Luke 22.39-46.
Before Jesus’s arrest on Good Friday,
In Mark, only three of Jesus’s students come along with him to pray, but they keep falling asleep and he has to go back and awaken them thrice. In Luke it appears to be all his students, and he only comes back to chide them once. Falling asleep is totally understandable: They’re tired! They just had a big Passover meal and a lot of wine. Plus a walk uphill. Plus it’s late. But Jesus warned them his time was coming, and they needed to pray—not for him, but themselves. They’d be tempted to do a lot of dumb stuff when he was taken from him. (And that’s exactly what we see them do. Shoulda prayed.)
Certain preachers love to quote the Luke version of the story, because they love to point out how Jesus was so incredibly stressed out by his soon-coming passion, he was sweating blood. You see that in verse 44. Here’s the whole passage.
Luke 22.39-46 KWL 39 Leaving the seder, Jesus goes as usual to Mt. Olivet,- and {his} students go with him.
40 Coming to the place, Jesus tells his students,- “Pray to not enter into temptation.”
41 Jesus draws away from the students—- like as far as a stone’s throw—
- and takes to his knees and is praying,
42 saying, “Father, if you¹ will,- take this cup away from me!
- Only don’t do my will,
- but yours.”
43 {A heavenly angel appears to Jesus,- strengthening him.
44 Being in agony, Jesus is fervently praying,- and his sweat is becoming like drops of blood,
- pouring out onto the ground.}
45 Rising from the prayer, coming to the students,- Jesus finds them sleeping from the grief.
46 Jesus tells his students, “You’re² sleeping?- Rise up and pray, lest you² come to temptation.”
Turns out sweating blood is an actual medical condition, called hematidrosis (from the Greek for “bloody sweat”) or hematohidrosis (“bloody water”). It’s rare, but possible. Blood vessels under your skin break from stress, and blood comes out your pores. It looks creepy. But not a lot of blood comes out of you this way, so it’s largely harmless. Might cause a little dehydration, so drink some Gatorade; you’ll be fine.
Preachers find this fascinating. And they love to point out how Luke, the traditional author of this gospel, was a physician!
But more than once, I’ve heard a preacher claim hematidrosis actually isn’t a harmless condition. They insist it’s life-threatening. That’s why Jesus needed an angel to strengthen him in verse 43: He was on the verge of bleeding out. After all the verse says great drops of blood. Not a little trickle; blood was pouring out of him already, and he hadn’t even been arrested yet! You don’t want Jesus dying before the Romans could unjustly execute him; for some reason that might bungle cast the spell do it this way!”—but that’s a whole other rant. I digress.)
Anyway, as you can tell from the title of this article, these guys are wrong. Not just about how dangerous hematidrosis is or isn’t. They’re wrong top to bottom; they’re wrong about Jesus sweating blood in the first place. The verse doesn’t say that.
Like blood. Remember what “like” means?
In just about every English translation, verse 44 says Jesus’s sweat was like drops of blood. That’s a translation of
- “His sweat was as it were great drops of blood…” KJV
- “His sweat became as it were great drops of blood…” ASV
- “His sweat became like drops of blood…” AMP, CSB, LEB, NABRE, NASB
- “His sweat became like great drops of blood…” EHV, ESV, MEV, NCB, NKJV, NRSV
- “His sweat was like drops of blood…” GNT, NCV, NET, NIV, TLV
- “His sweat became like large drops of blood…” ISV
- “Water ran from his face like blood…” NLV
- “His sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood.” NLT
- “His sweat was made as drops of blood…” WYC
All the translations get it right. The preachers don’t. Reading comprehension, folks! Remember learning it in grade school?
In my experience, and probably yours, sweat and blood are equally liquid. Blood clots up, but when you first cut yourself, it drips just as much as sweat can drip from you. So why would a writer compare sweating with bleeding? Well we have to remember their culture: When ancient Jews typically encountered blood, it wasn’t the result of cutting themselves, but from cutting an animal. You had to slaughter animals for food… and for ritual sacrifice to the L
So that’s the idea this verse is meant to convey: Sweat was pouring off Jesus. He was drenched in it. Not bloody sweat; not blood at all. Still risking dehydration though.
So yeah, every preacher who claims Jesus was sweating blood, clearly skipped the rather obvious “like” in all the English translations. All because they’re a little too fascinated by the idea of sweating blood, to pay attention to what’s in the text. Mighty sloppy of ’em. Don’t repeat their mistake.
Oh, I’m not done. Turns out there’s another caveat to this verse: It doesn’t exist in our earliest copies of Luke’s gospel. Nor any copies before the 300s. It’s
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume when Jesus was fervently praying, he was sweating. It happens, even on a cold spring night. But buckets of sweat pouring off him? Possible. Maybe. Even so, it’s not in the original text of Luke. Some overzealous Christian scribe liked that image and added it centuries later. Other Christians like that image too, which is why it’s in bibles… and in our sermons.
Wait, somebody made this up?
Short answer: Yes.
Why? Well there’s no way anyone can say with certainty. Why do humans exaggerate stories? Often because we don’t feel the story, by itself, is dramatic enough, exciting enough, interesting enough… it’s not enough, and needs to be more. At some point some Christian told the story of Jesus praying in Gethsemane, and decided it wasn’t enough that Jesus was praying really hard: He had to be sweating buckets too.
My guess is the really vivid description caught on. “The sweat poured out of Jesus just like when blood pours from the throat of a sacrificial lamb. And Jesus is our sacrificial lamb; the Lamb of God who takes away the world’s sin…”
And people love this image. Preachers bring up Jesus sweating blood every Easter. They love the idea Jesus was so freaked out he broke blood vessels. It humanizes him in a way which really comforts them. Because if Jesus was just that terrified… it makes it okay whenever they get just as frightened. Might even make it understandable or acceptable when they give in to fear, and act a little less than loving.
Yeah, they don’t always love the idea for the best of reasons.
Some scholars, in order to keep the text in the bible, speculate it actually was in the earliest copies of Luke, but somehow got removed, and had to get put back in. They don’t have any evidence for their theory, but that’s not gonna stop ’em from pushing it. People willingly adopt all sorts of ridiculous theories whenever they want something bad enough. Politics is a good example of this.
Yes, Jesus was stressed out. The story makes it plain: He was praying mighty hard for the Father to change his mind about the plan. I expect he was also praying mighty hard for the willpower to go through with it. As he told Simon Peter, an eager spirit isn’t gonna get you very far when your flesh is weak,
And Jesus mastered his own flesh way more than other people are willing to do. So I have my doubts he was drenched in sweat. Maybe a little sweaty; maybe even really sweaty; not sweat pouring down his arms like a drinking fountain.
And regardless, he didn’t sweat blood.
