John 11:49

Caiaphas, being high priest that year.

John does not mean that the high priesthood was an annual office, but places the emphasis on "that year." With him the "year of our Lord" was the year of his death. In that ever memorable year Caiaphas was high priest. Caiaphas was. Sadducee,. crafty, powerful, unscrupulous man, who was high priest in all for eighteen years, from A. D. 18 to A. D. 36, an unusual tenure of office in those times when the Romans made and unmade high priests at will, there being twenty-five in the century preceding the fall of Jerusalem.

Ye know nothing at all.

"Ye" is the emphatic word. "Ye who dwell on these scruples and fears do not even know the simplest rule of statesmanship, that one must be sacrificed to the many." The proud Sadducee contrasts the timid, hesitating policy of others with his fixed, clear policy of putting Jesus to death. His language is bitterly sarcastic and he charges the Sanhedrim with blindness to its own interest.