Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 27:21
The governor answered and said unto them, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? They said, Barabbas.
21. Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? ] Once more the question is put to the people (see Mat 27:17). His wife’s message had made Pilate anxious to acquit Jesus. But the very form of the question implied condemnation. Jesus was classed with Barabbas in the category of condemned prisoners.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Mat 27:21-23
They said, Barabbas
The choice-Barabbas or Jesus
The same choice continues still.
All, throughout the whole world, is one choice between God and Satan, Christ and Barabbas. We know not, indeed, what we do; and so, again and again, our blessed Lord intercedes for those who deliver Him to His foes. Rut whenever a choice is given, if we have but any fear that we are choosing amiss, if we do what we suspect to be wrong or worse, if we say wilfully what we think better unsaid, what do we, in fact, but choose Barabbas? We must in all things make this choice. There is, in everything, a better and a worse, a good and an evil to us. If we choose good, we choose God, Who alone is good, and is in all things good; if we choose evil, we do, in fact, choose the evil one. There are degrees of choice; as there were degrees and steps in the rejection of our Lord. Yet each led on to the next. Each hardens for the next. No one ever became at once wholly vile, is even a heathen proverb. But there is no safety against making the very worst choice, except in the fixed, conscious purpose, in all things to make the best. The last acts are mostly not in a persons own power. They who compass themselves about with sparks, cannot themselves quench the burning. They who make the first bad choice are often hurried on, whether they will or no. The one choice is manifoldly repeated. The roads part asunder slightly; yet, unmarked, the distance between them is ever widening, until they end in heaven or in hell. Each act of choice is a step toward either. Either we are striking more into the narrow way, or we are parting from it; we are, by Gods grace, unbinding the cords by which we are held, or we are binding them tighter. (E, B. Pusey, D. D.)
Christ before Pilate-Munkassys picture
The scene is in the pavement or open court before the governors palace, which was called in the Hebrew tongue Gabbatha, and in which, after all his efforts to wriggle out of the responsibility of dealing with the case, Pilate ultimately gave up Jesus to be crucified. At one end of the court, on a raised bench, and dressed in a white toga, Pilate sits. On either side of him are Jews, each of whom has a marked and special individuality. The two on his left are gazing with intense eagerness at Christ. They are evidently puzzled, and know not what to make of the mysterious prisoner. On his right, standing on one of the seats, and with his back against the wall, is a Scribe, whose countenance is expressive of uttermost contempt; and just in front of this haughty fellow are some Pharisees, one of whom is on his feet, and passionately urging that Jesus should be put to death, presumably on the ground that, if Pilate should let Him go, he would make it evident that he was not Caesars friend. Before them again is a usurer, fat and self-satisfied, clearly taking great comfort to himself in the assurance that, however the matter may be settled, his well-filled money-bags will be undisturbed. Beyond him stands the Christ, in a robe of seamless white, and with His wrists firmly bound; while behind, kept in place by a Roman soldier, standing with his back to the spectator, and making a barricade with his spear, which he holds horizontally, is a motley group of on-lookers, not unlike that which we may see any day in one of our criminal courts. Of these, one more furious than the rest is wildly gesticulating, and crying, as we may judge from his whole attitude, Crucify Him! crucify Him! and another, a little to the Saviours left, but in the second row behind Him, is leaning forward with mockery in his leering look, and making almost as if he would spit upon the Saintly One. There is but one really compassionate face in the crowd, and that is the face of a woman who, with an infant in her arms, most fitly represents those gentle daughters of Jerusalem who followed Jesus to Calvary with tears. Then, over the heads of the on-lookers, and out of the upper part of the doorway into the court, we get a glimpse of the quiet light of the morning as it sleeps upon the walls and turrets of the adjacent buildings. All these figures are so distinctly seen that you feel you could recognize them again if you met them anywhere; and a strange sense of reality comes upon you as you look at them, so that you forget that they are only painted, and imagine that you are gazing on living and breathing men. But, as yon sit awhile and look on, you gradually lose all consciousness of the presence of the mere on-lookers, and find your interest concentrated on these two white-robed ones, as if they were the only figures before you. The pose of the Christ is admirable. It is repose blended with dignity; self-possession rising into majesty. There is no agitation or confusion; no fear or misgiving; but, instead, the calm nobleness of Him Who has just been saying, Thou couldst have no power at all against Me, except it were given thee from above. The face alone disappoints. The eyes, which look so steadily at Pilate as if they were looking him through, seem to me to be cold, keen, and condemnatory, rather than compassionate and sad. They have not in them that