Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 26:66
What think ye? They answered and said, He is guilty of death.
66. He is guilty of death ] i. e. “has incurred the penalty of death.” The Sanhedrin do not pass sentence, but merely re-affirm their foregone conclusion, and endeavour to have sentence passed and judgment executed by the Procurator.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
What think ye? – What is your opinion? What sentence do you pronounce? As President of the Sanhedrin he demanded their judgment.
He is guilty of death – This was the form which was used when a criminal was condemned to die. The meaning is, he is guilty of a crime to which the law annexes death. This sentence was used before the Jews became subject to the Romans, when they had the power of inflicting death. After they were subject to the Romans, though the power of inflicting capital punishment was taken away, yet they retained the form when they expressed their opinion of the guilt of an offender. The law under which they condemned him was that recorded in Lev 24:10-16, which sentenced him that was guilty of blasphemy to death by stoning. The chief priests, however, were unwilling to excite a popular tumult by stoning him, and they therefore consulted to deliver him to the Romans to be crucified, under the authority of the Roman name, and thus to prevent any excitement among the people.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 66. He is guilty of death.] , he is liable to death. All the forms of justice are here violated. The judge becomes a party and accuser, and proceeds to the verdict without examining whether all the prophecies concerning the Messiah, and the innumerable miracles which he wrought, did not justify him. Examination and proof are the ruin of all calumnies, and of the authors of them, and therefore they take care to keep off from these two things. See Quesnel.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
What think ye?…. Of the words just now spoken by him; do not they in your opinion amount to a charge of blasphemy and what punishment do you think ought to be inflicted on him? is he guilty of death, or not? This question he put, as being president of the court:
they answered and said, he is guilty of death; they were unanimous in their vote, for Mark says, “they all condemned him to be guilty of death”; only Joseph of Arimathea must be excepted, who consented not to their counsel and deed, Lu 23:51, and so must Nicodemus, if he was present; who seeing what they were determined to do, withdrew themselves before the question came to be put, and so it passed “nemine contradicente”; and indeed, if he had been guilty of blasphemy, as they charged him, the sentence would have been right. Now this was in the night, in which they begun, carried on, and finished this judicial procedure, quite contrary to one of their own canons w which runs thus:
“pecuniary causes they try in the day, and finish in the night; capital causes (such was this) they try in the day, and finish in the day; pecuniary causes they finish the same day, whether for absolution, or condemnation; capital causes they finish the same day for absolution, and the day following for condemnation; wherefore they do not try causes neither on the sabbath eve, nor on the eve of a feast day.”
But in this case, they begun the trial in the night, examined the witnesses, finished it, and passed the sentence of condemnation, and that in the eve of a grand festival, their Chagigah.
w Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 4. sect. 1. Maimom. Hilch. Sanhedrin, c. 11. sect. 1, 2. T. Hieros. Yom Tob, fol. 63. 1.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
He is worthy of death ( ). Held in the bonds of death (, ) as actually guilty with the genitive (). The dative expresses liability as in Mt 5:21 ( ) and as and the accusative (Mt 5:22). They took the vote though it was at night and they no longer had the power of death since the Romans took it away from them. Death was the penalty of blasphemy (Le 24:15). But they enjoyed taking it as their answer to his unanswerable speeches in the temple that dreadful Tuesday a few days before. It was unanimous save that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus did not agree. They were probably absent and not even invited as being under suspicion for being secret disciples of Christ.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Guilty of death [ ] . Rev., worthy of death. See on Mt 23:18. ejn, in, ecw, to hold. The idea is, literally, holden of death; in bonds to death.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
(66) He is guilty of death.In modern English the word guilty is almost always followed by the crime which a man has committed. In older use it was followed by the punishment which the man deserved. (Comp. Num. 35:31.) The decision, as far as the meeting went, was unanimous. Sentence was passed. It remained, however, to carry the sentence into effect, and this, while the Roman governor was at Jerusalem, presented a difficulty which had to be met by proceedings of another kind. The Jews, or at least their rulers, who courted the favour of Rome, ostentatiously disclaimed the power of punishing capital offences (Joh. 18:31).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
66. What think ye? He presses his advantage to an immediate vote. Guilty of death His crime is blasphemy; that is the charge. He is worthy of death; that is the penalty. And the verdict is unanimous. Now why did not immediate execution follow? The obstruction is a formidable one. The Jews are under the Roman government. The Romans have taken from them the power of life and death. Besides, the Scriptures require that he should suffer death from Gentile hands, a reason of which they are unaware.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Mat 26:66. He is guilty of death. Or he deserves or is worthy of death.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Mat 26:66 . At this point the high priest, notwithstanding the precipitancy with which the trial is being hurried through, and notwithstanding the candid confession just made by the accused, calls for a formal vote, the result of which is a verdict of guilty , and that of an offence deserving to be punished by death . The next thing that had to be considered was the course to be adopted with a view to the carrying out of the sentence . It was this that formed the subject of deliberation at that conclave to which reference is made at Mat 27:1 .
