Mark 15:11-15: Pilate's Judgement. The chief priests stir up the crowd to demand the release of Barabbas and the crucifixion of Jesus instead. Pilate repeatedly questions the crowd about what Jesus has done to deserve death, but they shout all the more for Him to be crucified. Wishing to satisfy the crowd, Pilate releases Barabbas, has Jesus scourged, and hands Him over to be crucified.
Mark 15:11-15 records the conclusion of the final phase of Jesus's civil trial. The chief priests works the crowd to demand the release of Barabbasinstead of Jesus, and the crowd calls for Pilate to crucifyJesus. Pilate eventually caves and releases Barabbas, has Jesus scourged, and delivers Him to be crucified.
Jesus's civil trial occurred over the course of three distinct phases:
The three phases of Jesus's political trial under the Roman authorities were:
Mark 15:11-15 falls within the third and final phase of Jesus's civil trial.
The first and second phases of Jesus's civil trial--His Arraignment before Pilate and His Audience before Herod Antipas--had already produced three separate declarations of innocence. Pilate found no guilt in Jesus (Luke 23:4,John 18:38). Herod found nothing deserving death and returned Jesus to Pilate (Luke 23:11). Pilate then announced a second time that neither he nor Herod had found this man guilty of anything deserving death (Luke 23:14-15). The priests and rulers had rejected these verdicts and continued to press for execution.
The third phase of Jesus's civil trial regathered at the Praetorium after He was returned from the court of Herod Antipas. The Praetorium was the sight of Herod's palace, now used by Pilate, who succeeded Herod. It also included a barracks for the Roman soldiers. The probable site of the Praetorium has been located by archeologists near the Jaffa Gate, just inside the current city wall.
This final phase of the civil trial happened while it was still morning, most likely sometime between 8:00 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. (Mark 15:24 indicates that Jesus was on the cross at 9:00 a.m.). According to the Jewish calendar, the date was Nisan 15—the first day of Unleavened Bread. By Roman reckoning, the day was probably a Friday.
Mark 15:11-15 focuses on the trial's outcome--the condemnation of Jesusto be crucified. It keeps the narrative moving by omitting some events and summarizing others that led to this outcome. The other Gospel accounts offer more details to this dramatic event and provide a fuller account.
This commentary will attempt to follow Mark's fast-paced summary, while pointing out some of the details he omits and the other Gospels add.
A Short Recap of the Beginning of the Final Phase of Jesus's Civil Trial
The chief priests wanted to have PilatecrucifyJesus for them to protect their power and cover up their crimes against Him. But both Pilate and Herod (Luke 23:13-15) had regarded Jesus as innocent.
Each year, Rome's governor had made it a practice at the Passover festival to release one Jewish prisoner as a gesture of goodwill toward the subject population (Mark 15:6-7). This is referred to as "the Passover Pardon." Someone from the crowd suggested to Pilate that he use his Passover Pardon (Mark 15:8). Pilate offered to releaseJesus (Mark 15:9). The governor was aware that the real issue was not that Jesus was an insurrectionist as the chief priests accused Him of being, but that they were envious (Mark 15:10), so he offered to use the Passover Pardon hoping that there were enough sympathizers of Jesus in the crowd who would accept his offer.
In Matthew's Gospel, Pilate offered to the crowdto releaseJesus or Barabbas (Matthew 27:17). Matthew also reports that before Pilate could hear the crowd's answer, the governor's wife sent him an urgent message--"Have nothing to do with that righteous Man; for last night I suffered greatly in a dream because of Him" (Matthew 27:19).
The interruption created a pause in the proceedings. The chief priests used this pause for their advantage. And Matthew describes how they took advantage of this pause in the proceedings:
"But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds toask for Barabbas and to put Jesus to death." (Matthew 27:20)
Mark, following Matthew's account, similarly records the actions of the chief priests in the period of time between Pilate's offer and the crowd's answer:
But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to ask him to release Barabbas for them instead (v 11).
The verb "stirred up" carries the sense of agitating or shaking something into motion. Matthew says, "the chief priests and elders persuaded the crowds" (Matthew 27:20). Luke describes the crowd gathered outside the Praetorium as including the chief priests, rulers, elders, and scribes alongside ordinary people (Luke 23:10, 13).
