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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - John 11:49 - 11:49
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Caiaphas
A Sadducee, who held the office for eighteen years.
That year
This has been cited to show that John is guilty of a historical error, since, according to the Mosaic law, the high priesthood was held for life. The occurrence of the phrase three times (Joh 11:49, Joh 11:51) is significant, and, so far from indicating an error, goes to connect the office of Caiaphas with his part in accomplishing the death of Christ. It devolved on the High Priest to offer every year the great sacrifice of atonement for sin; and in that year, that memorable year, it fell to Caiaphas to be the instrument of the sacrifice of Him that taketh away the sin of the world. Dante places Caiaphas and his father-in-law, Annas, far down in Hell in the Bolgia of the Hypocrites:
“to mine eyes there rushed
One crucified with three stakes on the ground.
When me he saw, he writhed himself all over,
Blowing into his beard with suspirations;
And the friar Catalan who noticed this,
Said to me: 'This transfixed one whom thou seest,
Counselled the Pharisees that it was meet
To put one man to torture for the people.
Crosswrise and naked is he on the path,
As thou perceivest; and he needs must feel,
Whoever passes, first how much he weighs;
And in like mode his father-in-law is punished
Within this moat, and the others of the council,
Which for the Jews was a malignant seed.”
“Inferno,” xxiii., 110-129.
Dean Plumptre suggests that the punishment described by the poet seems to reproduce the thought of Isa 51:23.