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Matthew 26 · a question people ask

"How then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that it must be so?" (26:54). Which Scriptures did Jesus mean?

In the text

Matthew doesn't say, and these notes name none. At his arrest Jesus said, "How then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that it must be so?" (26:54), and to the multitudes, "But all this has happened that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled" (26:56) (tap Scriptures). At the table he had said, "The Son of Man goes even as it is written of him" (26:24). In these three verses he names no passage and gives no words, and these notes supply no passage Matthew doesn't name. Mark's telling of the arrest has, "But this is so that the Scriptures might be fulfilled" (Mark 14:49), and Favor's Mark 14 names no passage there either.

The verses

“How then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that it must be so?” In that hour Jesus said to the multitudes, “Have you come out as against a robber with swords and clubs to seize me? I sat daily in the temple teaching, and you didn’t arrest me. But all this has happened that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.” Then all the disciples left him and fled.”
Matthew 26:54-56 · World English Bible
“The Son of Man goes even as it is written of him, but woe to that man through whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would be better for that man if he had not been born.””
Matthew 26:24 · World English Bible
“I was daily with you in the temple teaching, and you didn’t arrest me. But this is so that the Scriptures might be fulfilled.””
Mark 14:49 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Matthew 26

Matthew 26: Your desire be done

Matthew's own telling says Peter "denied it" twice (26:70, 26:72); three times is Jesus's word, the word Peter remembered (26:75). And of the four Gospels, only Matthew gives Jesus's words over the cup as "for the remission of sins" (26:28).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions