Mark 15:8-10: The Third and Final Phase of Jesus's Civil Trial Begins. Mark describes Pilate's second attempt to release Jesus by means of the customary Passover pardon. As the crowd asks Pilate to release a prisoner according to his custom, the governor offers to release Jesus, whom he knows was handed over by the chief priests because of envy. Mark highlights Pilate's political awareness while setting the stage for the crowd's demand that Barabbas be released instead.
In Mark 15:8-10,the crowd asks Pilate to observe his customary Passover pardon, and Pilate attempts to use this custom to release Jesus because he knows the chief priests delivered Him over out of envy.
Mark now returns to narrate the third and final phase of Jesus's civil trial.
In the previous section (Mark 15:6-7), Mark interrupted his narrative to explain Pilate's custom of releasing one prisoner during the Feast, and to introduce Barabbas, the man who had been imprisoned with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in a revolt (Mark 15:6-7). Having supplied this important background information, Mark resumes the narrative of Jesus's civil trial.
Mark's interjection came between his account of the first phase of Jesus's civil trial (Mark 15:1-5) and his account of the third phase of Jesus's civil trial (Mark 15:8-15). Like Matthew and John, Mark omits the second phase of Jesus's civil trial--Jesus's audience before Herod Antipas--which Luke alone records in detail (Luke 23:8-12).
The third phase of Jesus's civil trial took place in the same location as the first phase--the Praetorium, the former site of Herod's palace, now being used by Pilate as his official Jerusalem residence and headquarters for the Roman soldiers (John 18:28, 19:9). These events likely occurred while it was still morning, probably sometime around 8:00 a.m. According to Mark 15:25, Jesus was crucified at the third hour (9:00 a.m.). According to the Jewish calendar the date was likely Nisan 15--the first day of Unleavened Bread. By Roman reckoning, the day was probably a Friday.
Luke reports that before this phase resumed, Pilate publicly summarized the results of Jesus's trial to that point. Pilate reminded the chief priests, rulers, and people that neither he nor Herod had found Jesus guilty of the charges brought against Him (Luke 23:13-15). Pilate even offered to have Jesus scourged and then released (Luke 23:16), hoping this extraordinary compromise might satisfy His accusers.
But if Pilate thought this remarkable concession would appease His accusers' hatred, he was mistaken.
It is at this point that Mark resumes the narrative,
The crowd went up and began asking him to do as he had been accustomed to do for them (v 8).
The pronouns--he and him--refer to the Roman governor, Pilate, in whose decision rested the verdict of Jesus's civil trial.
The crowd refers to the crowd of Jews who were at Jesus's trial. The crowd mostly, if not entirely, consisted of Jesus's accusers--the chief priests, elders, and scribes of the Sanhedrin Council. But the crowd also may have contained some of Jesus's sympathizers.
This is the first time Mark uses the term crowd to describe the gathering of Jews at Jesus's civil trial. Previously he had referred to them as: "the chief priests with the elders and scribes" (Mark 15:1) or through pronouns referring to this group of religious leaders.
Similarly, Matthew's and Luke's description of those in attendance at Jesus's trial changes at this point in their narratives as well. Throughout the earlier phases of Jesus's civil trial, the Gospel writers primarily described those present as the chief priests, elders, scribes, and members of the Sanhedrin Council. But now Mark uses the term crowd, and Matthew and Luke begin saying "the people" (Matthew 27:17,Luke 23:13).
This change from using more specific (chief priests, elders, scribes, Sanhedrin Council) to less specific/more generic terms (crowd/people) may indicate that as Jesus's trial progressed, the crowd appears to have expanded to include ordinary people who had become aware that something significant was taking place. It was no longer early in the morning, and the city with its throngs of visitors were waking up. They began to notice the unusual commotion and joined in to see what was happening. Herod's theatrical return of Jesus, mockingly dressed in royal robes, likely attracted attention to the circus (Luke 23:11).
It is also possible that while Jesus was being sent to Herod and then returned to Pilate, the chief priests and elders used this interval to gather additional supporters. Perhaps some of these were among the same false witnesses they had previously recruited during Jesus's religious trial (Matthew 26:59-60).
As the crowd grew, the religious leaders faced both opportunity and danger. They needed to persuade Pilate to execute Jesus without provoking sympathy for Him among the people, many of whom admired Him.
Unlike Matthew, who begins this scene with Pilate's offer after the people had gathered together (Matthew 27:17), Mark begins with the crowd approaching Pilate and askinghim to use the pardon that he had been accustomedto do for them each Passover (Mark 15:6-7).
The crowd went up and began asking him to do as he had been accustomed to do for them (v 8).
