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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Matthew 27:26 - 27:30
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Jesus condemned, and mocked by the soldiers:
v. 26. Then released he Barabbas unto them; and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered Him to be crucified.
v. 27. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall, and gathered unto Him the whole band of soldiers.
v. 28. And they stripped Him, and put on Him a scarlet robe.
v. 29. And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon His head, and a reed in His right hand; and they bowed the knee before Him, and mocked Him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews!
v. 30. And they spit upon Him, and took the reed, and smote Him on the head.
It was not a trial which here came to an end, but a travesty upon justice; Barabbas is released, but Jesus condemned. A type of the redemption, even at that: The innocent found guilty, the guilty released. But Pilate adds insult to injury and gives further evidence of the cruelty of small natures by having Jesus scourged, His naked back bent over a post, to which He was tied, and cut to pieces with leather thongs, as it was thus stretched out on the rack of pain. And having thus, as he hoped, fully regained the confidence of the Jews, he spoke the formal sentence of condemnation upon Jesus, sentencing Him to the death of the cross. This was a signal for the soldiers of the procurator, the prisoner was now delivered to their mercy. They first led Him into the judgment-hall of the palace, which was called praetorium from the fact that the praetor, or Roman magistrate, administered justice in this room in the absence of the higher officer of the empire. Here all the members of the Pretorian guard assembled to have their sport with the helpless victim. For a second time they stripped Him, throwing about Him, instead of His clothes, the scarlet mantle of a soldier, which had some resemblance to the robe of a king or emperor. They braided a crown of sharp thorns and pressed it down upon His head, thus lacerating the skin. They placed an old rod into His hand instead of a scepter. In mock solemnity and with feigned seriousness, they bowed their knees before Him, giving Him homage as King of the Jews. It was an insult to Christ, but also incidentally to the Jews. Their real nature came out in the climax of their torture, when they grew tired of acting, and spit in His face, while some of them took the mock scepter and drove the thorns still more deeply into the sensitive skin of the forehead by sharp blows. And in all these things the prophecies of the Old Testament, reinforced with those of Christ Himself, were fulfilled for the sake of mankind's redemption.