References (53)
They bound him, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate, the
[Roman] governor.
[Pontius Pilate was responsible to the Roman emperor for the regions of Judea and Samaria, and he lived in Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast. Since Jerusalem was part of his territory, he was stationed there during the Jewish holidays so that he could quickly quell any unrest and uprisings among the Jews. He and his wife probably lived in Antonia Fortress, which is located adjacent to the temple area in the northwest corner. During the festival, the Roman governor Herod Antipas was also in Jerusalem. He was responsible for Galilee and Perea.]Then Pilate said to him, "Don't you hear how much (what serious accusations) they are accusing you of?"
When the people had gathered, Pilate asked them, "Which one do you want me to release, Jesus Barabbas or Jesus who is called the Anointed One (Messiah, Christ)?"
Pilate asked them, "What shall I do then with Jesus who is called the Anointed One (Messiah)?" They all answered, "Crucify him!"
When Pilate saw that his efforts were useless and that the uproar was only getting worse, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd, saying, "I am innocent of this man's blood. It is your responsibility."
Joseph went to Pilate and asked for Jesus' body, and Pilate then gave orders for it to be handed over.
The next day, which was the day after the Preparation Day [for the weekly Sabbath or one of the feast days of Passover], the chief priests and the Pharisees went together to Pilate
Pilate replied, "You have a guard. Go and make sure that it [the tomb] is guarded in the way you think best."
Immediately at dawn
[at sunrise, six o'clock in the morning], the chief priests held a meeting together with the elders and the scribes and the whole council
[Sanhedrin]. They bound Jesus and took him away and handed him over to Pilate, the
[Roman] governor.
[Pontius Pilate was responsible to the Roman emperor for the regions of Judea and Samaria and lived in Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast. Since Jerusalem was part of his territory, he was stationed there during the Jewish holidays so that he could quickly quell any unrest and uprisings among the Jews. He and his wife probably lived in Antonia Fortress, which is located adjacent to the temple area in the northwest corner. During the festival, the Roman governor Herod Antipas was also in Jerusalem. He was responsible for Galilee and Perea.]Pilate asked him, "So you are the king of the Jews?" Jesus replied, "You say so (these are your words, not mine)."
Pilate asked him again, "Have you no answer? You hear the charges against you."
But Jesus did not answer a single question, and the governor was very surprised. [Normally, the accused would defend himself with Eastern zeal.]
[During the interrogation with Pontius Pilate, it emerges that Jesus is from Galilee. Pilate then sends Jesus to Herod Antipas, since Jesus had been most active in his territory. There Jesus is interrogated and then sent back to Pontius Pilate, see .]
So Pilate asked them, "Do you want me to release the king of the Jews?"
Pilate spoke to them again: "What then shall I do with him whom you call the King of the Jews?"
Pilate asked, "What evil has he done?"
But they only shouted even louder, "Crucify him!"
Pilate, wanting to do what the people demanded, released Barabbas. He had Jesus flogged [whipped so that the skin on his back was torn] and then handed him over to be crucified.
[Jesus was falsely accused of the same crime that Barabbas was guilty of. Bar-Abbas, "the son of the father," was acquitted, while the Son of God was executed. The point is clear: Jesus is the one who takes our punishment upon himself in exchange for our freedom.]
Joseph of
Arimathea, a respected member of the council
[member of the Sanhedrin], who was also waiting for the kingdom of God, came there. He took courage and went to Pilate and asked for Jesus' body.
Pilate was surprised that Jesus was already dead [it was common for those who were crucified to hang on the cross for 2-3 days before dying]. He called the officer (the centurion who was in command at Golgotha) and asked him if it had been a long time since Jesus had died.
[The normal way of indicating time in antiquity was to use the year of a king's reign. Our Western calendar was not developed until the 5th century AD, see notes on .] It was now the fifteenth year of the reign of Caesar
(Emperor) Tiberius.
