Matthew 27:35 meaning

The parallel gospel accounts of Matthew 27:35 are found in Mark 15:24-25, Luke 23:34, John 19:23-25.

Matthew’s account of Jesus’s crucifixion primarily includes statements and events that were fulfillments of Messianic prophecies and/or were unusual events that demonstrate how Jesus was the Son of God. One of Matthew’s main purposes for writing his Gospel was to prove to the Jews how Jesus was their Messiah.

The next thing Matthew includes in his account of Jesus’s crucifixion is another fulfillment of Messianic prophecy.

And when they had crucified Him, they divided up His garments among themselves by casting lots (v 35).

This action was in fulfillment of a prophecy from Psalm 22,

“They divide my garments among them,
             And for my clothing they cast lots.”
            (Psalm 22:18)

The Roman detachment assigned to oversee the execution was entitled to keep any clothing that belonged to the man they were crucifying. The fact that they divided His garments fits with Rome’s customary practice of crucifying their victims naked. Most artistic depictions of Jesus on the cross are historically misleading in their modesty.

John’s Gospel account quotes Psalm 22, explicitly states that the soldiers’ casting of lots to divide His garments among themselves was a prophetic fulfillment (John 19:23-25b). The likely reason Matthew’s Gospel does not quote Psalm 22 or explicitly state that the soldiers’ actions was a fulfillment of prophecy is because both the verse and its fulfillment would have been obvious to his Jewish readers without Matthew interjecting to point these things out to them.

The they in Matthew 27:35 refers to the Roman soldiers who crucified Jesus.

The typical 1^st century Jew wore six articles of clothing:

• Head Covering
• Outer Robe
• Sleaved Tunic
• Belt
• Sandals
• Undergarment

Click here to see an artist's rendition

John, who was an eyewitness to Jesus’s crucifixion, explained how the Roman detachment who executed Jesus fulfilled Psalm 22:18 to the letter,

“Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His outer garments and made four parts, a part to every soldier” (John 19:23a).

According to John, four soldiers were assigned to crucify Jesus and the two robbers. These four soldiers divided among themselves Jesus’s outer garments (i.e. His head covering, outer robe, belt, and sandals) with each taking one article for himself. The soldiers probably discarded Jesus’s under garments.

The soldiers’ divvying up Jesus’s clothing among themselves fulfilled the first prophecy in Psalm 22:18:

“They divide my garments among them”
             (Psalm 22:18a).

Next John describes Jesus’s final article of clothing—His tunic—“now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece” (John 19:23b).

A Jewish man’s tunic was his largest article of clothing. Apparently, Roman soldiers would sometimes tear and divide the tunic of the convict they were crucifying into pieces among themselves—with each getting a piece of the material. Cloth was a valuable commodity in the ancient world.

However, it seems that Jesus’s tunic was particularly fine and valuable. This expensive article of clothing may have been provided to Jesus by the wealthy women who were contributing to His ministry (Luke 8:2-3). When the Romans considered what to do with Jesus’s tunic, they decided it would have been a waste to tear and divide it.

“So they said to one another, ‘Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, to decide whose it shall be.’”
(John 19:24a)

The soldiers cast lots, that is they played a game of chance (such as rolling dice), to see which of the four of themselves would get to keep Jesus’s tunic. John then recorded: “the soldiers did these things” (John 19:25a).

The casting of lots for Jesus’s tunic fulfilled the second prophecy in Psalm 22:18:

“And for my clothing they cast lots”
             (Psalm 22:18b).

Matthew wrote that the Roman soldiers divided up His garments among themselves and were casting lots when they had crucified Him. That is, they cast lots and begun to divide His garments among themselves once they had already nailed Jesus’s hands and feet and raised His cross. The main physical labor of their work done, they were now able to divide the spoils as they began to guard Jesus and the other two prisoners who were crucified with Him (Matthew 27:38).

When Matthew wrote And when they crucified Him it is the closest he comes to detailing what physically happened to Jesus before He yielded up His spirit (Matthew 27:50). Matthew used similar expressions such as “he handed Him over to be crucified” (Matthew 27:26) and “two robbers were crucified with Him” (Matthew 27:38—see also Matthew 27:44).

Similarly, Mark, Luke, and John simply state in various ways that Jesus was “crucified” (Mark 15:15, 24, 25, 27, 32, Luke 23:23, 33, John 19:16, 18, 20, 23, 32) or “hanged” (Luke 23:39). All four Gospel writers basically avoid describing the brutality of the cross and/or the excruciating details of Jesus’s physical suffering. Aside from John quoting Jesus saying, “I am thirsty” (John 19:28), any details describing Jesus’s physical agony on the cross is indirectly stated or was silently inferred by the Gospels’ writers.

The probable reason the bloodiness of the cross is not explicitly described in the Gospels is because their 1^st century audience would have been familiar with the horrific brutality of crucifixion, making its description unnecessary. Simply stating that Jesus was crucified was enough.

To learn more about Roman crucifixion, see The Bible Says article: “Bearing the Cross: Exploring the Unimaginable Suffering of Crucifixion.”