<p>22:53 <i>When I was with you daily in the temple, you did not lay hands on me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness</i>- The Lord was addressing the leadership of the group, who had sat daily in the temple over the past week and heard Him. They knew what He looked like, He had sat&nbsp;<i>pros humas,&nbsp;</i>&quot;with you&quot; (AV), not so much &ldquo;with you&rdquo; as &lsquo;directly facing you&rsquo;, sitting down in front of them and therefore at close range. Therefore the need for Judas to identify the Lord with a kiss, to prove &ldquo;that same is He&rdquo;, was because the mass of armed men didn&rsquo;t know who He was, and had therefore not sat in the temple. Again we see the Lord recognizing that men are only who they are, the hired thugs were no more than hired thugs acting in ignorance; but the leaders who were present were the ones He wanted to address. This is confirmed by Lk. 22:52 stating that &ldquo;Jesus said to the chief priests and captains of the temple and elders that had come against him: Have you come as against a robber, with swords and staves?&rdquo;. The priests and elders were in that large crowd, and the Lord directly addresses them. So although He addressed &ldquo;the multitudes&rdquo;, His message was aimed at specific individuals within the crowd. This is true of much of Scripture; perhaps those parts we personally fail to understand are speaking to a particular group in need of that message, perhaps in a previous age, and it may not be as directly intended for us as it was to them. The correspondence between the narratives is detailed and deeply credible. Uninspired writers would surely not only contradict themselves, but lack this artless congruence between each other which we find in the inspired Gospel records. Lk. 22:53 adds that the Lord continued to say: &ldquo;But this is your hour, and the power of darkness&rdquo;. The sense is surely that in broad daylight they dared not lay hold on Him- they had to do it under cover of darkness, because they were of the darkness.</p>