Mark 15:35 When some of the bystanders heard it, they began saying, “Behold, He is calling for Elijah.” 36 Someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed, and gave Him a drink, saying, “ Let us see whether Elijah will come to take Him down.”

When some of the bystanders hear Jesus cry out with a loud voice, “ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?” which is translated, “MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?” (Mark 15:34), what do they begin saying?

“…Behold, He is calling for Elijah” (Mark 15:35).

·      “The idea that Jesus had uttered the name of Elijah would be a more natural mistake if Jesus used the form ’Elwΐ, but even the latter (representing Aramaic ʾ^elāhî) uttered in an agonized shout could perhaps have been heard as the prophet’s name. The mistake, if indeed we are to read it as a mistake rather than a malicious twisting of what they had heard, is the more natural in view of the growing belief in an eschatological return of Elijah to ‘restore all things’…which in some later Jewish piety included the hope that he might appear from heaven to help in times of need.”

R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: a Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 2002), 654.

What does someone do?

“Someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed, and gave Him a drink…” (Mark 15:36).

·      ὄξους (oxous) “sour wine, wine vinegar, it relieved thirst more effectively than water and, being cheaper than regular wine, it was a favorite beverage of the lower ranks of society and of those in moderate circumstances” (BDAG, 715).

·      What does David prophesy in Psalm 69:21?

“They also gave me gall for my food and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink” (Psalm 69:21).

What does someone say?

“… ‘Let us see whether Elijah will come to take Him down’” (Mark 15:36).

·      “Ironically the Jews waited to see whether Elijah would come to help Jesus when Elijah in the form of John the Baptist had already come to ‘help’ him, first by heralding Jesus’ coming (1:1-8) and second by dying at the hands of his own enemies (6:14-29; 9:11-13), thus providing a preview of Jesus’ death.”

James Brooks, Mark, Vol. 23, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1991), 262.

Father,

You are our rock and our deliverer. You never leave or forsake Your children. Jesus gave His life as a sin offering on our behalf, and by Your power, You raised Him from the dead and exalted Him to sit at Your right hand until You make His enemies a footstool for His feet. Jesus now gives to His believers living water to drink. Everyone who drinks of the water that He gives shall never thirst, but the water that Jesus gives becomes in us a well of water springing up to eternal life. All who believe in Jesus, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’ Glory and thanks to You through Jesus for the gift of life-bearing, living water. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.