<p>26:56&nbsp;<i>But all this is happening so that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled</i>- This can be read as part of the Lord&rsquo;s words, or the comment of Matthew. &ldquo;Is happening&rdquo; is translated &ldquo;was done&rdquo; in the AV. See on :54; the emphasis upon the fulfilment of Scripture is not merely noting a correspondence between New Testament event and Old Testament scripture. Rather I suggest is the idea that the Lord chose to be obedient to God&rsquo;s word and will, to make it His own, to the highest possible extent, to the point of total personal identification with it; when by its nature, God&rsquo;s prophetic word has various possibilities of fulfilments on different levels, some of which would have enabled the Lord to bypass the cross. The specific reference may be to Ps. 31:11. This refers to how David's family appear to have later disowned him during Saul&rsquo;s persecution, fleeing from him, as the Lord&rsquo;s friends also did.</p><p>John inserts at this point that the Lord was revealed in glory and the crowd of armed men fell to the ground; He asked them to let the disciples &ldquo;go their way&rdquo;. And yet He had earlier lamented that their scattering from Him would be related to their lack of faith: &ldquo;You will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written: I will smite the shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad&rdquo;. This has to be compared with John&rsquo;s account in Jn. 18:4-9: &ldquo;Jesus knowing all the things that must come upon him, went forward and said to them: Whom do you seek? They answered him: Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus said to them: I am he (Judas, the one who betrayed him, was standing with them). When he said to them: I am he, they drew back and fell to the ground. Again he asked them: Whom do you seek? And they said: Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered: I told you that I am he. If therefore you seek me, let these go their way- that the word might be fulfilled which he spoke: Of those whom you have given me I lost not one&rdquo;. The scattering from the Lord was part of their falling away. And yet the Lord sets them up to flee, he apparently urges them to do so, in order that He would not spiritually lose any of them. We see here a profound principle- that there are times when it would be better to allow disciples to follow a lower principle, to even fail, to run away from the highest principle of dying with Christ; lest otherwise the height of the demand means they become lost totally. The church of my youth forbad divorce and remarriage, and yet by forcing disciples who divorced to never remarry, they ended up causing many of them to be lost to Christ&rsquo;s cause. And there are multiple other examples.</p><p><i>Then all the disciples left him</i>- Although the Lord had set up the opportunity for them to flee by stunning the armed men and telling them to allow the disciples free exit, they were still forsaking Him by doing so. And it still hurt the Lord. He simply knew their spiritual capabilities, and was giving them a lower level escape route. One size simply doesn&rsquo;t fit all; He didn&rsquo;t deal with them on a legalistic level of demanding obedience to a certain standard, failing which they were rejected. Neither does He work like that today. Their forsaking of Him sets the scene for His final agonized cry to the Father: &ldquo;Why have&nbsp;<i>You</i>&nbsp;forsaken Me?&rdquo; (27:46). His disciples had, the inner circle of ministering women and His own mother had walked away from the cross- and now He felt even the Father forsaking Him, despite earlier having said that &ldquo;He that sent Me is with Me: the Father has not left Me alone s.w. &lsquo;forsake&rsquo;&rdquo; (Jn. 8:29).</p><p><i>And fled</i>- Their action is emphasized by the usage of both words, forsake and fled. Typically the Gospel writers emphasize their own weakness and failures, all as part of their compelling appeal to others to respond to the message they themselves had been so slow to grasp.</p>