John 19 - Introduction
CHAPTER 19. _ Pilate, after scourging Jesus, again pronounces Him guiltless_.... [ Continue Reading ]
CHAPTER 19. _ Pilate, after scourging Jesus, again pronounces Him guiltless_.... [ Continue Reading ]
Τότε οὖν … ἐμαστίγωσε. Keim (vi. 99) thinks that Pilate at this point pronounced his “condemno” and “ibis in crucem,” and that the scourging was preparatory to the crucifixion. This might seem to be warranted by Mark's very condensed account, John 15:15. φραγελλώσας ἵνα σταυρωθῇ (according to the Ro... [ Continue Reading ]
to John 19:16. _Jesus before Pilate_.... [ Continue Reading ]
καὶ ἤρχοντο πρὸς αὐτόν, “and they went on, coming to Him,” imperfect of continued action; “and hailing Him king,” χαῖρε κ. τ. λ., as they were accustomed to shout “Ave, Caesar”. At the same moment they struck Him on the face with their hands.... [ Continue Reading ]
Pilate, judging that this will content the Jews, brings Jesus out that they may see Him and ἵνα γνῶτε … εὑρίσκω, that Pilate may have another opportunity of pronouncing Him guiltless.... [ Continue Reading ]
Still wearing (φορῶν) the mocking symbols of royalty, an object of derision and pity, Jesus is led out, and the judge pointing to Him says, Ἴδε ὁ ἄνθρωπος, Ecce Homo, “Lo! the man,” as if inviting inspection of the pitiable figure, and convincing them how ridiculous it was to try to fix a charge of... [ Continue Reading ]
Instead of allowing him to release the prisoner, “the chief priests and their officers,” not “the people,” who were perhaps moved with pity (Lücke), “roared” (ἐκραύγασαν) “Crucify, crucify”; “To the cross”. To this demand Pilate, “in angry sarcasm” (Reynolds), but perhaps rather merely wishing stron... [ Continue Reading ]
The Jews are as determined that Pilate shall condemn Jesus as he is resolved not to condemn Him, and to his declaration of the prisoner's innocence they reply, Ἡμεῖς νόμον ἔχομεν … ἐποίησεν. He may have committed no wrong of which your Roman law takes cognisance, but “we have a law (Leviticus 24:16)... [ Continue Reading ]
John 19:7-12 _a_. _Second private examination by Pilate_.... [ Continue Reading ]
At this silence Pilate is indignant; Ἐμοὶ οὐ λαλεῖς; “To me do you not speak?” It is intelligible that you should not count it worth your while to answer the charges of that yelling mob; but do you not know that I have power to crucify you and have power to release you?... [ Continue Reading ]
Jesus answered, Οὐκ εἶχες … ἔχει. ἄνωθεν, “from above,” _i.e._, from God. Pilate must be reminded that the power he vaunts is not inherently his, but is given to him for God's purposes. From this it follows, διὰ τοῦτο, that ὁ παραδιδούς μέ σοι, “he that delivered me unto thee,” to wit, Caiaphas (alt... [ Continue Reading ]
_Fresh assault upon Pilate and his final surrender_.... [ Continue Reading ]
In consequence of this and from this point, ἐκ τούτου, as in John 6:66, “upon this,” with a causal as well as a temporal reference, ἐζήτει ὁ Πιλάτος ἀπολῦσαι αὐτόν, Pilate sought (ineffectually, imperfect) to set Him free. John 19:12. οἱ δὲ Ἰουδαῖοι, “but the Jews,” a new turn was at this point give... [ Continue Reading ]
Pilate therefore, when he heard this, brought Jesus out, καὶ ἐκάθισεν ἐπὶ τοῦ βήματος. In the _Gospel according to Peter_, ἐκάθισεν is understood transitively: καὶ ἐκάθισαν αὐτὸν ἐπὶ καθέδραν κρίσεως λέγοντες Δικαίως κρῖνε, βασιλεῦ τοῦ Ἰσραήλ. Similarly in Justin, _I. Apol._, i. 35. This rendering p... [ Continue Reading ]
ἦν δὲ παρασκευὴ τοῦ πάσχα, “now it was the preparation of the Passover”. παρασκευή was the usual appellation of Friday, the day of preparation for the weekly Sabbath. Here the addition τοῦ πάσχα shows that it is used of the day preceding the Passover. This day was, as it happened, a Friday, but it i... [ Continue Reading ]
