John 19:13

τῶν λόγων τούτων (אAB) for τοῦτον τὸν λόγον (from John 19:8).

13. Pilate’s mind seems to have been made up at once: without replying he prepares to pass sentence. The fatal moment has come, and as in the case of the arrest (John 18:1-4) the Evangelist gives minute particulars.

ἤγαγεν ἔξω. Sentence must be pronounced in public. Thus we find that Pilate, in giving judgment about the standards, which had been brought into Jerusalem, has his tribunal in the great circus at Caesarea, and Florus erects his in front of the palace (Josephus, B. J. II. John 9:3; John 14:8).

ἐκάθισεν may be either transitive, as in 1 Corinthians 6:4; Ephesians 1:20, or intransitive, as in Matthew 19:28; Matthew 25:31. If it is transitive here, the meaning will be, ‘placed him on a seat,’ as an illustration of his mocking exclamation, ‘Behold your King!’—i.e. ‘There He sits enthroned!’ But [John 8:2;] John 12:14; Revelation 3:21; Revelation 20:4, the only places where S. John uses the word, and Acts 12:21; Acts 25:6; Acts 25:17, where we have the same phrase as here, are against the transitive meaning in this place. The absence of the article before βήματος perhaps indicates that the Bema was a temporary and not the usual one; everywhere else in N.T. βῆμα has the article. With the pregnant use of εἰς comp. John 20:19, (John 21:4).

Λιθόστρωτον. Josephus (Ant. v. John 19:2) says that the Temple-Mount, on part of which the fortress of Antonia stood, was covered with a tesselated pavement. This fact and the Aramaic name tend to shew that the portable mosaic which Imperators sometimes carried about for their tribunals is not meant here. But Gab Baitha is no equivalent of Λιθόστρωτον, though it indicates the same place: it means ‘the ridge of the House,’ i.e. the Temple-Mound. For ‘Εβραϊστί see on John 5:2.