John 19:1. Then Pilate therefore took Jesus and scourged him. It is the scourging itself that is the prominent thought, not the fact that it was inflicted by order of Pilate. The name of the governor indeed is mentioned, but this seems simply to be because without his authority the punishment could not have been inflicted. The punishment is itself the main point, the increasing sufferings of Jesus and His deepening humiliation and agony as, under the pressure of His sinful nation, He goes onward to the cross. In the first picture (chap. John 18:33-40) Jesus is simply the prisoner bound; in the second, that before us, He is the prisoner scourged and treated with contemptuous mockery of his royal claims. This mockery follows the scourging.

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Old Testament