John Calvin Commentary Matthew 26:38

"Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: abide ye here, and watch with me." — Matthew 26:38 (ASV)

My soul is sorrowful. He communicates to them his sorrow in order to arouse them to sympathy; not that he was unaware of their weakness, but so that they might afterwards be more ashamed of their carelessness.

This phrase expresses a deadly wound of grief, as if he had said that he fainted, or was half-dead, with sorrow. Jonah 4:9 uses a similar phrase in replying to the Lord: I am angry even to death.

I refer to this because some of the ancient writers, in handling this passage with a misapplication of ingenuity, philosophize in this way: that the soul of Christ was not sorrowful in death but only even to death.

And here again we should remember the cause of such great sorrow; for death in itself would not have so severely tormented the mind of the Son of God if he had not felt that he had to face the judgment of God.