TRANSLATION MATTHEW 27:32

As they went out, they met a Cyrenian,a man named Simon, whom they pressed into service to carry Jesus’ stake. And when they arrived at a place called Golgotha, which means ‘place of a skull’ they gave Jesus wine mixed with gall, but after tasting it he would not drink.

When they had nailed him to the stake, they divided his clothing by casting lots.; then they sat down and kept watch over him. They placed over his head the written charge against him, “This is Jesus, the King of the Judaeans.”

Nailed on stakes beside him were two rebels, one on his right and the other on his left.

Those passing by also reviled him, shaking their heads and saying, “You that were going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself if you are God’s son; come down from the stake!” In the same way, the chief priests with the legal experts and the elders ridiculed him, “He rescued others but he cannot rescue himself! Let the King of Israel come down now from the stake, and we will put our trust in him. He trusted in God- let God come to his rescue if He wants him- for he said, “I am the son of God””

The rebels who were nailed to stakes beside him also railed at him in the same way.

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Unlike the story in Luke and John, Matthew’s gospel does not have Jesus speaking from the cross, except for the one terrible utterance he found in Mark. He keeps to the prophecy that he ‘did not open his mouth, as a sheep before its shearers is dumb.’

His tormentors do all the talking. Matthew depicts Jewish leaders siding with Romans in abusing a fellow Jew. Much of what is done and said, comes from Psalm 22 and 69 which had already been used by Mark, or by the tradition he inherited

For the person acquainted with the Psalms and with Isaiah, the very plain narrative would have been flooded with meaning through these references, identifying Jesus with great figures of faith, and showing his place in the providence of God. The texts that remind the reader of God deny the very worldly powers that the story shows as victorious. Someone has said that there is scarcely any detail in the narrative of Jesus’ death that does not come from Hebrew scripture, indicating scepticism about the historicity of the gospel account. It seems to me rather that from earliest times Jewish followers of Jesus examined the scriptures minutely for connections that would help them comprehend the appalling details of Jesus’ death. The result is a mingling of fact and scripture which we have to hear as story rather than history, giving us however, more rather than less of the reality of the event.