It is unclear if those who made this suggestion to Pilate were enemies or sympathizers of Jesus--they may have approached Pilate about the customary Passover Pardon (Mark 15:6-7) as a way to resolve the conflict.
If those in the crowd who went up to Pilateand began askinghim to use the customary Passover Pardon were sympathetic to Jesus, then they hoped Pilate would release Jesus. If those in the crowd who went up to Pilateand began asking him to do this were His accusers, then they shrewdly calculated they could use thecrowd to pressure him to condemn Jesus.
Pilate answered them, saying, "Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?" (v 9).
Pilateansweredthe crowd's request by attempting to use the customary Passover pardon to secure Jesus’s release, whom he regarded as innocent.
Pilate uses the expression the King of the Jews to taunt Jesus’s accusers and/or to leverage the belief that some Jews held that Jesus was the Messiah (King of the Jews) whom he now held as prisoner. As will become apparent, Pilate's offer torelease the King of the Jews was likely intended to be a wedge between the crowd and their religious leaders.
On the surface, Matthew's account of the Passover Pardon may appear to have unfolded a little differently than how Mark recorded it. But these apparent discrepancies can be harmonized.
Matthew's account omits the fact that the crowd first suggested the idea of pardon to Pilate, and instead jumps straight to Pilate's offer where the Roman governor is the one to suggest the notorious criminal Barabbas as an alternative to Jesus:
"So when the people gathered together, Pilate said to them, 'Whom do you want me to release for you? Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?'" (Matthew 27:17)
John records essentially the same simplified proposal as Mark:
"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?" (John 18:39)
It could be that Mark and John wrote Pilate's initial offer, which was simply: "Do you want me to release Jesus for you?" (v 9) and that Matthew wrote Pilate's more developed offer where he later upped the stakes to release either Jesus or a hated criminal (Matthew 27:17).
It also could be that the phrasing of Pilate's offer in Mark and John was simplified to reflect Pilate's hope that the crowd would want him to release Jesus, while Matthew recorded the full terms of the offer with both options explicitly stated.
In either event, it seems as though Pilate was the one who first mentioned Barabbas as an alternative. If so, it was a potentially shrewd move on Pilate's behalf to offer someone he viewed as a non-starter as an alternative to releasing Jesus.
Had this maneuver succeeded, Pilate would have achieved several objectives at once. Pilate would have released a man that he declared to be innocent. He would have pleased the crowd and quelled a potential riot. And he would have defied his rivals, the chief priests, in such a way that they would have no political standing to complain about the outcome. But Pilate would not get his wish because the crowd responded to his offer differently than he hoped or expected.
Mark seems to confirm Pilate's motives for offering to release Jesus, with another interjection:
For he was aware that the chief priests had handed Him over because of envy (v 10).
Matthew similarly observes that Pilate knew "because of envy they had handed Him over" (Matthew 27:18). Mark places this explanation immediately after Pilate's offer, emphasizing the governor’s political perception.
Pilate understood that the charges against Jesus were merely a pretext. The real issue was not insurrection against Rome but envy.
Pilate was likely aware of Jesus's immense popularity among the people. As governor of Judea, he almost certainly would have received reports concerning Jesus's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, when "all the city was stirred" (Matthew 21:10). He likely knew about the enormous crowds Jesus attracted while teaching in the temple and had probably heard how Jesus repeatedly embarrassed the chief priests and elders in their public confrontations (Matthew 21:23 - 23:39).
Moreover, when Caiaphas and the chief priests requested a Roman cohort to arrest Jesus the previous evening (John 18:3), they may well have explained Jesus's cleansing of the temple (Matthew 21:12-16) and His growing influence among the people as justification for their request.
Pilate was a seasoned politician. He recognized that the chief priestshadhanded Him over (v 10) not because Jesus posed a genuine threat to Rome, but because they feared losing their own influence over the people.
Matthew and Mark's observations also help explain why Pilate was so reluctant to condemn Jesus. It was not simply that he believed Jesus to be innocent--though he clearly did. Pilate also understood the political danger of executing a man whom many Jews admired.
Throughout the remainder of the trial, the Roman governor would repeatedly attempt (but fail) to release Jesus while simultaneously trying to preserve civil order.
Pilate believed that the people, once given the opportunity, would choose the innocent Jesus over Barabbas. But the chief priests were already at work persuading the crowd to demand Barabbas's release instead. Mark describes this dramatic reversal in the next verses (Mark 15:11-13) which is the subject of the next commentary.
But it may be worth noting that Mark omits what Matthew includes at this point in the trial.
Matthew includes the account where Pilate's wife interrupts the trial to tell her husband that she had a troubling dream, and she warns Pilate not to have anything to do with Jesus who is an innocent man (Matthew 27:19).
