Luke 22:52

‘And Jesus said to the chief priests, and captains of the temple, and elders, who were come against him, “Are you come out, as against a robber, with swords and staves?”

The party in front seemingly consisted of the leaders of the Jews and the Temple police led by the Temple captains, and Jesus now spoke to them sternly. He pointed out that they were clearly in the wrong in what they were doing. As they well knew there was absolutely no reason why they had needed to come out against Him in this kind of armed force, as though He was a violent brigand, when He had never tried to avoid them and had daily preached openly in the Temple. It simply revealed their guilt and hypocrisy.

Some have expressed surprise at the presence of the chief priests, but it is probable that the chief priests had had to accompany the party in order to ensure the support of the Roman cohort (John 18:8). To justify the use of the latter the situation had to be revealed as very important. Roman cohorts did not just turn out for anyone. They would not have wanted to accompany what was simply an attachment of Temple police carrying out a simple arrest, and would have left them to do their own dirty work. But the chief priests and the lay aristocrats, knowing what they had in mind for Jesus, had constrained Pilate by their very presence that the matter was very important. It would have required such an impressive party to make him act. If the chief priests involved themselves it must have been important (not that he had much opinion of them). Mark tells us that Scribes were also there, but they were here not pushing themselves forward. They wanted to be in at the death but they did not want the blame to redound on them, and it was the Temple authorities who had power of arrest. But all without exception were acting disgracefully.