The Gospels record the effect of the chief priests' persuasion rather than its content. But it is worth pointing out that the crowd needed persuading. This indicates that at least some of their sympathies were either neutral or inclined toward Jesus. The crowd was not originally part of the conspiracy to condemn Jesus to death (Matthew 26:3-4). Many of the people of Jerusalem hoped or believed that Jesus was the Messiah, as evidenced by the Messianic shouts of "Hosanna!" and the lines they sang from Psalm 118 as Jesus entered Jerusalem a few days earlier (Matthew 21:8-11,Mark 11:7-11). The crowd had to be persuaded and stirred up against Him.
The chief priests probably stirred up the crowd against Jesus by using malicious slanders rather than monetary bribes, or some other means. They needed to animate the crowd quickly. Bribery would have likely been too overt and obviously illegal and too easy to expose after the fact. Given thecrowd's angry response against Jesus, it is reasonable speculation that the chief priests slandered Jesus as a blasphemer.
However it happened, the crowd was stirred up and persuaded to a different opinion of Jesus by the chief priests and elders--who were their religious authorities.
It is also interesting to consider that the possibility of Barabbas may been first introduced by the crowd rather than by Pilate.
The only Gospel in which Pilate himself names Barabbas in his offer is Matthew's thematic retelling (Matthew 27:17). In Mark, Luke, and John, Barabbas enters the record only in the crowd's reply or in the narrator's explanation.
Mark previously introduced Barabbas, whose name means "son of the father" in his narrative interjection: "The man named Barabbas had been imprisoned with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the insurrection" (Mark 15:7). Barabbas was a participant in a violent uprising that had ended in a killing, and Roman custody held him for it.
When Pilate first proposed the Passover Pardon in the Gospels of Mark and John, it was a proposal toreleaseJesus (Mark 15:9,John 18:39).
John's Gospel all but suggests that it was the crowd that proposed Barabbas as an alternative prisoner to release instead of Jesus.
"'But you have a custom that I release someone for you at the Passover; do you wish then that I release for you the King of the Jews?' So they cried out again, saying, 'Not this Man, but Barabbas.'" (John 18:39-40)
The idea of Barabbas as an alternative prisoner to release may have come to the chief priests because Barabbas's name may also have been "Jesus"--see commentary for Mark 15:6-7.
If Pilate initially offered the crowd a choice between Jesus or Barabbas, then the chief priests, who desperately wanted Jesus killed, stirred upthe crowd to choose the option of Barabbas.
However, if Pilate only offered Jesus, as indicated from the context of the Gospels of Mark, Luke, and John, then the chief priests' maneuver was especially clever. If true, they were taking Pilate's initial offer to releaseJesus and shrewdly reframing it to include an alternative that would give them what they wanted--Jesus's death.
And if Pilate initially only offered to releaseJesus (Mark 15:9) for them and then stepped aside for a moment to listen to his wife's warning (Matthew 27:19), then he would have likely been shocked to hear Barabbas, when the crowd responded to him.
Luke reports that the crowd "cried out all together" as a way to capture the coordination of the crowd's response. The Greek term which is translated as "all together" in Luke 23:18 is the adverb παμπληθεί (G3826: pronounced "pam-play-thi"). It suggests the crowd was crying out in a concerted effort.
Pilate appeared stunned when he heard the crowd ask him to release Barabbas for them instead of Jesus.
Answering again, Pilate said to them, "Then what shall I do with Him whom you call the King of the Jews?" (v 12).
The phrase--answering again--could be understood as Pilate trying to gather himself again from thecrowd's unexpected response. Pilatethen asked the crowd what they wanted him to do with Jesus, if he releasedBarabbas for them.
Pilate (again) used the term King of the Jews to refer to Jesus (Mark 15:9).
Notice how Pilate appears to distance himself from the title King of the Jews in verse 12, and how he shifts the burden of responsibility to the crowd. Pilate describes Jesus as Him who you call King of the Jews.
In Matthew's parallel account, Jesus is described by Pilate as "Jesus who is called the Christ" (Matthew 27:22). Mark, writing to Roman Gentiles, seems to interpret the meaning of "Christ" as King of the Jews for his audience.
Pilate might also have used the expression Him who you callKing of the Jews as a dig at the religious leaders who were using the crowd to manipulate him into executing an innocent man.
Luke's parallel account describes how Pilate still wanted to releaseJesus as he asked the crowd this question: "Pilate, wanting to releaseJesus, addressed them again" (Luke 23:20).
Pilate's question--"Then what shall I do with Him whom you call the King of the Jews?"--placed the moral weight of the decision on the crowd. The governor, who had already declared Jesus innocent, was asking the crowd to state openly what they wanted done.
