Matthew 27:27

Matthew 27:27. Into the palace, or, ‘praetorium.' The scourging had taken place outside. From Mark (Mark 15:16) we learn that it was into the court (comp. chap. Matthew 26:68). The word praetorium was applied first to the general's tent in the Roman camp, then to the residence of the provincial governors, who were usually generals. Pilate,, when in Jerusalem, probably lived in the former palace of Herod, ‘on the northern brow of Zion, overlooking the enclosure of the temple, and connected with it by a bridge' (J. A. Alexander). But Lange thinks that Herod Antipas would probably have occupied this, and Pilate the castle Antonia.

The whole band. The tenth part of a legion, the ‘cohort,' numbering from four hundred to six hundred men, then on duty at Pilate's residence. It was probably in the open guardroom of the cohort, but this does not prove that the place was the castle Antonia.