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Mark 15:8-10 meaning
The parallel Gospel accounts for Mark 15:8-10 are found in Matthew 27:17-18 and John 18:39.
In Mark 15:8-10, the crowd asks Pilate to observe his customary Passover pardon, and Pilate attempts to use this custom to release Jesus because he knows the chief priests delivered Him over out of envy.
Mark now returns to narrate the third and final phase of Jesus's civil trial.
In the previous section (Mark 15:6-7), Mark interrupted his narrative to explain Pilate's custom of releasing one prisoner during the Feast, and to introduce Barabbas, the man who had been imprisoned with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in a revolt (Mark 15:6-7). Having supplied this important background information, Mark resumes the narrative of Jesus's civil trial.
Mark's interjection came between his account of the first phase of Jesus's civil trial (Mark 15:1-5) and his account of the third phase of Jesus's civil trial (Mark 15:8-15). Like Matthew and John, Mark omits the second phase of Jesus's civil trial--Jesus's audience before Herod Antipas--which Luke alone records in detail (Luke 23:8-12).
The three phases of Jesus's civil trial were:
(Matthew 27:1-2, 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 18:38 - 19:16)
The third phase of Jesus's civil trial took place in the same location as the first phase--the Praetorium, the former site of Herod's palace, now being used by Pilate as his official Jerusalem residence and headquarters for the Roman soldiers (John 18:28, 19:9). These events likely occurred while it was still morning, probably sometime around 8:00 a.m. According to Mark 15:25, Jesus was crucified at the third hour (9:00 a.m.). According to the Jewish calendar the date was likely 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 article "Timeline: Jesus's Final 24 Hours."
Luke reports that before this phase resumed, Pilate publicly summarized the results of Jesus's trial to that point. Pilate reminded the chief priests, rulers, and people that neither he nor Herod had found Jesus guilty of the charges brought against Him (Luke 23:13-15). Pilate even offered to have Jesus scourged and then released (Luke 23:16), hoping this extraordinary compromise might satisfy His accusers.
But if Pilate thought this remarkable concession would appease His accusers' hatred, he was mistaken.
It is at this point that Mark resumes the narrative,
The crowd went up and began asking him to do as he had been accustomed to do for them (v 8).
The pronouns--he and him--refer to the Roman governor, Pilate, in whose decision rested the verdict of Jesus's civil trial.
The crowd refers to the crowd of Jews who were at Jesus's trial. The crowd mostly, if not entirely, consisted of Jesus's accusers--the chief priests, elders, and scribes of the Sanhedrin Council. But the crowd also may have contained some of Jesus's sympathizers.
This is the first time Mark uses the term crowd to describe the gathering of Jews at Jesus's civil trial. Previously he had referred to them as: "the chief priests with the elders and scribes" (Mark 15:1) or through pronouns referring to this group of religious leaders.
Similarly, Matthew's and Luke's description of those in attendance at Jesus's trial changes at this point in their narratives as well. Throughout the earlier phases of Jesus's civil trial, the Gospel writers primarily described those present as the chief priests, elders, scribes, and members of the Sanhedrin Council. But now Mark uses the term crowd, and Matthew and Luke begin saying "the people" (Matthew 27:17, Luke 23:13).
This change from using more specific (chief priests, elders, scribes, Sanhedrin Council) to less specific/more generic terms (crowd/people) may indicate that as Jesus's trial progressed, the crowd appears to have expanded to include ordinary people who had become aware that something significant was taking place. It was no longer early in the morning, and the city with its throngs of visitors were waking up. They began to notice the unusual commotion and joined in to see what was happening. Herod's theatrical return of Jesus, mockingly dressed in royal robes, likely attracted attention to the circus (Luke 23:11).
It is also possible that while Jesus was being sent to Herod and then returned to Pilate, the chief priests and elders used this interval to gather additional supporters. Perhaps some of these were among the same false witnesses they had previously recruited during Jesus's religious trial (Matthew 26:59-60).
As the crowd grew, the religious leaders faced both opportunity and danger. They needed to persuade Pilate to execute Jesus without provoking sympathy for Him among the people, many of whom admired Him.
Unlike Matthew, who begins this scene with Pilate's offer after the people had gathered together (Matthew 27:17), Mark begins with the crowd approaching Pilate and asking him to use the pardon that he had been accustomed to do for them each Passover (Mark 15:6-7).
The crowd went up and began asking him to do as he had been accustomed to do for them (v 8).
It is unclear if those who made this suggestion to Pilate were enemies or sympathizers of Jesus--they may have approached Pilate about the customary Passover Pardon (Mark 15:6-7) as a way to resolve the conflict.