The crowd loudly and enthusiastically responded to Pilate's question.
They shouted back, "Crucify Him!" (v 13).
The crowd shouted their response back to Pilate. It was an angry shout. Their shout to "Crucify Him!" meant that wanted Pilate to execute Jesus by means of crucifixion. The crowd's shout to "Crucify Him!" is the first time that word appears in the Passion narrative in Mark's Gospel.
Crucifixion was Rome's form of execution for slaves, non-citizens, and rebels--for those the Law placed outside the protections Roman citizenship afforded. The condemned man was fastened to a raised wooden beam through the wrists and sometimes the feet, left to hang until death came through suffocation, dehydration, or cardiac arrest. The process was designed to prolong the victim's suffering and humiliation. Crucifixions were carried out in public places with the condemned man's crime posted above him as a deterrent to onlookers.
For the crowd to shout"CrucifyHim!" was to demand that Pilate execute Jesus in the most painful and agonizing method Rome had devised.
Pilate was still stunned and tried a third time to releaseJesus.
But Pilate said to them, "Why, what evil has He done?" (v 14a).
Pilate asked the crowd Why they wanted him to crucifyJesus.
The governor was dumbfounded as to why the crowd would want him to kill an innocent man and release for them a notorious murderer such as Barabbas. From his perspective, there was no legal or logical explanation for the crowd's murderous hatred of Jesus. Pilate was aware that the chief priests and religious leaders envied Jesus (Matthew 27:18,Mark 15:10), but their hatred of Him apparently went far beyond what he imagined.
Pilate also asked: What evil has He done?
The obvious and correct answer to Pilate's question was: "Nothing. Jesus had done no evil."
Even the religious leaders who illegally conspired and falsely condemned Him found no real fault with Jesus. Their false witnesses failed to substantiate any wrongdoing during their midnight tribunal at Caiaphas's house (Matthew 26:57-62,Mark 14:59).
Desperate to convict Him before word got out about their wicked conspiracy to murder the man whom many hoped was the Messiah, the high priest illegally staged an incident—putting Jesus under oath to reveal His identity in order to declare (illegitimately) that He had committed the crime of blasphemy (Matthew 26:63-66,Mark 14:61-64). But Jesushad done no evil and He did not deserve to be crucified.
Neither had Pilate nor Herod found any fault in Him (Luke 23:14-15). Therefore, Pilate asked the crowd who shouted, "Crucify Him!"--what evil has He done?
Mark records the crowd's response to Pilate's questions:
But they shouted all the more, "Crucify Him!" (v 14b).
The expression But they shouted all the more means that the crowd both continued shouting "Crucify Him!" as they had been shouting before Pilate asked them "Why, what evil has He done?" and that the crowdshouted this more loudly than before. In other words, the effect of the governor's question did not to bring the crowd closer to reason and justice, but quite the opposite--they descended further into their frenzy to have Jesus unjustly executed.
Matthew records an almost identical response to Pilate's question (Matthew 27:23). Both Matthew and Mark reveal that the crowd ignored the logic of Pilate's question. The crowd ignored its logic because if they engaged with it at all they would have had no just reason to get what they wanted.
The chief priests and elders obsessed with bringing about Jesus's death likely would have deliberately avoided answering Pilate's questions, because the questions' framing focused on the truth. They knew the truth would not have yielded the outcome they sought (John 3:20). They were seeking a predetermined outcome and did not engage with anything (especially truth) that would not bring about that outcome.
Luke's Gospel records that Pilate answered his own question, Why, what evil has He done?:
"I have found in Him no guilt demanding death." (Luke 23:22b)
When Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea said, "I have found in Him no guilt demanding death" (Luke 23:22b)--he should have immediately ended the trial and releasedJesus. But he did not. The governor remained fearful of Jesus's accusers.
Instead, Luke records that Pilate said: "therefore I will punish Him and release Him" (Luke 23:22c).
In saying this, the Roman governor not only unnecessarily prolonged the trial that should have ended with Jesus's release, but he also committed a terrible act of injustice by punishing an innocent man for the sake of pleasing his accusers. The punishment that Pilate had in mind was flogging, and it is at this point that Pilate had Jesusscourged (Mark 15:15,John 19:1-3). This commentary will explain what it meant to be scourged below.
Mark then states the outcome of the trial:
Wishing to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas for them, and after having Jesus scourged, he handed Him over to be crucified (v 15).