deep well of tenderness out of which came the tears which He shed over Jerusalem, and which we expect to see in them when He is looking at the hopeless struggle of a soul which will not accept His aid The Pilate is well-nigh faultless. Here is a great, strong man, the representative of the mightiest empire the world has ever seen, with a head indicating intellectual force, and a face, especially in its lower part, suggestive of sensual indulgence. There is ordinarily no want of firmness in him, as we may see from the general set of his features; but now there is in his countenance a marvellous mixture of humiliation and irresolution. He cannot lift his eyes to meet the gaze of Christ; and while one of his hands is nervously clutching at his robe, he is looking sadly into the other, whose fingers, even as we look at them, almost seem to twitch with perplexed irresolution. He is clearly pondering for himself the question which, a few moments before, he had addressed to the multitude, What shall I do with Jesus which is called Christ? He is annoyed that the case has been brought to him at all, and as he feels himself drifting on, against his own better judgment, toward yielding to the clamour of the multitude, he falls mightily in his own conceit, and begins to despise himself. He would at that moment give, oh, how much I to be rid of the responsibility of dealing with the Christ, but he cannot evade it; and so he sits there, drifting on to what he knows is a wrong decision, the very incarnation of the feeling which his own national poet described when he said, I see and approve the better course; I follow the worse. Thus, as we look at these two, we begin to discover that it was not so much Christ that was before Pilate as Pilate I that was before Christ. His was the testing experience. His was the trial; his, too, alas! was the degradation; and at that coming day, when the places shall be reversed, when Christ shall be on the judgment seat, and Pilate at the bar, there will still be that deep self.condemnation which the painter here has fixed upon his countenance. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 21. They said, Barabbas.] What a fickle crowd! A little before they all hailed him as the Son of David, and acknowledged him as a gift from God; now they prefer a murderer to him! But this it appears they did at the instigation of the chief priests. We see here how dangerous wicked priests are in the Church of Christ; when pastors are corrupt, they are capable of inducing their flock to prefer Barabbas to Jesus, the world to God, and the pleasures of sense to the salvation of their souls. The invidious epithet which a certain statesman gave to the people at large was, in its utmost latitude, applicable to these Jews, – they were a SWINISH MULTITUDE.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Mark hath the same, Mar 15:12-14. So also Luke saith, Luk 23:20-23, Pilate therefore, willing to release Jesus, spake again to them. But they cried, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. And he said unto them the third time, Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him: I will therefore chastise him, and let him go. And they were instant with loud voices, requiring that he might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed.
John, Joh 19:1-12, hath yet more circumstances relating to the latter part of this trial, which follow: Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him. And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe, and said, Hail, King of the Jews! and they smote him with their hands. Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him. Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man! When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Take ye him, and crucify him: for I find no fault in him. The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God. When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid; and went again into the judgment hall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no answer. Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee? Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin. And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him: but the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesars friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar. I have not given the reader at one view what all the evangelists say, as thinking it scarce possible from them all to set down the order how things passed at this trial; but only, that I might take notice of what was remarkable in it, related from one or other of them. The reason of our reading so often of Pilates going out, and then again coming on to the judgment seat, seemeth to be because, as we heard before, the Jews would not come into Pilates house, but stood at the door; and, on the other side, I conceive that he could not proceed judicially but sitting upon the tribunal, or seat of judgment. So as, though he could proceed in judgment within the house, with the attendance of his own servants, soldiers, and officers; yet, when he had any thing to propound to the Jews, he went out. We cannot think that the evangelists report all the things the Jews objected against our Saviour, nor all the questions by Pontius Pilate propounded to him. For the evangelists tell us, summarily, that they accused him of many things, and Pilate saith, Hearest thou not how many things they witness against thee? There was, it seems, but one thing that they most insisted upon, that was, his making himself a king, as to which we heard before how our Lord cleared himself. In the whole process of this trial these things are remarkable:
1. Our Saviours silence.
2. Pilates equity.
3. The rage and madness of the chief priests, scribes, and people.
Our Saviours silence confirms to us that piece of the law of nature, that no man is bound to accuse himself. Pilates equity appears in many things: He would not condemn him without a particular hearing of his cause himself, he would not force him to accuse himself; he accepts our Saviours vindication of himself, as to the great thing wherewith he was charged; he twice declares that he found no fault in him; he studies expedients to deliver an innocent person from their rage; he sends him to Herod, and obtains his concurrent suffrage to his innocency; he offereth to release him according to a custom they had at the passover to deliver one, whomsoever they desired; when this would not do, he caused him to be scourged, then brings him out to them again, hoping to have moved them to compassion by that lighter punishment of him.
The rage and madness of the Jews, principally of the chief priests and scribes, appeared in their urging to have had our Saviour condemned without hearing; their excessive clamours against him; their preferring one before him who was a robber, a murderer, one that had made a public insurrection; their insisting so much upon the kind of death that he should die, viz. by crucifying him, though in that they did both fulfil the counsel of God, who had determined that he should be made a curse for us, and it was written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree, Gal 3:13, and what himself had prophesied, that he should be delivered to the Gentiles, and they should mock, and scourge, and crucify him, Mat 20:19. But that which is most remarkable is, the providence of God, for the evidencing of our Saviours innocency. Pilates wife calls him a just man. Pilate twice tells them that he found no fault in him. They are able to say nothing when Pilate asks them, What evil hath he done? Herod objects nothing against him. He is merely condemned upon the brutish clamour and rage of the rabble, incensed and set on fire by the chief priests and Pharisees. The art of these his adversaries is also observable, because it is the same which the enemies of the gospel, deriving from this first pattern, have ever since observed in the execution of their malice against the preachers aud faithful professors of the gospel. They durst not insist upon the doctrine which our Saviour preached, which was the true cause of their malice against him, but bring him under a charge of treason and sedition, as if he had gone about to make himself a king in opposition to the Roman emperor; though there was not the least pretence for any such thing, and if there had, none who considereth that they were a conquered people, and how zealous they upon all occasions showed themselves for their civil liberties, can imagine they had any great kindness for Caesar. It is very observable, that malice against religion and godliness, and a desire of the extirpation of it, and the professors of it, is the predominant lust in the hearts of wicked men. To serve this, they not only deny their own reason, and principles of common justice, but deny themselves likewise in some other lusts. And herein they show themselves the true seed of the serpent, and the children of the devil, whose works they do; who, though he be the proudest spirit, yet, to destroy a soul, will abate his pride, truckle to a poor witch, and go upon her errands.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
The governor answered and said unto them,…. A second time, after some time had been allowed and taken up to consider of the matter, and which the chief priests and elders improved among the people against Jesus.
Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? for as these two were proposed, one of them must be released; and it lay in the breast of the people to choose which they would:
they said, Barabbas; so that Christ was not only numbered among, and reckoned with transgressors, but he was accounted worse than the worst of them; a seditious person, a robber, and a murderer was preferred before him: see Ac 3:14.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
21. They said, Barabbas This was the deepest human degradation, to have the vilest of mankind preferred before him. He was held worse than the worst, and lower than the lowest.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘But the governor answered and said to them, “Which of the two will you that I release to you?” And they said, “Barabbas.” ’
Having painted the picture found in Mat 27:18-20 Matthew now comes back to Pilate’s question to the crowds. Pilate wants them to make a choice between the two. Their reply confirmed his fears. They asked for Barabbas whom they probably saw as something of a hero. He had done what they would have liked to do, but had never dared to, cock a snook at the Romans.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Mat 27:21 , . . .] The governor, having from his tribunal overheard this parleying of the members of the Sanhedrim with the people, now replies to it by once more demanding of the latter, with a view to a final decision: which of the two, etc. He thus puts a stop to the officious conduct of the hierarchs, and resumes his attitude of waiting for the answer of the crowd.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
21 The governor answered and said unto them, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? They said, Barabbas.
Ver. 21. They said, Barabbas ] This mad choice is every day made, while men prefer the lusts of their flesh before the lives of their souls. In the present instance we may see, as in a mirror, the inconstancy of the common sort (who erst cried Christ up for a prophet, and would have crowned him for a king) and the desperate madness of the priests, Qui citius diabolum ex inferno petivissent quam Iesum, as Pareus hath it, who would have desired the devil of hell, rather than Jesus. Sic neutrum modo mas modo vulgus.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
21. . ] not necessarily to the incitements of the Sanhedrists which he overheard (Meyer), but rather to the state of confusion and indecision which prevailed.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
21. .] not necessarily to the incitements of the Sanhedrists which he overheard (Meyer), but rather to the state of confusion and indecision which prevailed.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Reciprocal: Psa 88:8 – made Mat 27:17 – Whom Luk 20:14 – let Luk 23:13 – General
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
7:21
Pilate repeated his question to the people. Acting upon the influence of the chief priests and elders, the crowd named Barabbas as the one to be released.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Mat 27:21. But the governor answered. He may have tried to obtain a decision before the arguments of the rulers produced an effect, or simply to end the matter.
Barabbas. Pilates cunning recoiled on himself. From this point he was committed against Jesus. When questions of justice are entrusted to a mob, the innocent usually suffer.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Mat 27:21-22. The governor said, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? He still hoped to gain his point, and have Jesus released: but, to his great surprise, they said, Barabbas As if his crimes were less than those of Jesus, and therefore he less deserved to die; or, as if his merits were greater, and therefore he better deserved to live! Be astonished, O heavens, at this, and thou earth, be horribly afraid! Were ever men that pretended to reason or religion guilty of such prodigious madness, such horrid wickedness! This was it that Peter charged so home upon them, when he said, Act 3:14, Ye denied the Holy One and the Just, in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you, and ye killed the Prince of life. Pilate saith, &c. Pilate, being amazed at their choice of Barabbas, was willing to hope it was rather from a fondness to him than from enmity to Jesus, and therefore put this question to them, What shall I do then with Jesus? Shall I release him likewise for the greater honour of your feast? Or, will you leave the disposing of him to me? No: They all say, LET HIM BE CRUCIFIED The punishment which Barabbas had deserved: and this probably made them think of it. But in their malice they forgot with how dangerous a precedent they furnished the Roman governor. And indeed, within the compass of a few years, it turned dreadfully upon themselves. They desired he might die that death, because it was looked upon as the most scandalous and ignominious; and they hoped thereby to make his followers ashamed to own him, and their relation to him. It was absurd for them to prescribe to the judge what sentence he should pass, but their malice and rage made them forget all rules of order and decency, and turn a court of justice into a riotous and seditious assembly. Though they that cried thus, perhaps, were not the same persons that the other day had cried, HOSANNA; yet see what a change was made in the face of the populace in a little time! When he rode in triumph to Jerusalem, so general were the acclamations of praise, that one would have thought he had no enemies; but now, when he was led in dishonour to Pilates judgment-seat, so general were the outcries of enmity, that one would think he had no friends! Such revolutions are there in this changeable world, through which our way to heaven lies, as our Masters did, by honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report, counterchanged. 2Co 6:8.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Verse 21
Whether of the twain; which of the two.