They at once shouted, Ἆρον, ἆρον, σταύρωσον αὐτόν. To this Pilate could offer only the feeble opposition of more sarcasm, Τὸν βασιλέα ὑμῶν σταυρώσω; where, of course, the emphasis is on the first words, John with his artistic perception exhibits their final rejection of Christ in the form in which i... [ Continue Reading ]
The Jewish authorities on their part “received” Jesus, καὶ ἀπήγαγον. καὶ βαστάζων … Γολγοθᾶ. “And carrying the cross for Himself, He went out to the place called Kraniou (of a skull), which in Hebrew is called Golgotha.” The condemned man carried at least part of the cross, and sometimes the whole.... [ Continue Reading ]
_The crucifixion_.... [ Continue Reading ]
ὅπου … Ἰησοῦν. All information regarding the cross has been collected by Lipsius in his treatise _De Cruce_, Antwerp, 1595; Amstel., 1670; and in vol. ii. of his collected works, published at Lugduni, 1613. With Jesus were crucified “other two,” in Matthew 27:38, called “robbers,” probably of the sa... [ Continue Reading ]
Ἔγραψε δὲ καὶ τίτλον ὁ Πιλάτος. “And Pilate wrote a ‘title,' also, and set it on the cross.” The “title,” αἰτία, was a board whitened with gypsum (σανίς, λεύκωμα) such as were commonly used for public notices. Pilate himself, meaning to insult the Jews, ordered the precise terms of the inscription.... [ Continue Reading ]
This title was read by “many of the Jews,” because the place of crucifixion was close to the city, and lay in the road of any coming in from the north; also it was written in three languages so that every one could read it, whether Jew or Gentile.... [ Continue Reading ]
Naturally the chief priests remonstrated and begged Pilate so to alter the inscription as to remove the impression that the claim of Jesus was admitted.... [ Continue Reading ]
But Pilate, “by nature obstinate and stubborn” (Philo, ii. 589), peremptorily reiused to make any alteration. ὃ γέγραφα γέγραφα.... [ Continue Reading ]
“The soldiers, then, when they had crucified Jesus, took His garments” the executioner's perquisite (Apuleius has the comparison “naked as a new-born babe or as the crucified”) and as there were four soldiers, τετράδιον, Acts 12:4, they divided the clothes into four parts. This was the more easily d... [ Continue Reading ]
The soldiers therefore said, Μὴ σχίσωμεν αὐτόν ἀλλὰ λάχωμεν, “let us not rend it but cast lots”. λαγχάνειν is, properly, not “to cast lots,” but “to obtain by lot”. See Field, _Otium Norv._, 72. In this John sees a fulfilment of Psalms 22:18, the LXX. version of which here quoted verbatim.... [ Continue Reading ]
This part of the scene is closed (that another may be introduced) with the common formula, οἱ μὲν οὖν στρατιῶται ταῦτα ἐποίησαν. (“Graeci … saepissime hujusmodi conclusiunculis utuntur.” Raphel _in loc._) οἱ μὲν … εἱστήκεισαν δὲ … The soldiers for their part acted as has been related, but there were... [ Continue Reading ]
John's interest in naming the women is not obvious except in the case of the first. Ἰησοῦς … ἡ μήτηρ σου. Jesus when He saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing beside her (the relevancy of the designation, τὸν μαθητὴν ὃν ἠγάπα, is here obvious, and the most convincing proof of its tr... [ Continue Reading ]
And this trust He commits to John in the simple words, Ἰδοὺ ἡ μήτηρ σου, although his natural mother, Salome, was also standing there. [_Cf._ the bequest of Eudamidas: “I leave to Aretaeus the care of nourishing and providing for my mother in her old age”. Lucian's _Toxaris_.] John at once accepted... [ Continue Reading ]
Μετὰ τοῦτο … Διψῶ. “After this, Jesus knowing that all things are now finished, that the scripture might be completely fulfilled, saith, I thirst.” Jesus did not feel thirsty and proclaim it with the intention of fulfilling scripture which would be a spurious fulfilment but in His complaint and the... [ Continue Reading ]
