<p>14:43 <i>And immediately, while he yet spoke, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a crowd-</i> The appearance of Judas is as it were called forth by the Lord, who went to as it were meet Judas before he even appeared (:42). The Lord had set up the whole situation, and Judas was acting according to plan. The repeated use of &ldquo;Behold&rdquo; or &ldquo;Lo&rdquo; (Mt. 26:45,46,47,51) encourage us to play Bible television with these events. The scene was clearly etched upon the memory of the Gospel writers. Mk. 14:43 Gk. puts it all in the present tense: &ldquo;There comes Judas&hellip;&rdquo;, to encourage us to re-live the incident. The crowd with Judas was a tacit recognition of the fanatic loyalty of the eleven; Judas reckoned that they could put up enough of a fight to require this great multitude.</p><p><i>From the chief priests and the scribes and the elders bearing swords and staves</i>-&nbsp; This little detail accords well with the reality of the situation. Although the Chief Priests had some authority to use the Roman guards to control difficult situations in the temple area, they surely didn&rsquo;t have use of Roman soldiers to arrest a civilian in a garden at night. So these were ruffians rustled up by Judas and the Jewish leaders, which explains why they had staves as well as swords. Staves were hardly the military equipment of professional soldiers, but it fits the idea that the leaders gathered together a crowd of hoods to do this dirty work. And it was only later that the Jews handed the Lord over to Gentile power. &ldquo;Staves&rdquo; translates&nbsp;<i>xulon</i>, the word meaning &lsquo;stake&rsquo; or &lsquo;tree&rsquo; which is used about the cross.</p>