John 18:40

John 18:40. They cried out therefore again, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas. The word ‘again' is here peculiarly worthy of notice. No previous cry of the Jews had been mentioned by the Evangelist; and, had his story been constructed merely to illustrate an idea, he certainly would not have spoken of a second cry when he had said nothing of a first. The word can only be a historical reminiscence in the writer's own mind. He knew that the Jews had cried out before, although he had not thought it necessary to mention it. Now, therefore, when a cry was to be spoken of, which he remembers was a second one, an indication that it was so comes naturally from his pen, ‘They cried out therefore again.' The cry was, ‘Not this man but Barabbas;' and the guilty nature of the cry is immediately intensified by a brief but emphatic statement, designed far more to bring out this guilt than to make us acquainted with a fact of history.

Now Barabbas was a robber. A robber! and yet they preferred him to the holy Jesus, to the Only-Begotten of the Father, to their King!