Mark's account skips over several exchanges and interactions between Pilate and the crowd and Pilate and Jesus that are recorded in Matthew, Luke, and John. Mark's Gospel is relentlessly focused on the main action. And by skipping additional details, Mark indicates that at this point, despite additional back-and-forths, the condemnation was decided, even if the condemnation was not yet announced. (We will list the skipped-over interactions and their references at the end of this commentary).
The Roman governor was wishing to satisfy the crowd more than he was wanting to follow Roman law. Roman law would have demanded that Jesus be released and the crowd dismissed. But Pilate wanted to satisfy the crowd's bloodlust so as to avoid a riot (Matthew 27:24), so he ignored the law.
Mark summarizes the three things that Pilate did to satisfy the crowd over the remaining course of Jesus's civil trial,
Pilate released Barabbas for them.
Pilate had Jesusscourged.
Pilate handedJesusover to be crucified.
The crowd had asked for Pilate to release Barabbas (instead of Jesus) as part of the customary Passover Pardon. And Pilate released Barabbas for them.
Additionally, in the Gospels of Luke and John, it is revealed that Pilate had Jesusscourged as an alternative to satisfy the crowd's demand that He be crucified. To scourge someone was a brutal and severe whipping, where a multi-pronged whip that had sharp pieces of metal and heavy beads tore deep into the victim's flesh. It shredded the victim's back and ribcage and removed flesh from bone. This was a mutilating and often deadly form of torture. Many victims who were scourged soon died from severe blood loss.
Mark, along with Matthew and John, describe additional abuses that the Romans carried out to mock, hurt, and humiliate Jesus when they scourged Him (Mark 15:16-19,Matthew 27:27-30,John 19:1-3). The Bible Says commentaries for these passages explain the brutal details of scourging: Matthew 27:27-30, Mark 15:16-19, John 19:1-3.
And finally, the main thing that Pilate did to satisfy the crowd was to order that Jesusbe crucified. The crowd had been shouting "Crucify Him!" and Pilate handed Him over to be crucified. The crowd eventually wore Pilate down and had gotten what they demanded. As Luke writes of the crowd:
"But they were insistent, with loud voices asking that He be crucified. And their voices began to prevail. And Pilate pronounced sentence that their demand be granted." (Luke 23:23-24)
Matthew and Mark only mention that Jesus was scourged and then describe the mockery after they say Jesus was condemned (Matthew 27:26-31,Mark 15:15-20).
Pilate takes Jesus back inside the Praetorium and questions Him about where He is from. Jesus explains that Pilate could have no authority over Him unless it had been given to him from above.
The Crowd Frames Pilate and the Chief Priest's Blasphemy (John 19:12-15)
The Jews frame Pilate when they tell him he is no friend of Caesar if he lets Jesus live. Pilate in turn asks the Jews "Shall I crucify your king?" The chief priests answered: "We have no king but Caesar" (John 19:15b). In the Jewish faith, this statement is blasphemy because only God is king. In order to murder Jesus, the chief priests publicly declared in essence, "we have no god but Caesar."
Pilate's Washes His Hands and the Jews Claim Responsibility (Matthew 27:24-25)
Pilate washes his hands and says that he is innocent of Jesus's blood. (Pilate is not innocent. Pilate is the one who sentenced Jesus to crucifixion). And the crowd replies: "His blood shall be on us and on our children" (Matthew 27:25b).
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Mark 15:11-15 meaning
The parallel Gospel accounts for Mark 15:11-15 are found in Matthew 27:20-23, 27:26, and Luke 23:18-25. Matthew 25:24-25 and John 18:40 - 19:16 provide additional details that Mark omits in this passage.
Mark 15:11-15 records the conclusion of the final phase of Jesus's civil trial. The chief priests works the crowd to demand the release of Barabbas instead of Jesus, and the crowd calls for Pilate to crucify Jesus. Pilate eventually caves and releases Barabbas, has Jesus scourged, and delivers Him to be crucified.
Jesus's civil trial occurred over the course of three distinct phases:
The three phases of Jesus's political trial under the Roman authorities were:
(Matthew 27:1-2, 27:11-14, Mark 15:1-5, Luke 23:1-7, John 18:28-38)
(Luke 23:8-12)
(Matthew 27:15-26, Mark 15:6-15, Luke 23:13-25, John 18:38b-19:16)
Mark 15:11-15 falls within the third and final phase of Jesus's civil trial.
