Did the Romans give Jesus 39 lashes?

In the law courts the judges must mete out proper justice, yet not to exceed the limits of justice. If one was guilty of serious crime, it was right to have him beaten, lying down. But never was he to receive more than forty strokes. Paul writes in 2 Cor.11:24, "From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one." The Jews at least respected this particular law, for they lessened the number to 39 in case they had miscounted. But they treated Paul as they would the worst criminal.

We now in our thoughts leave Achaia and travel far round in that circuit "from Jerusalem and round about to Illyricum;" to which Paul refers in Romans 15:19. Trials, trouble and disaster seemed to be piled upon him mountains high. Five times of the Jews he received forty stripes save one — 195 stripes administered in five doses. Thrice beaten with rods; apparently at Gentile hands. Once stoned; that we know was at Lystra. Thrice he had suffered shipwreck, and when he wrote that he had not been taken prisoner and sent to Rome. So the shipwreck, recorded in Acts 27, must have been at least the fourth. And one of the shipwrecks was so desperate that for a night and a day he was being washed about in the sea. All this was enough to kill most men, but it was not all the story.

Corporal punishment is mentioned in the first paragraph of this chapter. But this also was tempered with mercy. Not more than forty stripes were to be administered in the presence of the judge. The rabbinical instructions put the limit at thirty-nine--"forty save one." Five times our blessed apostle Paul was punished in this manner, for we read, "Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes, save one" (2 Cor. 11:24).

In comparison with the cruel beatings and tortures so universally found among the Gentile races the law concerning corporal punishment appears very merciful. The chastisement was not to be severer than it could be endured. It speaks typically also of the chastisement His people have to undergo.

In Rev. 9 we read of locusts with stings in their tails, and which torment men as do the scorpions: they are employed as symbols of some form of cruel and pitiless agents. In 1 Kings 12:11, 14; 2 Chr. 10:11, 14, a scourge with hard knots or metal points is supposed to be alluded to.

This was a punishment inflicted by the Romans. The culprit was stripped and stretched by cords or thongs on a frame, and beaten with a whip or a rod. From about B.C. 300 Roman citizens were exempt from scourging. Paul availed himself of this privilege when he was about to be 'examined' under this punishment. Acts 22:24-29. But he was thrice beaten with rods. 2 Cor. 11:25. The Lord was subject to the pain and indignity of scourging. John 19:1.

"Then Pilate therefore took Jesus and scourged Him." What was the antecedent to that "therefore"? May we join it up with Pilate's verdict of not guilty? I think we may. Indeed, that is exactly how Luke puts it in his account of the matter. Pilate said, "Behold, I, having examined Him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse Him … I will therefore chastise Him and release Him." Whatever excuse may be found for Pilate, his decision was wickedly callous and brutally unjust. It was as though a judge in a modem Assize Court said, The prisoner is absolutely innocent of the crime. I will therefore pass upon him the sentence of 20 strokes of the cat. That is Luke's side of it, but it seems to me that John goes beneath the surface and reveals the very heart of the man. It was at the cry of the Jews, "Not this man, " that Pilate took Jesus and scourged Him. These Jews were thwarting him, they were giving him much trouble, they were daring to challenge his verdict, his honour was at stake and the dignity of his office; he was an angry man and upon whom should be vent his rage? Well, the prisoner was a Jew; they surely would not care to see one of their own race subjected to the ignominy of the Roman scourge. We do not know whether "the terrible flagellum" or the lictor's rods were used on this occasion, but whichever it was the victim was stripped and stretched with thongs on a frame and beaten, and no Roman could be subjected to such shame. Pilate seemed to have hoped to strike at the pride of the Jews as well as at his unresisting Prisoner whom he had come to hate because he feared and could not understand Him. The scornful pagan in that hour of darkness was as thoroughly under Satan's power as were priests and people, and Jesus the Son of God, was the object of the hatred of all; they hated Him without a cause. Let Pilate wash his hands if he will, they will never be cleansed from the stain of that blood which by his order was forced from the flesh of the Son of God at that scourging. And yet he and his mercenaries were but fulfilling the ancient word, and not only testing the lowly submission of their Victim to the will of God, but proving His divine foreknowledge and power, for He it was who spoke through the prophet, saying "I gave My back to the smiters and My cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not My face from shame and spitting" (Isa. 50:6). It was He who gave His back to their cruelty, and no power of man or devil could have compelled Him.

Scourging and Mocking. — It rested with Pilate to speak the irrevocable word. Still he hesitated. Conscience, that monitor placed by God in every responsible creature, was perhaps speaking, and we learn from Matthew (27:19) of his wife's entreaty to let the matter alone, and not to condemn an innocent man. But weak in character, and fearing to offend the Jews, he could not bring himself to refuse outright. He would, however, now try another expedient, if possible, to escape from his position. He would scourge the Lord, an unlawful act against one innocent and uncondemned. All four Evangelists tell us of this, but John and Luke, it would seem, introduce the mention of it in proper historical order. By Gentile hands was this punishment now inflicted; and not a word have we, not a remonstrance from the Lord. Nor was any voice raised, that we read of, to deprecate such an unlawful exercise of authority. The Lord submitted to it. He had foretold it. He endured it. But would that scourging contribute to His release?

And what did this representative of the Gentile power then do, convinced, judge as he was, that there was no fault in Jesus? He deliberately released the robber and murderer. And then what? Was there a little respite now? Was the bruised and beaten prisoner, the declared just One, allowed to rest His weary body awhile? The first thing done was to inflict the cruel torment of the Roman lash ― a torment under which prisoners often died. Pilate has Him stripped and scourged. How that back was torn with the cruel lash!

The closer we come to the cross the more the true character of every person comes to light: Pilate subjects the Son of God to the torture of scourging (19:1); and he does so 'therefore', i.e. to satisfy the demands of those who had cried 'Not this man, but Barabbas'. The Roman soldiers mock the royal claims of Christ, and not without cruelty. In his attempt to appease the Jewish leaders Pilate repeatedly confirms the Lord's innocence - to his own condemnation. And the Jews claim that on the basis of 'their law' Christ - the Giver of the law and the only innocent man - has to die. But as the whole depravity of man fully comes to light at the cross so does the perfection of the Son of God. He is silent in the face of curiosity (v.9) but gives testimony to the true source of the power Pilate had (v.11). The chief priests also pronounce their own condemnation: "We have no king but Caesar." (v. 15).

Hard-heartedness and insult took their course, for His hour was come. Pilate took and scourged Jesus the Lord of glory; the soldiers treated their meek prisoner with the unfeeling scorn, natural in such towards One Who resisted not; yet we must look to the Jews for extreme and unrelenting hatred.

Now Pilate scourges the One he had thrice pronounced innocent. The soldiers gather round to satiate their cruelty with a sight of His sufferings. Here it is not the Jews that surround Him. The soldiers of the governor had little in common with the servants of the priests, but they were alike in this — the natural cruelty of the human heart, led on by Satan.

He is (1) stripped; (2) scourged; (3) buffeted; (4) mocked; (5) spit upon; (6) crowned with thorns; (7) crucified. Sevenfold sufferings measured out to the Holy Son of God by the guilty sons of men.