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
66 What think ye? They answered and said, He is guilty of death.
Ver. 66. He is guilty of death ] Servile souls! they dare do no otherwise than concur with Caiaphas. So in Popish councils and conclaves the bishops and others (those aiones et negones aulici ) have no more to do, but simply inclinato capite to say Placet to that which in the pope’s name is proposed unto them. The envoys in the Council of Trent were blamed for suffering the article of priests’ marriage to be disputed. And in Colloquio Possiaceno, after that Beza had spoken much of the eucharist before the young king of France, the queen mother and the princess of the blood, a Spanish Jesuit, having reproached the Protestants, did reprehend the queen mother for meddling in matters that belonged not to her, but to the pope, cardinals, and bishops.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
66. ] This was not a formal condemnation, but only a previous vote or expression of opinion. That took place in the morning , see ch. Mat 27:1 , and especially Luk 22:66-71 .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Mat 26:66 . : death the penalty of blasphemy, Lev 24:15 , and of being a false prophet, Deu 18:20 .
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Matthew
THE REAL HIGH PRIEST AND HIS COUNTERFEIT
Mat 26:57 – Mat 26:68
John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus was brought before ‘Annas first,’ probably in the same official priestly residence as Caiaphas, his son-in-law, occupied. That preliminary examination brought out nothing to incriminate the prisoner, and was flagrantly illegal, being an attempt to entrap Him into self-accusing statements. It was baffled by Jesus being silent first, and subsequently taking His stand on the undeniable principle that a charge must be sustained by evidence, not based on self-accusation. Annas, having made nothing of this strange criminal, ‘sent Him bound unto Caiaphas.’
A meeting of the Sanhedrin had been hastily summoned in the dead of night, which was itself an illegality. Now Jesus stands before the poor shadow of a judicial tribunal, which, though it was all that Rome had left a conquered people, was still entitled to sit in judgment on Him. Strange inversion, and awful position for these formalists! And with sad persistence of bitter prejudice they proceeded to try the prisoner, all unaware that it was themselves, not Him, that they were trying.
They began wrongly, and betrayed their animus at once. They were sitting there to inquire whether Jesus was guilty or no; they had made up their minds beforehand that He was, and their effort now was but to manufacture some thin veil of legality for a judicial murder. So they ‘sought false witness, . . . that they might put Him to death.’ Matthew simply says that no evidence sufficient for the purpose was forthcoming; Mark adds that the weak point, was that the lies contradicted each other. Christ’s presence has a strange, solemn power of unmasking our falsehoods, both of thought and deed, and it is hard to speak evil of Him before His face. If His calumniators were confused when He stood as Prisoner, what will they be when He sits as a Judge?
Only Matthew and Mark tell us of the two witnesses whose twisted version of the word about ‘destroying the Temple and rebuilding it in three days’ seemed to Caiaphas serious enough to require an answer. Their mistake was one which might have been made in good faith, but none the less was their travesty ‘false witness.’ Their version of His great word shows how easily the teaching of a lofty soul, passed through the popular brain, is degraded, and made to mean the opposite of what he had meant by it. For the destruction of the Temple had appeared in the saying as the Jews’ work, and Jesus had presented Himself in it as the Restorer, not the Destroyer, of the Temple and of all that it symbolised. We destroy, He rebuilds. The murder of Jesus was the suicide of the nation. Caiaphas and his council were even now pulling down the Temple. And that murder was the destruction, so far as men could effect it, of the true ‘Temple of His body,’ in which the fulness of the Godhead dwelt, and which was more gloriously reconstituted in the Resurrection. The risen Christ rears the true temple on earth, for through Him the Holy Ghost dwells in His Church, which is collectively ‘the Temple,’ and in all believing spirits, which are individually ‘the temples’ of God. So the false witnesses distorted into a lie a great truth.
The Incarnate Word was dumb all the while. He ‘was still and refrained’ Himself. It was the silence of the King before a lawless tribunal of rebels, of patient meekness, ‘as a sheep before her shearers’; of innocence that will not stoop to defend itself from groundless accusations; of infinite pity and forbearing love, which sees that it cannot win, but will not smite. Jesus is still silent, but one day, ‘with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked.’ Caiaphas seems to have been annoyed as well as surprised at Jesus’ silence, for there is a trace of irritation, as at ‘contempt of court,’ in his words. But our Lord’s continued silence appears to have somewhat awed him, and the dawning consciousness of his dignity is, perhaps, the reason for the high priest’s casting aside all the foolery of false witnessing, and coming at last to the real point,- the Messianic claims of Jesus.
