Luke 23:13

συνκαλεσάμενος τοὺς�. This was a formal speech from a bema—perhaps the throne of Archelaus—set on the tessellated pavement called by the Jews Gabbatha (John 19:13). Now was the golden opportunity which Pilate should have seized in order to do what he knew to be right; and he was really anxious to do it because the meek Majesty of the Lord had made a deep impression upon him, and because even while seated on the bema, he was shaken by a presentiment of warning conveyed to him by the dream of his wife (Matthew 27:19). But men live under the coercion of their own past acts, and Pilate by his cruelty and greed had so bitterly offended the inhabitants of every province of Judaea that he dared not do anything more to provoke the accusation which he knew to be hanging over his head (comp. Jos. Antt. VIII. 3, § 2; B. J. II. 9, § 4).