delivered | scourged and | prison, whom |16 Then therefore Jesus, when | delivered to | they asked | he delivered he had | be crucified.| for; but Jesus| him unto them scourged him,| | he delivered | to be to be | | up to their | crucified. crucified. | | will. | [Footnote 1: Or, _a feast_.] [Footnote 2: Some ancient authorities read _of this blood: see ye etc._] [Footnote 3: Gr. _Prætorium_. See Mark 15:16.] [Footnote 4: Or, _palace_.] [Footnote 5: Many ancient authorities insert ver. 17 _Now he must needs release unto them at the feast one_ prisoner. Others add the same words after ver. 19.] [Footnote 6: Or, _with rods_.] [Footnote 7: Or, _authority_.] [Footnote 8: Or, _opposeth Cæsar_.] [Footnote a: It appears that John, who wrote in Asia Minor, long after the destruction of Jerusalem, makes the day begin at midnight, as the Greeks and Romans did. We seem compelled so to understand him in 20:19 (comp. Luke 24:29-39); and in no passage of his Gospel is that view unsuitable. Here then we understand that Pilate passed the sentence about sunrise, which at the Passover, near the vernal equinox, would be 6 o'clock. The intervening three hours might be occupied in preparations, and the Crucifixion occurred at 9 o'clock, viz. the third hour as counted by the Jews (Mark 15:25).] [Footnote b: Pilate, of course, could not escape full legal and moral responsibility for his cowardly surrender to the Sanhedrin to keep his own office. The guilt of the Sanhedrin (both Pharisees and Sadducees unite in the demand for the blood of Jesus) is beyond dispute. It is impossible to make a mere political issue out of it and to lay all the blame on the Sadducees, who feared a revolution. The Pharisees began the attacks against Jesus on theological and ecclesiastical grounds. The Sadducees later joined the conspiracy against Christ. Judas was a mere tool of the Sanhedrin, who had his resentments and grievances to avenge. There is guilt enough for all the plotters in the greatest wrong of the ages.] § 162. THE ROMAN SOLDIERS MOCK[a] JESUS Friday, between 6 and 9 A.M.