The Condemned King Continues to Give

The whole council rises as a body. Pontius Pilate was prefect of Judea from AD 26 to 36; he lived at Caesarea and came up to Jerusalem at festivals with troops to keep order. A stone found at Caesarea in 1961 bears his name and the title praefectus Iudaeae.

“Perverting” is diastrepho, to twist, the word of Jesus’ own “O faithless and perverse generation” (9:41). “Christ a King” glosses a Jewish title for a Roman ear: a Messiah meant nothing to Pilate, but a king not appointed by Caesar was treason.

In Luke the phrase “King of the Jews” is spoken only by Gentiles, all in this chapter: Pilate here, the soldiers in verse 37, and the placard in verse 38. The Jewish rulers use “Christ” and “the chosen of God” (verse 35). “Thou sayest it” is the answer all four Gospels record.

“Fault” is aition, grounds for a charge, a word Luke uses only in this chapter (verses 4, 14, 22) and once in Acts 19:40, where the town clerk of Ephesus fears there is “no cause” to justify a riot. It is a legal finding, not a moral compliment.

“Were the more fierce” is epischyo, to insist more strongly, found only here in the New Testament. “Jewry” is the 1611 word for Judea, here in the wide sense of the whole Jewish land. “Beginning from Galilee” is how Peter will later summarise the ministry to Cornelius (Acts 10:37).

The word Galilee catches Pilate’s ear. Luke has already reported what this governor did to Galileans: their blood he “had mingled with their sacrifices” (13:1). A Galilean prisoner was also the business of Galilee’s ruler.

Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and Perea (3:1), was in the city for Passover. “Sent” is anapempo, the technical verb for remitting a case to another authority, which Festus uses of Paul in Acts 25:21, “till I might send him to Caesar”. Pilate could try the case himself; he chose to pass it on.

Herod’s wish goes back to 9:9, but so does his menace: Pharisees warned that “Herod will kill thee”, and Jesus called him “that fox” (13:31–32). “Some miracle” is semeion, a sign, the very thing Jesus refused to give on demand: “there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of Jonas” (11:29).

The silence recalls the servant of Isaiah 53:7, “as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth”, the verse Acts 8:32 applies to Jesus. He speaks to Pilate, to the council, to the women on the road and to a criminal; Herod is the one person in the passion he does not answer.

“Vehemently” is eutonos, at full stretch, used in the New Testament only here and in Acts 18:28, where Apollos “mightily convinced the Jews”. The accusers have followed Jesus from Pilate’s court to Herod’s to keep the charges alive.

“Men of war” is strateumata, Herod’s own troops. “Gorgeous” is lampros, bright or shining, the adjective of the “bright clothing” of the angel in Acts 10:30. White garments marked candidates for office in Rome, so the robe may mock a would-be king, though Luke does not say what colour it was.

Luke does not say why they had been enemies; the Galileans killed at the altar (13:1) are one guess. In Acts 4:27 the church prays Psalm 2 over this very pairing: “both Herod, and Pontius Pilate… were gathered together” against the one God anointed.

Pilate now summons “the people” along with the rulers. The laos who “were very attentive to hear him” (19:48) and whom the priests feared all week are, for the first time in Luke’s passion, gathered on the accusers’ side of the courtyard.

“Examined” is anakrino, the formal term for a judicial hearing, used in Acts 4:9 when Peter says “we this day be examined” and in Acts 24:8. Pilate stresses that the examination was held “before you”, in their presence, so they cannot claim it was done behind their backs.

The King James “nothing worthy of death is done unto him” is misleading in modern English. The Greek means nothing deserving death “has been done by him”: the finding is about his conduct, not about the treatment he has received.

“Chastise” is paideuo, a verb that ordinarily means to train or discipline a child, used here for a warning flogging. Pilate offers to beat a man he has just declared innocent. Luke never records the flogging being carried out.

The oldest manuscripts lack these words, and one ancient copy places them after verse 19; they were most likely brought in from Mark 15:6. No source outside the Gospels mentions a Passover release, though the Mishnah speaks of a lamb killed for one “whom they have promised to bring out of prison” (Pesachim 8:6).

“All at once” is pamplethei, the whole mass together, found only here in the New Testament. “Away with this man” is the same cry the crowd raises against Paul in Acts 21:36 and 22:22: “Away with him.”

Barabbas is Aramaic for “son of the father”. Some manuscripts of Matthew 27:16–17 give his full name as Jesus Barabbas, and Origen knew that reading. “Sedition” is stasis, an uprising; Mark places him among rebels “who had committed murder in the insurrection” (Mark 15:7).

