Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Matthew 27:15 - 27:18
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The offer to release Jesus:
v. 15. Now, at the feast the governor was wont to release unto the people a prisoner whom they would.
v. 16. And they had then a notable prisoner, called Barabbas.
v. 17. Therefore, when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ?
v. 18. For he knew that for envy they had delivered Him.
Pilate's was a weak, vacillating, unreliable character. He did not have the courage of his convictions, nor was he a man to enforce respect for his opinions. Rulers of his kind are liable to be unduly lenient and yielding at one time, and correspondingly harsh and cruel at another. The custom had been established at Jerusalem to release to the people, at the time of the Passover, some prisoner whom they desired to set free. The weak governor bethought himself that this custom might come to his aid in solving this difficulty without antagonizing the Jews. He had in jail at that time a most notorious and infamous criminal by the name of Barabbas, a seditionist and murderer. Now Pilate reasoned: Surely they will prefer the gentle Jesus to this dangerous, murderous person. In that sense he put the matter before them, emphasizing the fact that Jesus is called the Christ, the Messiah. He thought the choice would be easy, not reckoning with mob psychology. He was shrewd enough to see, what must have been evident to the disinterested observer from the start, that the accusations named by the Jewish leaders were nothing but trumped-up charges, due to envy on their part, because the common people heard Jesus gladly, and many of them had come to the knowledge of the truth.