The first and second phases of Jesus's civil trial--His Arraignment before Pilate and His Audience before Herod Antipas--had already produced three separate declarations of innocence. Pilate found no guilt in Jesus (Luke 23:4, John 18:38). Herod found nothing deserving death and returned Jesus to Pilate (Luke 23:11). Pilate then announced a second time that neither he nor Herod had found this man guilty of anything deserving death (Luke 23:14-15). The priests and rulers had rejected these verdicts and continued to press for execution.
The third phase of Jesus's civil trial regathered at the Praetorium after He was returned from the court of Herod Antipas. The Praetorium was the sight of Herod's palace, now used by Pilate, who succeeded Herod. It also included a barracks for the Roman soldiers. The probable site of the Praetorium has been located by archeologists near the Jaffa Gate, just inside the current city wall.
This final phase of the civil trial happened while it was still morning, most likely sometime between 8:00 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. (Mark 15:24 indicates that Jesus was on the cross at 9:00 a.m.). According to the Jewish calendar, the date was Nisan 15—the first day of Unleavened Bread. By Roman reckoning, the day was probably a Friday.
To learn more about the timing and sequencing of these events, see The Bible Says' "Timeline: Jesus's Final 24 Hours."
Mark 15:11-15 focuses on the trial's outcome--the condemnation of Jesus to be crucified. It keeps the narrative moving by omitting some events and summarizing others that led to this outcome. The other Gospel accounts offer more details to this dramatic event and provide a fuller account.
This commentary will attempt to follow Mark's fast-paced summary, while pointing out some of the details he omits and the other Gospels add.
A Short Recap of the Beginning of the Final Phase of Jesus's Civil Trial
The chief priests wanted to have Pilate crucify Jesus for them to protect their power and cover up their crimes against Him. But both Pilate and Herod (Luke 23:13-15) had regarded Jesus as innocent.
Each year, Rome's governor had made it a practice at the Passover festival to release one Jewish prisoner as a gesture of goodwill toward the subject population (Mark 15:6-7). This is referred to as "the Passover Pardon." Someone from the crowd suggested to Pilate that he use his Passover Pardon (Mark 15:8). Pilate offered to release Jesus (Mark 15:9). The governor was aware that the real issue was not that Jesus was an insurrectionist as the chief priests accused Him of being, but that they were envious (Mark 15:10), so he offered to use the Passover Pardon hoping that there were enough sympathizers of Jesus in the crowd who would accept his offer.
In Matthew's Gospel, Pilate offered to the crowd to release Jesus or Barabbas (Matthew 27:17). Matthew also reports that before Pilate could hear the crowd's answer, the governor's wife sent him an urgent message--"Have nothing to do with that righteous Man; for last night I suffered greatly in a dream because of Him" (Matthew 27:19).
The interruption created a pause in the proceedings. The chief priests used this pause for their advantage. And Matthew describes how they took advantage of this pause in the proceedings:
"But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas and to put Jesus to death."
(Matthew 27:20)
Mark, following Matthew's account, similarly records the actions of the chief priests in the period of time between Pilate's offer and the crowd's answer:
But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to ask him to release Barabbas for them instead (v 11).
The verb "stirred up" carries the sense of agitating or shaking something into motion. Matthew says, "the chief priests and elders persuaded the crowds" (Matthew 27:20). Luke describes the crowd gathered outside the Praetorium as including the chief priests, rulers, elders, and scribes alongside ordinary people (Luke 23:10, 13).
The Gospels record the effect of the chief priests' persuasion rather than its content. But it is worth pointing out that the crowd needed persuading. This indicates that at least some of their sympathies were either neutral or inclined toward Jesus. The crowd was not originally part of the conspiracy to condemn Jesus to death (Matthew 26:3-4). Many of the people of Jerusalem hoped or believed that Jesus was the Messiah, as evidenced by the Messianic shouts of "Hosanna!" and the lines they sang from Psalm 118 as Jesus entered Jerusalem a few days earlier (Matthew 21:8-11, Mark 11:7-11). The crowd had to be persuaded and stirred up against Him.
The chief priests probably stirred up the crowd against Jesus by using malicious slanders rather than monetary bribes, or some other means. They needed to animate the crowd quickly. Bribery would have likely been too overt and obviously illegal and too easy to expose after the fact. Given the crowd's angry response against Jesus, it is reasonable speculation that the chief priests slandered Jesus as a blasphemer.
