Matthew 27:2

Delivered him up to Pilate the governor

(παρεδωκαν Πειλατω τω ηγεμον). What they had done was all a form and a farce. Pilate had the power of death, but they had greatly enjoyed the condemnation and the buffeting of Jesus now in their power bound as a condemned criminal. He was no longer the master of assemblies in the temple, able to make the Sanhedrin cower before him. He had been bound in the garden and was bound before Annas (John 18:12; John 18:24), but may have been unbound before Caiaphas.