Caiaphas was doing his duty as high priest in inquiring into such claims, but he was somewhat late in the day, and he had made up his mind before he inquired. What he wished to get was a plain assertion on which the death sentence could be pronounced. Jesus knew this, and yet He answered. But Luke tells us that He first scathingly pointed to the unreality and animus of the question by saying, ‘If I tell you, ye will not believe.’ But yet it was fitting that He should solemnly, before the supreme court, representative of the nation, declare that He was the Messiah, and that, if He was to be rejected and condemned, it should be on the ground of that declaration. Before Caiaphas He claimed to be Messiah, before Pilate He claimed to be King. Each rejected Him in the character that appealed to them most. The many-sidedness of the perfect Revealer of God brings Him to each soul in the aspect that most loudly addresses each. Therefore the love in the appeal and the guilt in its rejection are the greater.
But Christ’s self-attestation to the council was not limited to the mere claim to the name of Messiah. It disclosed the implications of that name in a way altogether unlike the conceptions held by Caiaphas. When Caiaphas put in apposition ‘the Christ’ and ‘the Son of God,’ he was not speaking from the ordinary Jewish point of view, but from some knowledge, of Christ’s teaching, and there are two charges combined into one.
But Jesus’ answer, while plainly claiming to be the Messiah, expands itself in regard to the claim to be ‘Son of God,’ and shows its tremendous significance. It involves participation in divine authority and omnipotence. It involves a future coming to be the Judge of His judges. It declares that these blind scribes and elders will see Him thus exalted, and it asserts that all this is to begin then and there ‘henceforth’, as if that hour of humiliation was to His consciousness the beginning of His manifestation as Lord, or, as John has it, ‘the hour that the Son of Man should be glorified.’ Nor must we leave out of sight the fact that it is ‘the Son of Man’ of whom all this is said, for thereby are indicated the raising of His perfect humanity to participation in Deity, and the possibility that His brethren, too, may sit where He sits. Much was veiled in the answer to the council, much is veiled to us. But this remains,-that Jesus, at that supreme moment, when He was bound to leave no misunderstandings, made the plainest claim to divinity, and could have saved His life if He had not done so. Either Caiaphas, in his ostentatious horror of such impiety, was right in calling Christ’s words blasphemy, and not far wrong in inferring that Jesus was not fit to live, or He is the everlasting ‘Son of the Father,’ and will ‘come to be our Judge.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
guilty = deserving or subject to; “guilty” is obsolete in this sense Greek. enochos, as in Mar 14:64. 1Co 11:27. Jam 2:10.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
66.] This was not a formal condemnation, but only a previous vote or expression of opinion. That took place in the morning, see ch. Mat 27:1, and especially Luk 22:66-71.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Mat 26:66. , what think ye?) He treats the matter as already finished. Moses says, Let the blasphemer die; Caiaphas says, Jesus is a blasphemer; his assessors, from these premises, draw the conclusion, Let Jesus die. St Mark has (ch. Mar 14:64) , how does it seem to you?-, of death) Such is also their declaration to Pilate. See Joh 19:7.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
He: Lev 24:11-16, Joh 19:7, Act 7:52, Act 13:27, Act 13:28, Jam 5:6
Reciprocal: Deu 21:22 – General Psa 22:7 – shoot out Psa 109:20 – them Isa 53:8 – General Jer 26:11 – saying Mat 20:18 – they Mar 10:33 – condemn Mar 14:64 – General Luk 22:71 – General
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
6:66
With such a breach of justice to influence them, it is no wonder that the assembly answered the question of the high priest as they did. It was all the more to be expected when their own personal sentiments were previously set against the prisoner because of his frequent rebukes of their wicked lives. He is guilty of death means that he is guilty of a crime that calls for the death penalty. Under the law of Moses a man who was guilty of blasphemy against God was to be put to death (Lev 24:16). Jesus was not guilty, but the high priest had pronounced him so, hence the way was opened for the assembly, which was overwhelmingly moved by the spirit of a mob, to agree with the decision of the president and condemn the prisoner.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Mat 26:66. What think ye? A formal putting of the question to vote.
He is guilty (or worthy) of death. The answer of all (Mar 14:64). This formal condemnation was, as they imagined, according to the law (Lev 24:16; comp. Deu 18:20). The Sanhedrin was forbidden to investigate any capital crime during the night, and according to the Roman law a sentence pronounced before dawn was not valid. This test vote, however, they considered as settling the question; hence the ill-treatment which followed (Mat 26:67-68). They were scrupulous in holding another meeting in daylight and there passing the final sentence (chap. Mat 27:1; Luk 22:7). Yet even this was illegal, for a sentence of death could not be pronounced on the day of the investigation. All the examinations took place within one Jewish day, beginning in the evening.