However it happened, the crowd was stirred up and persuaded to a different opinion of Jesus by the chief priests and elders--who were their religious authorities.
It is also interesting to consider that the possibility of Barabbas may been first introduced by the crowd rather than by Pilate.
The only Gospel in which Pilate himself names Barabbas in his offer is Matthew's thematic retelling (Matthew 27:17). In Mark, Luke, and John, Barabbas enters the record only in the crowd's reply or in the narrator's explanation.
Mark previously introduced Barabbas, whose name means "son of the father" in his narrative interjection: "The man named Barabbas had been imprisoned with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the insurrection" (Mark 15:7). Barabbas was a participant in a violent uprising that had ended in a killing, and Roman custody held him for it.
When Pilate first proposed the Passover Pardon in the Gospels of Mark and John, it was a proposal to release Jesus (Mark 15:9, John 18:39).
John's Gospel all but suggests that it was the crowd that proposed Barabbas as an alternative prisoner to release instead of Jesus.
"'But you have a custom that I release someone for you at the Passover; do you wish then that I release for you the King of the Jews?' So they cried out again, saying, 'Not this Man, but Barabbas.'"
(John 18:39-40)
The idea of Barabbas as an alternative prisoner to release may have come to the chief priests because Barabbas's name may also have been "Jesus"--see commentary for Mark 15:6-7.
If Pilate initially offered the crowd a choice between Jesus or Barabbas, then the chief priests, who desperately wanted Jesus killed, stirred up the crowd to choose the option of Barabbas.
However, if Pilate only offered Jesus, as indicated from the context of the Gospels of Mark, Luke, and John, then the chief priests' maneuver was especially clever. If true, they were taking Pilate's initial offer to release Jesus and shrewdly reframing it to include an alternative that would give them what they wanted--Jesus's death.
And if Pilate initially only offered to release Jesus (Mark 15:9) for them and then stepped aside for a moment to listen to his wife's warning (Matthew 27:19), then he would have likely been shocked to hear Barabbas, when the crowd responded to him.
Luke reports that the crowd "cried out all together" as a way to capture the coordination of the crowd's response. The Greek term which is translated as "all together" in Luke 23:18 is the adverb παμπληθεί (G3826: pronounced "pam-play-thi"). It suggests the crowd was crying out in a concerted effort.
Pilate appeared stunned when he heard the crowd ask him to release Barabbas for them instead of Jesus.
Answering again, Pilate said to them, "Then what shall I do with Him whom you call the King of the Jews?" (v 12).
The phrase--answering again--could be understood as Pilate trying to gather himself again from the crowd's unexpected response. Pilate then asked the crowd what they wanted him to do with Jesus, if he released Barabbas for them.
Pilate (again) used the term King of the Jews to refer to Jesus (Mark 15:9).
Notice how Pilate appears to distance himself from the title King of the Jews in verse 12, and how he shifts the burden of responsibility to the crowd. Pilate describes Jesus as Him who you call King of the Jews.
In Matthew's parallel account, Jesus is described by Pilate as "Jesus who is called the Christ" (Matthew 27:22). Mark, writing to Roman Gentiles, seems to interpret the meaning of "Christ" as King of the Jews for his audience.
Pilate might also have used the expression Him who you call King of the Jews as a dig at the religious leaders who were using the crowd to manipulate him into executing an innocent man.
Luke's parallel account describes how Pilate still wanted to release Jesus as he asked the crowd this question: "Pilate, wanting to release Jesus, addressed them again" (Luke 23:20).
Pilate's question--"Then what shall I do with Him whom you call the King of the Jews?"--placed the moral weight of the decision on the crowd. The governor, who had already declared Jesus innocent, was asking the crowd to state openly what they wanted done.
The crowd loudly and enthusiastically responded to Pilate's question.
They shouted back, "Crucify Him!" (v 13).
The crowd shouted their response back to Pilate. It was an angry shout. Their shout to "Crucify Him!" meant that wanted Pilate to execute Jesus by means of crucifixion. The crowd's shout to "Crucify Him!" is the first time that word appears in the Passion narrative in Mark's Gospel.
Crucifixion was Rome's form of execution for slaves, non-citizens, and rebels--for those the Law placed outside the protections Roman citizenship afforded. The condemned man was fastened to a raised wooden beam through the wrists and sometimes the feet, left to hang until death came through suffocation, dehydration, or cardiac arrest. The process was designed to prolong the victim's suffering and humiliation. Crucifixions were carried out in public places with the condemned man's crime posted above him as a deterrent to onlookers.
