(32) After I am risen.--Our Lord referred to these His words afterwards (Matthew 28:16), but they appear to have fallen at the time unheeded on the ears of the disciples, and to have been rapidly forgotten. No expectation of a resurrection is traceable in their after conduct.
Verse 32. - After I am risen again. He comforts his followers now, as always, with the announcement that after his Passion and death he would rise again and meet them. So in the prophet's words succeeding the quotation there is a similar encouragement, "I will turn mine hand upon the little ones;" i.e. I will cover and protect the humble and meek, even after they fled and were scattered. I will go before you (προάξω ὑμᾶς) into Galilee (Matthew 28:7). The verb is of pastoral signification, as in the East the shepherd does not drive his sheep, but leads them (John 10:4). The apostles, or many of them, after the Resurrection, returned to their old homes in Galilee, but Christ preceded them, and they found him there before them (Mark 16:7; John 21; Acts 1:3; 1 Corinthians 15:6). He again gathered around him his little flock lately scattered. True, he had then already appeared to them at Jerusalem more than once; but this was, as it were, fortuitously and unexpectedly. The meeting in Galilee was by appointment, and of most solemn import, Christ then reuniting the apostolic body, and renewing the apostolic commission (Matthew 28:18-20).
26:31-35 Improper self-confidence, like that of Peter, is the first step to a fall. There is a proneness in all of us to be over-confident. But those fall soonest and foulest, who are the most confident in themselves. Those are least safe, who think themselves most secure. Satan is active to lead such astray; they are most off their guard: God leaves them to themselves, to humble them.
But after I am risen again,.... This he says for their comfort, that though he, their shepherd, should be apprehended, condemned, and crucified, should be smitten with death, and be laid in the grave, yet he should rise again; and though they should be scattered abroad, yet should be gathered together again by him, their good shepherd; who would after his resurrection, appear to them, be at the head of them, and go before them, as a shepherd goes before his sheep: for it follows,
I will go before you into Galilee; the native place of most, if not all of them. This the women that came to the sepulchre after Christ's resurrection, were bid, both by the angel, and Christ himself, to remind the disciples of, and ordered them to go into Galilee, where they might expect to see him: accordingly they did go thither, and saw and worshipped him; see Matthew 28:7.
I will go before you into Galilee; the native place of most, if not all of them. This the women that came to the sepulchre after Christ's resurrection, were bid, both by the angel, and Christ himself, to remind the disciples of, and ordered them to go into Galilee, where they might expect to see him: accordingly they did go thither, and saw and worshipped him; see Matthew 28:7.