None but he who bore those sorrows can know what they were. It was not the apprehension of the bodily torments and the bitter death that awaited him, all foreknown by him. It was the inconceivable agony of the weight of the sins of men.
The Lord was thus laying "upon him the iniquity of us all." This, and this alone, can explain it. My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death. Every word carries the emphasis of an overwhelming grief.
It was then that "the deep waters came in," even unto his soul. "What," says Cornelius a Lapide, "must have been the voice, the countenance, the expression, as he uttered those awful words!"