[Tiberius was Roman emperor 14-37 AD. However, he was appointed co-regent of Emperor Augustus a few years earlier, around 12 AD. Most likely Luke counts from 19th of August 14 AD, when Augustus died, but it could be two to three years earlier or from the next New Year. Since there are several different calendars with different New Years, it is difficult to say exactly which year this corresponds to. Fifteen years into the reign of Tiberius, when John appears and shortly afterwards Jesus, should be around 28 AD plus or minus a year.] [At the same time as the Emperor in Rome, the following local leaders were active:] Pontius Pilate was the governor
(a verb: acted as leader and administrator – Gk. hegemoneuo) of
Judea [reigned 26-36 AD],
Herod
[Antipas] was a tetrarch
(a verb; literally: ‘rule over a quarter’ – Gk. tetrarcheo) i
Galilee [son of Herod the Great, reigned 4 BC-39 AD],
his brother Philip was tetrarch of
Iturea and
Trakonitis [son of Herod the Great, ruled north of Galileen 4 BC-34 AD],
Lysanias was the tetrarch of
Abilene.
[Little is known about this small area in the north around the city of Abilene, two miles northwest of Damascus.] At the same time, some people came and told Jesus
[the latest news] about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.
[Pontius Pilate was known for his cruelty. In the creed, we read how Jesus was "crucified under Pontius Pilate." The Jewish historian Josephus recounts several massacres carried out by Pilate. He was responsible to the Roman emperor for the regions of Judea and Samaria and lived in Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast. Jerusalem was part of his territory, and during Jewish holidays he was stationed there because of the risk of unrest and rebellion among the Jews. By killing these Galileans and burning them together with the sacrificial animals inside the temple in Jerusalem, he wanted to set a deterrent example. It may have been supporters of the resistance group mentioned in who lost their lives.
The common Jewish belief was that if you did good, good things happened, and if you did evil, evil things happened. People ask Jesus if those who died were greater sinners than others because this misfortune befell them.]The whole group
[that had gathered, the members of the Great Council, the Sanhedrin] rose and took Jesus to Pilate.
Pontius Pilate was responsible to the Roman emperor for the regions of Judea and Samaria and lived in Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast. Since
Jerusalem was part of his territory, he was stationed there during the Jewish holidays so that he could quickly quell any unrest and uprisings among the Jews. He and his wife probably lived in
Antonia Fortress, which is adjacent to the temple area in the northwest corner.
Pilate asked him, "So you are the king of the Jews?" He replied, "You say so."
Pilate then said to the chief priests and the people, "I find no crime in this man."
When Pilate heard this, he asked if the man was from Galilee.
Even Herod and his guards [his personal soldiers] despised him and mocked him by putting a magnificent robe on him before sending him back to Pilate.
That day Herod and Pilate became friends with each other; previously there had been enmity between them. [The reason for the enmity is not entirely known, but it may have had something to do with the massacre of Galileans mentioned in .]
Then Pilate summoned the chief priests and the leaders [of the Sanhedrin, the highest decision-making body among the Jews] and the people.
Pilate spoke to them again, because he wanted to release Jesus.
Pilate gave the verdict that their will should be done.
Joseph went to Pilate and asked if he could take care of Jesus' body. [He wanted to give him a proper burial.]
Pilate went out to them and asked for clarification (Gk. phemi): "What do you accuse this man of?"
Then Pilate said to them, "Take him yourselves and judge him according to your law." The Jews replied, "It is not lawful for us to execute anyone."
Pilate went back into the palace and called Jesus and asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?"
Pilate answered, "I am not a jew, am I? Your own people and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done (what is your crime, confess now)?"
Pilate said to him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You are right in saying that I am a king [yes, I am a king]. I was born for this [this role], and that is why I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of (is a friend of, belongs to) the truth hears and listens to my voice."
