Now when morning had come, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 1. When the morning was come. The evangelist is silent with regard to what was transacted during the night, and of the multiplied cruelties and base indignities offered to our divine Redeemer during the whole of the night; for, after he has informed us of Peter’s denial, he immediately proceeds to tell us what happened at break of day. Saint Augustine.—The chief priests, with the ancients and scribes, after they had wreaked their vengeance upon Jesus by the vilest treatment of his sacred person, took counsel how they might induce the governor to put him to death. In this Sanhedrim, or full council of seventy-two, they again put the question to hold a council.—Council. Caiphas, in the morning, called a full council of the Sanhedrim. They again put the question to Jesus, and commanded him to tell them if he were the Christ, and the Son of God? He owned he was. Luke 22:70.—Upon this they led him away, and delivered him to Pontius Pilate, the governor: lit. the president. This they did, 1. because being a festival day, they apprehended a tumult among the people. 2. To make him die a more infamous death on the cross; otherwise they might perhaps have stoned him to death, as they afterwards did S. Stephen. 3. The power of death being taken from them, they durst not well exercise it, at least, without permission from the Roman governor. Witham.