Came out of ( ἐξελθο ìντες) the graves after his resurrection. The masculine participle, not agreeing with "bodies" ( σω ìματα), denotes the personality of the bodies of the saints, that these arose perfect in soul and body.
They could not rise before Christ rose. "Christ the firstfruits, afterwards they that are Christ's." Ewald and others have understood "after his resurrection" to mean "after he raised them from the dead."
But the language is against such an interpretation, and there can be no reasonable doubt that the words refer to Christ's own resurrection. If it be contended that the word used, ἐ ìγερσις, is active in sense, we may reply that, granting this, it merely emphasizes Christ's voluntary action in raising himself.
As was said above, St. Matthew anticipates the regular sequence of events in order to complete at one view his accounts of the portents that attended the death and resurrection of Christ. The holy city.
Jerusalem, as in Matthew 4:5. The guilty Jerusalem is still the holy city, as retaining the temple, with its services, the ministry, the Scriptures. Some would understand the heavenly Jerusalem, into which these spiritual bodies entered; but the context is wholly against such an exposition.
Appeared unto many. They were permitted to show themselves openly in their well known forms to pious relations and friends, as witnesses and proofs of the resurrection. If they had already gone to heaven, they could not have thus appeared.
It may he right to add that many of the Fathers and modern commentators hold that these resuscitated saints were those to whom Christ preached (1 Peter 3:19) when he descended into hell, and that they accompanied him into glory when he ascended into heaven.