To learn more about crucifixion, see The Bible Says article--"Bearing the Cross: Exploring the Unimaginable Suffering of Crucifixion."
For the crowd to shout "Crucify Him!" was to demand that Pilate execute Jesus in the most painful and agonizing method Rome had devised.
Pilate was still stunned and tried a third time to release Jesus.
But Pilate said to them, "Why, what evil has He done?" (v 14a).
Pilate asked the crowd Why they wanted him to crucify Jesus.
The governor was dumbfounded as to why the crowd would want him to kill an innocent man and release for them a notorious murderer such as Barabbas. From his perspective, there was no legal or logical explanation for the crowd's murderous hatred of Jesus. Pilate was aware that the chief priests and religious leaders envied Jesus (Matthew 27:18, Mark 15:10), but their hatred of Him apparently went far beyond what he imagined.
Pilate also asked: What evil has He done?
The obvious and correct answer to Pilate's question was: "Nothing. Jesus had done no evil."
Even the religious leaders who illegally conspired and falsely condemned Him found no real fault with Jesus. Their false witnesses failed to substantiate any wrongdoing during their midnight tribunal at Caiaphas's house (Matthew 26:57-62, Mark 14:59).
Desperate to convict Him before word got out about their wicked conspiracy to murder the man whom many hoped was the Messiah, the high priest illegally staged an incident—putting Jesus under oath to reveal His identity in order to declare (illegitimately) that He had committed the crime of blasphemy (Matthew 26:63-66, Mark 14:61-64). But Jesus had done no evil and He did not deserve to be crucified.
Neither had Pilate nor Herod found any fault in Him (Luke 23:14-15). Therefore, Pilate asked the crowd who shouted, "Crucify Him!"--what evil has He done?
Mark records the crowd's response to Pilate's questions:
But they shouted all the more, "Crucify Him!" (v 14b).
The expression But they shouted all the more means that the crowd both continued shouting "Crucify Him!" as they had been shouting before Pilate asked them "Why, what evil has He done?" and that the crowd shouted this more loudly than before. In other words, the effect of the governor's question did not to bring the crowd closer to reason and justice, but quite the opposite--they descended further into their frenzy to have Jesus unjustly executed.
Matthew records an almost identical response to Pilate's question (Matthew 27:23). Both Matthew and Mark reveal that the crowd ignored the logic of Pilate's question. The crowd ignored its logic because if they engaged with it at all they would have had no just reason to get what they wanted.
The chief priests and elders obsessed with bringing about Jesus's death likely would have deliberately avoided answering Pilate's questions, because the questions' framing focused on the truth. They knew the truth would not have yielded the outcome they sought (John 3:20). They were seeking a predetermined outcome and did not engage with anything (especially truth) that would not bring about that outcome.
Luke's Gospel records that Pilate answered his own question, Why, what evil has He done?:
"I have found in Him no guilt demanding death."
(Luke 23:22b)
This was the fourth time Luke recorded Pilate declaring Jesus to be innocent (Luke 23:4, 14, 15, 22). Jesus was blameless and without sin (Matthew 5:17-18, 5:48, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Hebrews 4:15, 1 Peter 2:22, 1 John 3:5). From a Jewish perspective, Jesus was the spotless Lamb of Passover (1 Peter 1:19).
When Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea said, "I have found in Him no guilt demanding death" (Luke 23:22b)--he should have immediately ended the trial and released Jesus. But he did not. The governor remained fearful of Jesus's accusers.
Instead, Luke records that Pilate said: "therefore I will punish Him and release Him" (Luke 23:22c).
In saying this, the Roman governor not only unnecessarily prolonged the trial that should have ended with Jesus's release, but he also committed a terrible act of injustice by punishing an innocent man for the sake of pleasing his accusers. The punishment that Pilate had in mind was flogging, and it is at this point that Pilate had Jesus scourged (Mark 15:15, John 19:1-3). This commentary will explain what it meant to be scourged below.
Mark then states the outcome of the trial:
Wishing to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas for them, and after having Jesus scourged, he handed Him over to be crucified (v 15).
Mark's account skips over several exchanges and interactions between Pilate and the crowd and Pilate and Jesus that are recorded in Matthew, Luke, and John. Mark's Gospel is relentlessly focused on the main action. And by skipping additional details, Mark indicates that at this point, despite additional back-and-forths, the condemnation was decided, even if the condemnation was not yet announced. (We will list the skipped-over interactions and their references at the end of this commentary).
