Matthew 27:26

Then released he Barabbas unto them,.... The seditious person, robber, and murderer, for which crimes he was in prison.

And Jesus stood before the governor: and the governor asked him, saying, Art thou the King of the Jews? And Jesus said unto him, Thou sayest. For the exposition, see the notes at Luke 23:1-25, and at John 18:28-40.

Ver. 24-26. Mark saith, , So Pilate, willing to content the people, released Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged him to be crucified. Luke saith, ,25, And Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required. And he released unto them him that for sedition and murder was cast into prison, whom they had desired; but he delivered Jesus to their will. John saith, , When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the Judgment seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha. And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King! But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar. Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified. Here are three accounts given of Pilate’ s coming over to the Jews’ desire to condemn Christ, contrary to the conviction of his own conscience, for he had twice declared that he found no fault in him. Matthew saith, he saw he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made. Mark saith, he did it to content the people. John saith, it was upon the hearing of that saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar’ s friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar. His fear of being accused to the emperor Tiberius, as favouring one who made himself a king, especially if his opposing the Jews in their desire of his death should have caused a tumult, was questionless the great thing that moved him to give judgment in this case contrary to his own conscience; and this is the meaning of his contenting the people, mentioned by Mark. It is plain by the whole story he had no mind to gratify or gain favour with them, but considering how jealous and suspicious a prince Tiberius was, it was Pilate’ s interest to quiet them, and to give them no occasion of accusing him unto the emperor. He took water, and washed his hands before the multitude. It was the law of God in manslaughter, where he that slew the man was not known, the priests and elders of the city that (upon measure) should be found nearest to the dead body, should take a heifer, and bring it to a rough valley, and strike off its head, and wash their hands over the head of the beheaded heifer, and say, Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it, . Some think that Pilate, living amongst the Jews, had learned this rite from them; but others think that it was a rite used in protestations of innocency amongst other people, as well as the Jews.

26 Then released he Barabbas unto them: and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. Ver. 26. And when he had scourged Jesus] So to satisfy their cruelty, and move them, if it might be, to pity. But though they relented not at the sight, it’ s fit we should. Would it not grieve us at the heart, if we should see the king’ s son basely whipped by our adversaries, only for our affairs? Christ was scourged when we had offended, that he might free us from the sting of conscience, and those scourges and scorpions of eternal torments, that he might make us a plaster of his own blessed blood, for by his stripes we are healed, by the bloody weals made upon his back we are delivered. We hold it a thing almost beyond belief, that the applying of medicines to the sword that wounded a man shall make the wounds heal in a man. But here is a mystery that only Christian religion can tell of, and of which there never was precedent in nature, that the scourging and wounding of one man should cure another. Sanguis medici factus est medicina phrenetici.

(26) When he had scourged Jesus.—The word used by St. Matthew, derived from the Latin flagellum, shows that it was the Roman punishment with knotted thongs of leather (like the Russian “knout” or the English “cat”), not the Jewish beating with rods (2 Corinthians 11:24-25). The pictures of the Stations, so widely used throughout Latin Christendom, have made other nations more familiar with the nature of the punishment than most Englishmen are. The prisoner was stripped sometimes entirely, sometimes to the waist, and tied by the hands to a pillar, with his back bent, so as to receive the full force of the blows. The scourge was of stout leather weighted with lead or bones. Jewish law limited its penalty to forty stripes, reduced in practice to “forty stripes save one” (2 Corinthians 11:24; Deuteronomy 25:3), but Roman practice knew no limit but that of the cruelty of the executioner or the physical endurance of the sufferer.

Verse 26. Scourged Jesus] This is allowed to have been a very severe punishment of itself among the Romans, the flesh being generally cut by the whips used for this purpose: so the poet: - ----Horribili SECTERE flagello. "To be cut by the horrible whip."-HOR. Sat. I. 3. 119. And sometimes it seems, they were whipped to death. See the same poet, Sat. I. 2. 41. ----Ille FLAGELLIS AD MORTEM caesus.---- See also HORAT. Epod. od. iv. v. 11. It has been thought that Pilate might have spared this additional cruelty of whipping; but it appears that it was a common custom to scourge those criminals which were to be crucified, (see Josephus De Bello, lib. ii. c. 25,) and lenity in Christ's case is not to be allowed; he must take all the misery in full tale. Delivered him to be crucified.] Tacitos, the Roman historian, mentions the death of Christ in very remarkable terms:- Nero - quaesitissimis poenis is affecit, quos - vulgus CHRISTIANOS appellabat. Auctor nominis ejus CHRISTUS, qui Tiberio imperitante, per Procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio affectus erat." - Nero put those who commonly went by the name of Christians to the most exquisite tortures. The author of this name was CHRIST, who was capitally punished in the reign of TIBERIUS, by PONTIUS PILATE the PROCURATOR."

26. when he had scourged Jesus] Scourging usually preceded crucifixion. It was in itself a cruel and barbarous torture, under which the victim often perished.

And when he had scourged Jesus - See the notes at Matthew 10:17. Among the Romans it was customary to scourge or whip a “slave” before he was crucified. This was done to inflict greater suffering.

BY PILATE AND FOR , Matthew 27:26-31.The purpose of this whole scene of course is to burlesque Jesus’s claim to royalty.