“Willing” is thelo, wanting to release him. Peter’s sermon in the temple holds Pilate to the same account: “ye… denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go” (Acts 3:13).

The Greek is a present imperative doubled, staurou staurou, “crucify, crucify”, the rhythm of a chant. Luke has not used the verb before; the passion predictions spoke of being “killed”, and the cross appeared only in the call to take it up (9:23; 14:27).

“The third time” is stated outright. “No cause of death” is picked up in Paul’s sermon at Pisidian Antioch: “though they found no cause of death in him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be slain” (Acts 13:28).

“Instant” in 1611 means urgent, pressing. The verb is epikeimai, to lie upon or press upon, used of the crowd that “pressed upon him to hear the word of God” by the lake (5:1). “Prevailed” is katischyo, to overpower.

“Gave sentence” is epikrino, the verb for a formal ruling from the bench, found only here in the New Testament. Up to this point Pilate has only declared findings; now he decides.

Luke repeats Barabbas’s charges at the moment of release so that the exchange is plain. “To their will” uses thelema, the word of Jesus’ prayer on the mount, “not my will, but thine” (22:42). The will of the crowd and the will Jesus submitted to meet in this sentence.

Cyrene, in modern Libya, had a large Jewish community; Cyrenians had their own synagogue in Jerusalem (Acts 6:9), and men of Cyrene first preached to Greeks at Antioch (Acts 11:20). Roman soldiers could press a civilian into carrying a load. Mark names Simon’s sons, Alexander and Rufus; Luke does not.

“Bewailed” is kopto, to strike the breast in mourning, and “lamented” is threneo, to sing a dirge. The Talmud records a later custom in which respected women of Jerusalem offered wine mixed with frankincense to those being led out to execution (Sanhedrin 43a).

“Daughters of Jerusalem” is the address of the Song of Solomon (1:5; 2:7) and of the prophets speaking to the city. “Turning” is strepho, the same turning as when “the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter” (22:61). Only Luke records these words on the road.

The Book of Luke began with a barren woman whose reproach God took away (1:25), and a woman in the crowd once cried, “Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked” (11:27). Here the same blessing is turned inside out.

In Hosea 10:8 the words belong to the people of Samaria when the shrines of Beth-aven are destroyed. Revelation 6:16 gives the same cry to those hiding from “the wrath of the Lamb”.

Ezekiel 20:47 has a fire that “shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree”. The Greek words are hygros, moist or sappy, and xeros, dry, the second being the word for the “withered” hand of 6:6: wood that burns easily.

Read with no comma, the Greek heteroi kakourgoi dyo could mean “two other malefactors”, counting Jesus as one; the King James comma, “two other, malefactors”, avoids it. Luke calls the pair kakourgoi, evildoers, where Mark and Matthew call them lestai, bandits.

Luke gives the place only in Greek, Kranion, the skull, and never uses the Aramaic Golgotha that the other three Gospels give. “Calvary” comes from calvaria, the Latin word the Vulgate used here. The crucifixion itself takes three words in Greek.

Every prayer of Jesus that Luke quotes addresses God as “Father”: in thanksgiving (10:21), in the prayer he taught (11:2), on the mount (22:42), and twice from the cross (here and verse 46). The dividing of garments uses the words of Psalm 22:18; the clothes of the condemned went to the execution squad.

“Stood beholding” is theoreo, to watch as at a spectacle. “Derided” is ekmykterizo, to turn up the nose, used only here and of the Pharisees in 16:14; it is the verb of Psalm 22:7 in Greek, “All they that see me laugh me to scorn.” “The chosen” recalls “This is my beloved Son” at the transfiguration, where the best text reads “my chosen” (9:35).

“Vinegar” is oxos, sour wine, the cheap drink of soldiers. Psalm 69:21 had said “in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink”. In Luke the offer is part of the mockery, not an act of mercy.

The soldiers repeat the rulers’ taunt with their own title. At Nazareth Jesus had foreseen the proverb that would be thrown at him: “Physician, heal thyself” (4:23). Three times in five verses he is told to save himself.

A titulus was a placard stating the condemned man’s crime, carried before him or fixed to the cross; Suetonius describes one (Caligula 32). The words “in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew” are missing from the oldest manuscripts of Luke and were probably added from John 19:20.