The Roman governor was wishing to satisfy the crowd more than he was wanting to follow Roman law. Roman law would have demanded that Jesus be released and the crowd dismissed. But Pilate wanted to satisfy the crowd's bloodlust so as to avoid a riot (Matthew 27:24), so he ignored the law.
Mark summarizes the three things that Pilate did to satisfy the crowd over the remaining course of Jesus's civil trial,
The crowd had asked for Pilate to release Barabbas (instead of Jesus) as part of the customary Passover Pardon. And Pilate released Barabbas for them.
Additionally, in the Gospels of Luke and John, it is revealed that Pilate had Jesus scourged as an alternative to satisfy the crowd's demand that He be crucified. To scourge someone was a brutal and severe whipping, where a multi-pronged whip that had sharp pieces of metal and heavy beads tore deep into the victim's flesh. It shredded the victim's back and ribcage and removed flesh from bone. This was a mutilating and often deadly form of torture. Many victims who were scourged soon died from severe blood loss.
Mark, along with Matthew and John, describe additional abuses that the Romans carried out to mock, hurt, and humiliate Jesus when they scourged Him (Mark 15:16-19, Matthew 27:27-30, John 19:1-3). The Bible Says commentaries for these passages explain the brutal details of scourging: Matthew 27:27-30, Mark 15:16-19, John 19:1-3.
And finally, the main thing that Pilate did to satisfy the crowd was to order that Jesus be crucified. The crowd had been shouting "Crucify Him!" and Pilate handed Him over to be crucified. The crowd eventually wore Pilate down and had gotten what they demanded. As Luke writes of the crowd:
"But they were insistent, with loud voices asking that He be crucified. And their voices began to prevail. And Pilate pronounced sentence that their demand be granted."
(Luke 23:23-24)
Jesus would be unjustly crucified as He (Matthew 20:18-19, 26:2, Mark 8:31, 9:31, 10:33-34) and the prophets (Psalm 22, Isaiah 53) had predicted He would be. The Son of God's willingness to submit to being unjustly slandered, condemned, abused, humiliated, tortured, and crucified would be the basis for the world's salvation from the penalty of sin and our restoration to God (John 3:14-16, Romans 5:8-9, Colossians 2:14). His obedience to His Father, even unto death (Philippians 2:7-8), made possible the Gift of Eternal Life.
Here are moments in the final phase of Jesus's civil trial which Mark skipped over in his efforts to simplify and focus on the main action:
(Luke 23:22, John 19:1-3)
Matthew and Mark only mention that Jesus was scourged and then describe the mockery after they say Jesus was condemned (Matthew 27:26-31, Mark 15:15-20).
To learn more about this moment, see The Bible Says commentaries for John 19:1-3, Matthew 27:26-30, Mark 15:16-20.
(John 19:4-5)
Pilate presents the bloodied Jesus to the crowd, and says: "Behold the Man." Pilate hopes the flogging will satisfy them. It does not.
To learn more about this moment, see The Bible Says commentary for John 19:4-5.
(John 19:6-8)
The Jewish leaders tell Pilate that Jesus must die because He claimed to be the Son of God. When Pilate hears this, he becomes even more afraid.
To learn more about this moment, see The Bible Says commentary for John 19:6-7.
(John 19:8-11)
Pilate takes Jesus back inside the Praetorium and questions Him about where He is from. Jesus explains that Pilate could have no authority over Him unless it had been given to him from above.
To learn more about this moment, see The Bible Says commentary for John 19:8-11.
(John 19:12-15)
The Jews frame Pilate when they tell him he is no friend of Caesar if he lets Jesus live. Pilate in turn asks the Jews "Shall I crucify your king?" The chief priests answered: "We have no king but Caesar" (John 19:15b). In the Jewish faith, this statement is blasphemy because only God is king. In order to murder Jesus, the chief priests publicly declared in essence, "we have no god but Caesar."
To learn more about this moment, see The Bible Says commentary for John 19:12-15.
(Matthew 27:24-25)
Pilate washes his hands and says that he is innocent of Jesus's blood. (Pilate is not innocent. Pilate is the one who sentenced Jesus to crucifixion). And the crowd replies: "His blood shall be on us and on our children" (Matthew 27:25b).
To learn more about this moment, see The Bible Says commentary for Matthew 27:24-25.