Robertson's Word Pictures of the New Testament

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Matthew 20:20

Then (tote).

Surely an inopportune time for such a request just after the pointed prediction of Christ's crucifixion. Perhaps their minds had been preoccupied with the words of Jesus (19:28) about their sitting on twelve thrones taking them in a literal sense. The mother of James and John, probably Salome, possibly a sister of the Master's mother (John 19:25), apparently prompted her two sons because of the family relationship and now speaks for them.

Asking a certain thing (aitousa ti).

"Asking something," "plotting perhaps when their Master was predicting" (Bruce). The "something" put forward as a small matter was simply the choice of the two chief thrones promised by Jesus (19:28).