Yeshua’s Resurrection & Appearances ~ Part 2

In our last post, we concluded Yeshua’s Crucifixion. We will continue to examine His Resurrection & Appearance.

The Women Go to Tell Kefa & Yochanan What They Discovered at the Tomb

⁸ Trembling but ecstatic, they (the women who were at the tomb in our last post) went out and fled from the tomb, and they said nothing to anyone because they were afraid.  ^{1  2} So she ² came running to Shim’on Kefa and the other talmid, the one Yeshua loved, and said to them, “They’ve taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they’ve put Him!”

Trembling overwhelmed the women, whether from fear or excitement. Most likely, it was both. The phrase they said nothing to anyone, stated only by Mark, is a solid double negative. It does not imply that they forever kept silent but initially refused to speak about their bewildering experience (see Mattityahu 28:8; Luke 24:9–10).

Kefa & Yochanan Visit the Empty Tomb

³ Then Kefa and the other talmid (Yochanan) started for the tomb. ⁴ They both ran, but the other talmid outran Kefa and reached the tomb first. ⁵ Stooping down, he saw the linen burial sheets lying there but did not go in. ⁶ Then, following him, Shim’on Kefa arrived, entered the tomb, and saw the burial sheets lying there, ⁷ also the cloth that had been around His head, lying not with the sheets but in a separate place and still folded up. ⁸ Then the other talmid, who had arrived at the tomb first, also went in; he saw, and he trusted.

The burial clothes comprised a shroud around the body and a head cloth. Yochanan’s detailed description of their undisturbed location, especially the different position of the still folded head cloth (v. 7), tells us that Yeshua’s body was miraculously loosed from the burial clothes so that they collapsed in place. This is why the other talmid … saw, and he trusted.

⁹ (They had not yet come to understand that the Tanakh teaches that the Messiah has to rise from the dead.) ¹⁰ So the talmidim returned home… ³

The Tanakh teaches that the Messiah must rise from the dead in Isaiah 53:9–12 and Psalm 16:10 (cited in Acts 2:24–32).

Yeshua With Mary Magdalene

When Yeshua rose early on Sunday, He appeared first to Miryam of Magdala, from whom He had expelled seven demons. ^{4  11},but Miryam stood outside crying. As she cried, she bent down, peered into the tomb, ¹² and saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Yeshua had been, one at the head and one at the feet. ¹³ “Why are you crying?” they asked her. “They took my Lord,” she said to them, “and I don’t know where they have put him.”  ¹⁴ As she said this, she turned around and saw Yeshua standing there, but she didn’t know it was He. ¹⁵ Yeshua said to her, “Lady, why are you crying? Whom are you looking for?” Thinking he was the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you’re the one who carried him away, just tell me where you put him; and I’ll go and get him myself.” ¹⁶ Yeshua said to her, “Miryam!” Turning, she cried out to him in Hebrew, “Rabbani!” (that is, “Teacher!”)

“Rabbani!” (That is, “Teacher!”), literally, “My great one!” or “My teacher!” As a title, Rabbani was conferred only on the heads of the central academy and of the Sanhedrin. Gamli’el I, quoted in Acts 5:34– 39, is known in Jewish history as Rabbani Gamli’el. Apparently, the term was used more broadly in informal conversation. Although there is no evidence that Yeshua was ever ordained a rabbi, it is implied in Mattityahu 23:8 that He and His talmidim regarded Him as one.

¹⁷ “Stop holding onto me,” Yeshua said to her, “because I haven’t yet gone back to the Father. But go to my brothers, and tell them that I am going back to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”  ⁵

Stop holding onto me, not, as in KJV, “Do not touch me,” which suggests a fragility about His post-resurrection physical state contradicted by the rest of Yochanan’s gospel. Yeshua had work to do and was not to be kept from it even by Miryam’s joyful attention.

In our next post, we will continue to explore Yeshua’s Resurrection & Appearances.

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¹ Mark 16:8.
² St. Matthew has “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary;” St. Mark has “Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome;” St. Luke has, “The women which had come with Him from Galilee” (23:55), and enumerates them in 24:10, as “Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and the others with them.” St. John speaks of only one of the group, who was especially prominent. ~ A Bible Commentary for English Readers.
³ Yochanan 20:2–10.
⁴ Mark 16:9.
⁵ Yochanan 20:11–17.