between two dread alternatives, looking both of them sternly in the face, measuring, weighing them, in order that the choice actually made might be seen, and even by himself the more vividly felt, to be a profound, deliberate, spontaneous election.

Father, save me from this hour-To take this as a question-"Shall I say, Father, save me," &c.-as some eminent editors and interpreters do, is unnatural and jejune. It is a real petition, like that in Gethsemane, "Let this cup pass from Me"; only whereas there He prefaces the prayer with an "If it be possible," here He follows it up with what is tantamount to that-"Nevertheless for this cause came I unto this hour." The sentiment conveyed, then, by the prayer, in both cases, is twofold: (1) that only one thing could reconcile Him to the death of the cross-its being His Father's will He should endure it-and (2) that in this view of it He yielded Himself freely to it. What He recoils from is not subjection to His Father's will: but to show how tremendous a self-sacrifice that obedience involved, He first asks the Father to save Him from it, and then signifies how perfectly He knows that He is there for the very purpose of enduring it. Only by letting these mysterious words speak their full meaning do they become intelligible and consistent. As for those who see no bitter elements in the death of Christ-nothing beyond mere dying-what can they make of such a scene? and when they place it over against the feelings with which thousands of His adoring followers have welcomed death for His sake, how can they hold Him up to the admiration of men?

12:27-33 The sin of our souls was the troubled of Christ's soul, when he undertook to redeem and save us, and to make his soul an offering for our sin. Christ was willing to suffer, yet prayed to be saved from suffering. Prayer against trouble may well agree with patience under it, and submission to the will of God in it. Our Lord Jesus undertook to satisfy God's injured honour, and he did it by humbling himself. The voice of the Father from heaven, which had declared him to be his beloved Son, at his baptism, and when he was transfigured, was heard proclaiming that He had both glorified his name, and would glorify it. Christ, reconciling the world to God by the merit of his death, broke the power of death, and cast out Satan as a destroyer. Christ, bringing the world to God by the doctrine of his cross, broke the power of sin, and cast out Satan as a deceiver. The soul that was at a distance from Christ, is brought to love him and trust him. Jesus was now going to heaven, and he would draw men's hearts to him thither. There is power in the death of Christ to draw souls to him. We have heard from the gospel that which exalts free grace, and we have heard also that which enjoins duty; we must from the heart embrace both, and not separate them.