Let us observe, firstly, in these verses, the gift which our Lord bestowed on His disciples immediately before He left the world. We read that He “opened their understandings that they might understand the Scriptures.”

We must not misapprehend these words. We are not to suppose that the disciples knew nothing about the Old Testament up to this time, and that the Bible is a book which no ordinary person can expect to comprehend. We are simply to understand that Jesus showed His disciples the full meaning of many passages which had hitherto been hidden from their eyes. Above all, He showed the true interpretation of many prophetical passages concerning the Messiah.