Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.” The Jews said to him, “It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death.”
Pilate's first move is to get rid of the case: let the Jewish leaders judge their own prisoner by their own law. Their answer sounds like a legal technicality: they have no power to execute a man. But that reply settled how Jesus would die.
Pilate reads the real motive
Pilate could see what lay behind the charge.
L. M. GrantPilate tells the Jews to judge the Lord Jesus by their own law. He knew well that the whole matter was religious prejudice, not a major criminal case — and the Romans did not allow the Jews to handle major criminal cases. But before any trial they had already decided that He must be put to death. They could not do this lawfully themselves, so they demanded that Pilate condemn Him to death. More than this, the Lord Himself had foretold that He would die by crucifixion (v. 32), the Roman way of putting a man to death, rather than by Jewish stoning.
Why they could not do it themselves
Their claim was true. There is even a record of when Rome took that power away.
William Kelly"It is not lawful for us..." According to the Talmud, the Romans took the right to carry out the death penalty away from the Jews in the year just before this. That was exactly "forty years" before the fall of Jerusalem.
A sentence already passed
Notice what the admission cost them. Rome's rule was the thing they resented most. Yet here they lean on it, and ask Pilate for a life.
J T MawsonThey hated Jesus more than they hated Roman rule. That rule had been unbearable to them. But now they were ready to put up with it and admit to it, if only it would get rid of Him. So they confessed, "It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death."... What they were really asking for was approval of a sentence already passed on Him. It was a matter of life or death, and Pilate had to decide it.
Purity without justice
Their concern for religious rules sits oddly beside what they were asking for.
J. N. DarbyThey are jealous for their ceremonial purity, but they do not care about justice. Judging Him by their own law is not enough for them. They choose to have the Romans put Him to death, for the whole counsel of God had to be fulfilled.
Why the death had to be a Roman one
Jewish law knew stoning; crucifixion belonged to Rome. That difference was not an accident of politics.
Numerical Bible NotesThere was a spiritual reason governing all here. For the curse of the law was to be upon Him, and the public, open sign of the curse was hanging on a tree (Deut. 21:23). But if the Jews themselves had inflicted it, it would have come after death, and its meaning would have changed. Only in Gentile hands could crucifixion serve its purpose.
Two parties, one crime, one purpose
A Roman evasion and a Jewish demand lock together. Between them they carry out what Jesus had already said about His own death.
Hamilton SmithPilate seeks to put the responsibility of judging the Lord upon the Jews. Their reply gives away their fixed purpose. Whatever Pilate decides, they have already concluded that the Lord must die... So Jew and Gentile become the instruments for fulfilling the Lord's own words about the death He was about to die (Acts 4:27-28).
Neither side comes out clean. The hatred and the indifference are not the same, but they end in the same place.
The Bible TreasuryJew and Gentile unite in denying and rejecting the Lord. The one hates Him and shouts for His death. The other does not care, and hands Him over to death while finding no fault in Him. What a scene! Jewish hatred and Gentile indifference combined, and Jesus, the Holy One, is led out to death.
Summary
- Evasion — Pilate saw religious prejudice, not crime. He pushed the case back onto the accusers.
- Admission — "It is not lawful for us" was true. Rome had just taken the death penalty out of Jewish hands.
- Exposure — men careful about ceremonial purity had no problem demanding a death they had settled on before any trial.
- Necessity — stoning was the Jewish penalty. Only Roman crucifixion could hang Him on a tree, the open sign of the curse.
- Counsel — evasion and demand together brought about the death Jesus had foretold. Jew and Gentile were both guilty.