Word Pictures in the New Testament - David Cox

Word Pictures in the NT [Matthew: Chapter 27].
autou kai epi ta tekna h•m•n\). These solemn words do show a
consciousness that the Jewish people recognized their guilt and
were even proud of it. But Pilate could not wash away his own
guilt that easily. The water did not wash away the blood of Jesus
from his hands any more than Lady Macbeth could wash away the
blood-stains from her lily-white hands. One legend tells that in
storms on Mt. Pilatus in Switzerland his ghost comes out and
still washes his hands in the storm-clouds. There was guilt
enough for Judas, for Caiaphas and for all the Sanhedrin both
Sadducees and Pharisees, for the Jewish people as a whole (\pas
ho laos\), and for Pilate. At bottom the sins of all of us nailed
Jesus to the Cross. This language is no excuse for race hatred
today, but it helps explain the sensitiveness between Jew and
Christians on this subject. And Jews today approach the subject
of the Cross with a certain amount of prejudice.
27:26 {Scourged} (\phragell•sas\). The Latin verb _flagellare_.
Pilate apparently lost interest in Jesus when he discovered that
he had no friends in the crowd. The religious leaders had been
eager to get Jesus condemned before many of the Galilean crowd
friendly to Jesus came into the city. They had apparently
succeeded. The scourging before the crucifixion was a brutal
Roman custom. The scourging was part of the capital punishment.
Deissmann (_Light from the Ancient East_, p. 269) quotes a
Florentine papyrus of the year 85 A.D. wherein G. Septimius
Vegetus, governor of Egypt, says of a certain Phibion: "Thou
hadst been worthy of scourging ... but I will give thee to the
people."
27:27 {Into the palace} (\eis to prait•rion\). In Rome the
praetorium was the camp of the praetorian (from praetor) guard of
soldiers (Php 1:13), but in the provinces it was the palace in
which the governor resided as in Ac 23:35 in Caesarea. So here
in Jerusalem Pilate ordered Jesus and all the band or cohort
(\hol•n t•n speiran\) of soldiers to be led into the palace in
front of which the judgment-seat had been placed. The Latin
_spira_ was anything rolled into a circle like a twisted ball of
thread. These Latin words are natural here in the atmosphere of
the court and the military environment. The soldiers were
gathered together for the sport of seeing the scourging. These
heathen soldiers would also enjoy showing their contempt for the
Jews as well as for the condemned man.
27:28 {A scarlet robe} (\chlamuda kokkin•n\). A kind of short
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