“Railed” is blasphemeo. “Hanged” is kremannymi, the verb Luke uses for crucifixion in Acts 5:30 and 10:39, “whom they slew and hanged on a tree”, in the language of Deuteronomy 21:22–23. Mark and Matthew say both criminals reviled him; Luke alone distinguishes them.

The same Book of Luke that described a judge who “feared not God” (18:2) now has a condemned criminal ask another whether he fears God. “The same condemnation” is krima, the same sentence: all three are under one verdict.

“Nothing amiss” is atopon, literally “out of place”, improper. Luke uses it in Acts 25:5, where Festus asks for evidence of “any wickedness” in Paul, and in Acts 28:6, where the islanders wait for “harm” from the snakebite and see none.

The oldest manuscripts read “Jesus, remember me”, the bare name, without “Lord”; no one else in Luke addresses him so. “Remember me” is the plea of Joseph to the cupbearer (Genesis 40:14) and of the psalms (Psalm 106:4). Manuscripts divide between “into thy kingdom” and “in thy kingdom”.

Paradise is a Persian word for a walled garden or royal park, used in the Greek Old Testament for the garden of Eden (Genesis 2:8); Paul was “caught up into paradise” (2 Corinthians 12:4). This is the last of Luke’s six uses of “Verily”.

Hours were counted from sunrise, so the sixth is about noon and the ninth about three, the hour of the evening sacrifice and of prayer (Acts 3:1). “All the earth” can equally be “all the land”. Amos 8:9 had threatened: “I will cause the sun to go down at noon.”

The oldest manuscripts read tou heliou eklipontos, “the sun’s light failing”, and ekleipo was the usual Greek term for an eclipse. Passover fell at full moon, when a solar eclipse cannot happen, and Luke gives no explanation of what darkened the sky.

“Commend” is paratithemai, to deposit something in trust, the word Paul uses when he “commended them to the Lord” (Acts 14:23; 20:32). Psalm 31:5 says “Into thine hand I commit my spirit” to the “LORD God of truth”; Jesus adds the address “Father”. “Gave up the ghost” is ekpneo, breathed out.

Luke’s centurions are consistently sympathetic: the one at Capernaum whose servant was healed (7:2–10), Cornelius (Acts 10), and Julius, who treated Paul kindly (Acts 27:3). “Glorified God” is Luke’s recurring response to God’s work, used of the shepherds (2:20) and the healed blind man (18:43).

“Sight” is theoria, a spectacle, found only here in the New Testament; the crowd had come as to a show. They go home mourning. “Returned” is hypostrepho, Luke’s favourite verb for going back, used some thirty times in the Gospel.

“Acquaintance” is gnostoi, those known to him, the word used when his parents searched for the boy Jesus “among their kinsfolk and acquaintance” (2:44). Psalm 88:8 in Greek has the same word: “thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me.” The women were introduced in 8:2–3.

“Counsellor” is bouleutes, a member of the council. He is the second man in four verses to be called dikaios, “just”, after the centurion’s verdict on Jesus in verse 47. “A good man” is how Acts 11:24 describes Barnabas.

Arimathaea is usually identified with Ramathaim-zophim, the hill town where Samuel was born (1 Samuel 1:1). “Waited for” is prosdechomai, the verb used of Simeon “waiting for the consolation of Israel” (2:25): the Book of Luke opens and closes with devout Jews waiting in Jerusalem.

Roman practice often left the crucified on the cross for days, but Deuteronomy 21:22–23 required a hanged man to be buried the same day. Josephus says the Jews took down the crucified and buried them before sunset (Jewish War 4.317). A request to the governor was still needed.

“Took it down” is kathaireo, the verb Paul uses in his summary: “they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre” (Acts 13:29). “Hewn in stone” is laxeutos, cut out of rock, found only here in the New Testament.

“The preparation” is paraskeue, the day of getting ready for the sabbath, and still the Greek word for Friday. “Drew on” is epiphosko, literally “was dawning”, a surprising word for dusk; it may reflect the lighting of sabbath lamps, or simply the start of a new day, since Jewish days began at evening.

Luke withholds their names until 24:10: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James. Mary Magdalene and Joanna were among the women who “ministered unto him of their substance” in Galilee (8:2–3), and have followed him the whole way south.

Spices (aromata) and ointments (myra, perfumed oils) were for the body, not the tomb. The Greek sentence does not end here: “they rested on the sabbath” is the first half of a construction whose second half, “but upon the first day of the week”, opens chapter 24. The chapter break falls in mid-sentence.