Was the angel outside the tomb or inside it when the women arrived?

Matthew describes the angel on the stone at the moment he had rolled it away, the scene the guards saw (Matthew 28:2–4; see ‘Had the stone already been rolled away when the women arrived?’). He does not say that the angel was still sitting outside when the women came. He says only that the angel spoke to them (28:5), and what he said points inside: “Come, see the place where the Lord lay” (28:6). In the Greek text that the KJV follows, Matthew then says that the women went out (exelthousai) from the tomb (28:8), which implies that they had gone in; other manuscripts read ‘went away’ (apelthousai), which says nothing either way.

So Matthew’s account fits Mark’s: “entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side” (Mark 16:5). Luke too says that “they entered in” before the two men appeared (Luke 24:3–4), and John’s two angels were inside, seen by Mary when she stooped to look in (John 20:11–12). The angel who had sat on the stone in the sight of the guards was inside the open tomb by the time the women came in. Barnes notes that the angel was seen on the stone only by the keepers, not by the women.

Spoken at the entrance

Some read Matthew as the angel greeting the women at the entrance and then inviting them in, where they saw him again, and in Luke’s account a companion with him. On this view too the women heard the message at the tomb and saw the angel inside it.