He produces this prophecy to teach them to attend to the things that are written, and to shew that His crucifixion was according to the counsel of God, and (as He does throughout) that He was not a stranger to the Old Testament, but that it prophesied of Him.
But He did not suffer them to continue in sorrow, but announces glad tidings, saying, “When I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.” After His resurrection He does not appear to them immediately from heaven, nor depart into any far country, but in the very same nation in which He was crucified, almost in the very place, giving them thereby assurance, that He who was crucified was the same as He who rose again, thereby to cheer their cast-down countenances. He fixes upon Galilee, that, being delivered from fear of the Jews, they might believe what He spoke to them.
Reproduced in full. Translation: Oxford 1841 (Newman), public domain (Public domain).