Matius 27:22-23

27:22 Pilate said to them, “Then what should I do with Jesus who is called the Christ?” ¹  They all said, “Crucify him!” ²  27:23 He asked, “Why? What wrong has he done?” But they shouted more insistently, “Crucify him!”

Lukas 23:20-24

23:20 Pilate addressed them once again because he wanted ³  to release Jesus. 23:21 But they kept on shouting, ⁴  “Crucify, crucify ⁵  him!” 23:22 A third time he said to them, “Why? What wrong has he done? I have found him guilty ⁶  of no crime deserving death. ⁷  I will therefore flog ⁸  him and release him.” 23:23 But they were insistent, ⁹  demanding with loud shouts that he be crucified. And their shouts prevailed. 23:24 So ¹⁰  Pilate ¹¹  decided ¹²  that their demand should be granted.

Yohanes 19:14-16

19:14 (Now it was the day of preparation ¹³  for the Passover, about noon. ¹⁴ ) ¹⁵  Pilate ¹⁶  said to the Jewish leaders, ¹⁷  “Look, here is your king!”

19:15 Then they ¹⁸  shouted out, “Away with him! Away with him! ¹⁹  Crucify ²⁰  him!” Pilate asked, ²¹  “Shall I crucify your king?” The high priests replied, “We have no king except Caesar!” 19:16 Then Pilate ²²  handed him over ²³  to them to be crucified.

The Crucifixion

So they took Jesus,

[27:22]  ¹ tn Or “Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

[27:22]  sn See the note on Christ in 1:16.

[27:22]  ² tn Grk “Him – be crucified!” The third person imperative is difficult to translate because English has no corresponding third person form for the imperative. The traditional translation “Let him be crucified” sounds as if the crowd is giving consent or permission. “He must be crucified” is closer, but it is more natural in English to convert the passive to active and simply say “Crucify him.”

[27:22]  sn See the note on crucified in 20:19.

[23:20]  ³ sn The account pictures a battle of wills – the people versus Pilate. Pilate is consistently portrayed in Luke’s account as wanting to release Jesus because he believed him to be innocent.

[23:21]  ⁴ tn Grk “shouting, saying.” The participle λέγοντες (legontes) is redundant and has not been translated here.

[23:21]  ⁵ tn This double present imperative is emphatic.

[23:21]  sn Crucifixion was the cruelest form of punishment practiced by the Romans. Roman citizens could not normally undergo it. It was reserved for the worst crimes, like treason and evasion of due process in a capital case. The Roman historian Cicero called it “a cruel and disgusting penalty” (Against Verres 2.5.63-66 §§163-70); Josephus (J. W. 7.6.4 [7.203]) called it the worst of deaths.

[23:22]  ⁶ tn Grk “no cause of death I found in him.”

[23:22]  ⁷ sn The refrain of innocence comes once again. Pilate tried to bring some sense of justice, believing Jesus had committed no crime deserving death.

[23:22]  ⁸ tn Or “scourge” (BDAG 749 s.v. παιδεύω 2.b.γ). See the note on “flogged” in v. 16.

[23:23]  ⁹ tn Though a different Greek term is used here (BDAG 373 s.v. ἐπίκειμαι), this remark is like 23:5.

[23:24]  ¹⁰ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of the crowd’s cries prevailing.

[23:24]  ¹¹ sn Finally Pilate gave in. He decided crucifying one Galilean teacher was better than facing a riot. Justice lost out in the process, because he did not follow his own verdict.

[23:24]  ¹² tn Although some translations render ἐπέκρινεν (epekrinen) here as “passed sentence” or “gave his verdict,” the point in context is not that Pilate sentenced Jesus to death here, but that finally, although convinced of Jesus’ innocence, he gave in to the crowd’s incessant demand to crucify an innocent man.

[19:14]  ¹³ sn The term day of preparation (παρασκευή, paraskeuh) appears in all the gospels as a description of the day on which Jesus died. It could refer to any Friday as the day of preparation for the Sabbath (Saturday), and this is the way the synoptic gospels use the term (Matt 27:62, Mark 15:42, and Luke 23:54). John, however, specifies in addition that this was not only the day of preparation of the Sabbath, but also the day of preparation of the Passover, so that the Sabbath on the following day was the Passover (cf. 19:31).

[19:14]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “about the sixth hour.”

[19:14]  sn For John, the time was especially important. When the note concerning the hour, about noon, is connected with the day, the day of preparation for the Passover, it becomes apparent that Jesus was going to die on the cross at the very time that the Passover lambs were being slain in the temple courts. Exod 12:6 required that the Passover lamb be kept alive until the 14th Nisan, the eve of the Passover, and then slaughtered by the head of the household at twilight (Grk “between the two evenings”). By this time the slaughtering was no longer done by the heads of households, but by the priests in the temple courts. But so many lambs were needed for the tens of thousands of pilgrims who came to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast (some estimates run in excess of 100,000 pilgrims) that the slaughter could not be completed during the evening, and so the rabbis redefined “between the two evenings” as beginning at noon, when the sun began to decline toward the horizon. Thus the priests had the entire afternoon of 14th Nisan in which to complete the slaughter of the Passover lambs. According to the Fourth Gospel, this is the time Jesus was dying on the cross.

[19:14]  ¹⁵ sn This is a parenthetical note by the author.

[19:14]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “And he”; the referent (Pilate) has been specified in the translation for clarity, and the conjunction καί (kai, “and”) has not been translated here in keeping with the tendency of contemporary English style to use shorter sentences.

[19:14]  ¹⁷ tn Or “the Jewish authorities”; Grk “the Jews.” Here the phrase refers to the Jewish leaders, especially members of the Sanhedrin, and their servants (mentioned specifically as “the chief priests and their servants” in John 19:6). See the note on the phrase “Jewish leaders” in v. 7.

[19:15]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “Then these.”

[19:15]  ¹⁹ tn The words “with him” (twice) are not in the Greek text. Direct objects were often omitted in Greek when clear from the context.

[19:15]  ²⁰ sn See the note on Crucify in 19:6.

[19:15]  ²¹ tn Grk “Pilate said to them.” The words “to them” are not translated because it is clear in English who Pilate is addressing.

[19:16]  ²² tn Grk “Then he”; the referent (Pilate) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[19:16]  ²³ tn Or “delivered him over.”