Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 27:35

"And when they had crucified him, they parted his garments among them, casting lots;" — Matthew 27:35 (ASV)

They crucified him. The cross used in capital punishment varied in its form. It was sometimes simply a stake on which the sufferer was impaled; sometimes two pieces of timber put together in the form of a T or an X (as in the St. Andrew’s cross); and sometimes the form familiar to us in Christian art as the Latin cross. In this instance, the fact that the title or inscription was placed over our Lord’s head implies that the last of these was the kind of cross used.

To carry out the sentence of crucifixion, the cross was laid on the ground, and the condemned man was stripped and laid upon it. Sometimes he was simply tied; at other times, as was the case here, nails were driven through his hands and feet. Occasionally, a projecting ledge was provided for the feet to rest on, but sometimes the body’s entire weight hung from the secured limbs.

The clothes of the criminal were the customary property of the executioners, and in this case, as we find from John 19:23, this included the tunic worn next to the body as well as the outer garment. It was as the soldiers were nailing him to the cross that he prayed, Father, forgive them (Luke 23:34).

They parted my garments among them. St. John (John 19:24) emphatically records an even more literal fulfillment of these words than what St. Matthew noted. We may believe that the thoughts of both disciples were turned to Psalm 22:18 by our Lord’s utterance of its opening words (Matthew 27:46), thus leading them to dwell on the manifold coincidences between the psalm’s language and the facts of the Passion.