{6} Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this {c} hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.

(6) While Christ went about to suffer all the punishment which is due to our sins, and while his divinity did not yet show his might and power so that the satisfaction might be fully accomplished, he is stricken with the great fear of the curse of God, and so he cries and prays, and desires to be released: yet nonetheless he prefers the will and glory of his Father before all things, and his Father allows this obedience even from heaven.

(c) That is, of death which is now at hand.

People's New Testament

12:27 Now is my soul troubled. It is the shadow of the cross and the tomb. The best comment on this verse is to compare it with the account of the agony in the garden. Here he exclaims:

Father, save me from this hour. There, If it be possible, let this cup pass from me (Mt 26:39). Here, he adds:

But for this cause came I unto this hour. There, Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done (Lu 22:42). Here the perfect resignation that follows the struggle in his soul is in the prayer, Father, glorify thy name (Joh 12:28).

Wesley's Notes

12:27 Now is my soul troubled - He had various foretastes of his passion. And what shall I say? - Not what shall I choose? For his heart was fixed in choosing the will of his Father: but he laboured for utterance. The two following clauses, Save me from this hour - For this cause I came - Into the world; for the sake of this hour (of suffering) seem to have glanced through his mind in one moment. But human language could not so express it.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

27, 28. Now is my soul troubled-He means at the prospect of His death, just alluded to. Strange view of the Cross this, immediately after representing it as the hour of His glory! (Joh 12:23). But the two views naturally meet, and blend into one. It was the Greeks, one might say, that troubled Him. Ah! they shall see Jesus, but to Him it shall be a costly sight.

and what shall I say?-He is in a strait betwixt two. The death of the cross was, and could not but be, appalling to His spirit. But to shrink from absolute subjection to the Father, was worse still. In asking Himself, "What shall I say?" He seems as if thinking aloud, feeling His way between two dread alternatives, looking both of them sternly in the face, measuring, weighing them, in order that the choice actually made might be seen, and even by himself the more vividly felt, to be a profound, deliberate, spontaneous election.

Father, save me from this hour-To take this as a question-"Shall I say, Father, save me," &c.-as some eminent editors and interpreters do, is unnatural and jejune. It is a real petition, like that in Gethsemane, "Let this cup pass from Me"; only whereas there He prefaces the prayer with an "If it be possible," here He follows it up with what is tantamount to that-"Nevertheless for this cause came I unto this hour." The sentiment conveyed, then, by the prayer, in both cases, is twofold: (1) that only one thing could reconcile Him to the death of the cross-its being His Father's will He should endure it-and (2) that in this view of it He yielded Himself freely to it. What He recoils from is not subjection to His Father's will: but to show how tremendous a self-sacrifice that obedience involved, He first asks the Father to save Him from it, and then signifies how perfectly He knows that He is there for the very purpose of enduring it. Only by letting these mysterious words speak their full meaning do they become intelligible and consistent. As for those who see no bitter elements in the death of Christ-nothing beyond mere dying-what can they make of such a scene? and when they place it over against the feelings with which thousands of His adoring followers have welcomed death for His sake, how can they hold Him up to the admiration of men?

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

12:27-33 The sin of our souls was the troubled of Christ's soul, when he undertook to redeem and save us, and to make his soul an offering for our sin. Christ was willing to suffer, yet prayed to be saved from suffering. Prayer against trouble may well agree with patience under it, and submission to the will of God in it. Our Lord Jesus undertook to satisfy God's injured honour, and he did it by humbling himself. The voice of the Father from heaven, which had declared him to be his beloved Son, at his baptism, and when he was transfigured, was heard proclaiming that He had both glorified his name, and would glorify it. Christ, reconciling the world to God by the merit of his death, broke the power of death, and cast out Satan as a destroyer. Christ, bringing the world to God by the doctrine of his cross, broke the power of sin, and cast out Satan as a deceiver. The soul that was at a distance from Christ, is brought to love him and trust him. Jesus was now going to heaven, and he would draw men's hearts to him thither. There is power in the death of Christ to draw souls to him. We have heard from the gospel that which exalts free grace, and we have heard also that which enjoins duty; we must from the heart embrace both, and not separate them.