Σκεῦος … μεστόν “There was set a vessel full of vinegar”; the mention of the vessel betrays the eye-witness. “The Synoptists do not mention the σκεῦος, but John had stood beside it.” Plummer. ὄξος, the vinegar used by soldiers. [Ulpian says: “vinum atque _acetum_ milites nostri solent percipere, uno... [ Continue Reading ]
ὅτε οὖν … πνεῦμα. The cry, τετέλεσται, “it is finished,” was not the gasp of a worn-out life, but the deliberate utterance of a clear consciousness that His work was finished, and all God's purpose accomplished (John 17:4), that all had now been done that could be done to make God known to men, and... [ Continue Reading ]
_The piercing of Jesus' side_.... [ Continue Reading ]
“The Jews, therefore, since it was the preparation,” _i.e._, Friday, the day before the Sabbath, “and as the day of that Sabbath was great,” being not only an ordinary Sabbath but the Passover, “that the bodies might not hang on the cross on the Sabbath” and so defile it, “they asked Pilate that the... [ Continue Reading ]
The two robbers were thus dispatched. ἐπὶ δὲ τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐλθόντες, but when the soldiers who were carrying out Pilate's orders came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they refrained from breaking His legs.... [ Continue Reading ]
But one of the soldiers λόγχῃ αὐτοῦ τὴν πλευρὰν ἔνυξε, “pierced His side with a spear”. But Field prefers “pricked His side” to keep up the distinction between ἔνυξε (the _milder_ word) and ἐξεκέντησε (John 19:37). He favours the idea of Loesner that the soldier's intention was to ascertain whether... [ Continue Reading ]
When he goes on to testify, ὁ ἑμρακὼς … it is not the phenomenon of the blood and water he so emphatically certifies, but the veritable death of Christ. To one who was about to relate a resurrection it was a necessary preliminary to establish the _bona-fide_ death. That John here speaks of himself i... [ Continue Reading ]
ἐγένετο γὰρ ταῦτα. He records these things, contained in this short paragraph, because they further identify Jesus as the promised Messiah. Ὀστοῦν οὐ συντριβήσεται αὐτοῦ. The law regarding the Paschal lamb ran thus (Exodus 12:46): ὀστοῦν οὐ συντρίψετε ἀπʼ αὐτοῦ, _cf._ Psalms 34:20. Evidently John id... [ Continue Reading ]
Μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα, “But after these things”. In John 19:31 the Jews asked that the bodies might be removed. Had this request been fulfilled by the soldiers, they would have cast the three bodies together into some pit of refuse, _cf._ Joshua 8:29; but before this was done Joseph of Arimathaea a place no... [ Continue Reading ]
_The entombment_.... [ Continue Reading ]
ἦλθε δὲ καὶ Νικόδημος. “Thus Jesus by being lifted up is already drawing men unto Him. These Jewish aristocrats first confess Him in the hour of His deepest degradation.” Plummer. Nicodemus is identified as ὁ ἐλθὼν … τὸ πρῶτον, “he who came to Jesus by night at the first”; John 3:1, in contrast to t... [ Continue Reading ]
ἔλαβον … ἐνταφιάζειν. They wrapped the body in strips of linen along with the aromatic preparations (2 Chronicles 16:14, ἀρωμάτων), as is the custom (ὡς ἔθος ἐστί, 1Ma 10:89) with the Jews (other peoples having other customs) to prepare for burial.... [ Continue Reading ]
ἐνταφιάζειν, see Genesis 50:1-3. ἦν ἐν τῷ τόπῳ, “There was in the place,” _i.e._, in that neighbourhood, κῆπος, a garden, which, according to Matthew 27:60, must have belonged to Joseph. μνημεῖον καινόν, a tomb, rock-hewn according to Synoptists, which had hitherto been unused, and which was therefo... [ Continue Reading ]
“There, accordingly, on account of the preparation of the Jews, because the tomb was at hand, they laid Jesus.” The Friday was so nearly at an end that they had not time to go to any distance, and therefore availed themselves of the neighbouring tomb as a provisional, if not permanent, resting-place... [ Continue Reading ]