And their words seemed to them as idle tales,.... As fabulous things, as mere whims, and the fancies of their brains: "as a dream", according to the Persic version; or, "as a jest", as the Arabic version renders it. They looked upon them as mere deceptions and delusions, and not real things; the Vulgate Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions read, "these words"; what they related concerning what they saw, and heard, at the sepulchre:
and they believed them not: for they had no thought, nor expectation of Christ's rising from the dead; they did not know that he was to rise again, according to the Scriptures; nor did they understand him when he told them of his rising again; and had no faith in it, nor hope concerning it, and could give no credit to it, when it was told them; and the Arabic version reads, "they did not believe it"; the word or report which the women delivered to them.