If those in the crowd who went up to Pilate and began asking him to use the customary Passover Pardon were sympathetic to Jesus, then they hoped Pilate would release Jesus. If those in the crowd who went up to Pilate and began asking him to do this were His accusers, then they shrewdly calculated they could use the crowd to pressure him to condemn Jesus.
Pilate answered them, saying, "Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?" (v 9).
Pilate answered the crowd's request by attempting to use the customary Passover pardon to secure Jesus’s release, whom he regarded as innocent.
Pilate uses the expression the King of the Jews to taunt Jesus’s accusers and/or to leverage the belief that some Jews held that Jesus was the Messiah (King of the Jews) whom he now held as prisoner. As will become apparent, Pilate's offer to release the King of the Jews was likely intended to be a wedge between the crowd and their religious leaders.
On the surface, Matthew's account of the Passover Pardon may appear to have unfolded a little differently than how Mark recorded it. But these apparent discrepancies can be harmonized.
Matthew's account omits the fact that the crowd first suggested the idea of pardon to Pilate, and instead jumps straight to Pilate's offer where the Roman governor is the one to suggest the notorious criminal Barabbas as an alternative to Jesus:
"So when the people gathered together, Pilate said to them, 'Whom do you want me to release for you? Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?'"
(Matthew 27:17)
John records essentially the same simplified proposal as Mark:
"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?"
(John 18:39)
It could be that Mark and John wrote Pilate's initial offer, which was simply: "Do you want me to release Jesus for you?" (v 9) and that Matthew wrote Pilate's more developed offer where he later upped the stakes to release either Jesus or a hated criminal (Matthew 27:17).
It also could be that the phrasing of Pilate's offer in Mark and John was simplified to reflect Pilate's hope that the crowd would want him to release Jesus, while Matthew recorded the full terms of the offer with both options explicitly stated.
In either event, it seems as though Pilate was the one who first mentioned Barabbas as an alternative. If so, it was a potentially shrewd move on Pilate's behalf to offer someone he viewed as a non-starter as an alternative to releasing Jesus.
Had this maneuver succeeded, Pilate would have achieved several objectives at once. Pilate would have released a man that he declared to be innocent. He would have pleased the crowd and quelled a potential riot. And he would have defied his rivals, the chief priests, in such a way that they would have no political standing to complain about the outcome. But Pilate would not get his wish because the crowd responded to his offer differently than he hoped or expected.
Mark seems to confirm Pilate's motives for offering to release Jesus, with another interjection:
For he was aware that the chief priests had handed Him over because of envy (v 10).
Matthew similarly observes that Pilate knew "because of envy they had handed Him over" (Matthew 27:18). Mark places this explanation immediately after Pilate's offer, emphasizing the governor’s political perception.
Pilate understood that the charges against Jesus were merely a pretext. The real issue was not insurrection against Rome but envy.
Pilate was likely aware of Jesus's immense popularity among the people. As governor of Judea, he almost certainly would have received reports concerning Jesus's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, when "all the city was stirred" (Matthew 21:10). He likely knew about the enormous crowds Jesus attracted while teaching in the temple and had probably heard how Jesus repeatedly embarrassed the chief priests and elders in their public confrontations (Matthew 21:23 - 23:39).
Moreover, when Caiaphas and the chief priests requested a Roman cohort to arrest Jesus the previous evening (John 18:3), they may well have explained Jesus's cleansing of the temple (Matthew 21:12-16) and His growing influence among the people as justification for their request.
Pilate was a seasoned politician. He recognized that the chief priests had handed Him over (v 10) not because Jesus posed a genuine threat to Rome, but because they feared losing their own influence over the people.
Matthew and Mark's observations also help explain why Pilate was so reluctant to condemn Jesus. It was not simply that he believed Jesus to be innocent--though he clearly did. Pilate also understood the political danger of executing a man whom many Jews admired.
Throughout the remainder of the trial, the Roman governor would repeatedly attempt (but fail) to release Jesus while simultaneously trying to preserve civil order.
Pilate believed that the people, once given the opportunity, would choose the innocent Jesus over Barabbas. But the chief priests were already at work persuading the crowd to demand Barabbas's release instead. Mark describes this dramatic reversal in the next verses (Mark 15:11-13) which is the subject of the next commentary.
But it may be worth noting that Mark omits what Matthew includes at this point in the trial.
Matthew includes the account where Pilate's wife interrupts the trial to tell her husband that she had a troubling dream, and she warns Pilate not to have anything to do with Jesus who is an innocent man (Matthew 27:19).
To learn more about this moment, see The Bible Says Commentary for Matthew 27:19.
Mark, who keeps the decisive action of the trial front and center, omits the interruption from Pilate's wife altogether.