Pilate said to him, "What is truth?" [Here stands Jesus, who is the Truth, see , before Pilate, and when he asks the question, he is literally looking at the answer. Pilate expects no answer because he is leaving. The question expresses both contempt and pity – who is Jesus who thinks he knows the truth?]
When he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and said to them, "I find no crime in him.
So Pilate took Jesus and had him severely flogged (whipped forty times). [The Romans imposed three types of punishment, in ascending order of severity: blows, flogging, and severe flogging. The latter consisted of lashes and was the punishment Jesus was subjected to. Jesus was likely flogged with a Roman flagrum. The whip consisted of leather straps fitted with embedded metal balls or sharp bone fragments designed to tear the skin. It was not uncommon for the victim to die.]
Pilate went out again and said to them, "Look, I am bringing him out to you so that you may know that I find no basis for a charge against him."
When the chief priests and the guards saw him, they shouted, "Crucify him! Crucify him!" Pilate said to them, "Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no crime in him."
When Pilate heard this, he became even more troubled (afraid).
Then Pilate said to him, "Do you refuse to speak to me? Don't you know that I have the authority (power) to either release you or crucify you?"
From that moment on, Pilate tried (he searched desperately for a way out) to release Jesus, but the Jewish leaders shouted, "If you release him, you are not Caesar's (the emperor's) friend! Anyone who makes himself king opposes Caesar (the emperor)."
When Pilate heard this speech, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge's seat, in a place called "the paved platform," in Hebrew Gabbata.
But they shouted loudly, "Away with him, away with him! Crucify him!" Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar (the emperor)."
Pilate also had a sign
(inscription, notice) [in Latin titulus, containing the name of the condemned man and the crime he had committed] made and placed it on the cross. On it was written:
[This is] Jesus of
Nazareth,
King of the Jews.
[The four Gospel writers all mention that the sign read "King of the Jews." However, they choose to include different parts of the opening words. This is not a contradiction; rather, together they give the full picture. The sign probably read as follows: "This is Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews," which is the sum of , and . The sign thus mentions Jesus' name and also his crime – King of the Jews.]Then the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, "Do not write 'King of the Jews. ' Instead, write, 'This man said he was King of the Jews.
Pilate replied, "What I have written, I have written."
[Pilate knew that the Jewish leaders had manipulated him, see . He also knew that it was the claim to be the Son of God that was the cause of their anger. John gives seven words from the Greek text in . Translated into Latin, it becomes Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum. The initial letters of the words become INRI, which is often seen on crucifixes and paintings. In Hebrew, too, there are four words. It is natural that the word "and" (Hebr. Vav) connects the title and the crime. The text then becomes Jeshua Hanotsri Vemelek Hayehudim. The initial letters thus form the tetragrammaton JHVH, which is God's personal name. This may provide a further explanation as to why the leaders were so upset and wanted to change the text.]
Since it was Preparation Day, and to prevent the bodies from hanging on the crosses on the Sabbath, for it was a high Sabbath (the high Sabbath) [which is the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, see ], the Jewish leaders ordered Pilate to have their legs broken [to hasten their death] so that they could remove the bodies.
After this, Joseph of
Arimathea asked Pilate for permission to take down Jesus' body. Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jewish leaders. Pilate allowed it. So he went and took down Jesus' body.
No [it was not us who performed the miracle], the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – the God of our fathers – has glorified his servant (son) Jesus. [It is through Jesus that the man has been healed.] You handed him over and denied him before Pilate when he had decided to release him.
Yes, this is truly what has happened among us
[David's prophecy has been fulfilled], here in this city
[Jerusalem]. Both Herod
[Antipas] and
Pontius Pilate, together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, united against your holy servant
(son) Jesus, whom you have anointed
Although they found him guilty of nothing deserving of death, they demanded that Pilate execute him.
I [Paul] command you [Timothy]
before God (in his presence), who gives life to all living things,
and before Jesus the Anointed One (Messiah, Christ),
who testified with the good confession before Pontius Pilate.
[Jesus' mission was to bear witness to the truth, see .]
