Mark 15:6-15

⁶ Now at the feast he was accustomed to releasing one prisoner to them, whomever they requested.

⁷ And there was one named Barabbas, who was chained with his fellow rebels; they had committed murder in the rebellion.

⁸ Then the multitude, crying aloud, began to ask him to do just as he had always done for them.

⁹ But Pilate answered them, saying, “Do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?”

¹⁰ For he knew that the chief priests had handed Him over because of envy.

¹¹ But the chief priests stirred up the crowd, so that he should rather release Barabbas to them.

¹² Pilate answered and said to them again, “What then do you want me to do with Him whom you call the King of the Jews?”

¹³ So they cried out again, “Crucify Him!”

¹⁴ Then Pilate said to them, “Why, what evil has He done?” But they cried out all the more, “Crucify Him!”

¹⁵ So Pilate, wanting to gratify the crowd, released Barabbas to them; and he delivered Jesus, after he had scourged Him, to be crucified.

Also found in Matthew 27:15-26, Luke 23:13-25, and John 18:39-40, 19:1-16.

Barabbas was a brigand who had been engaged with others in an insurrection against Rome, such as the Jews at Bethsaida Julias had wanted Jesus to lead (John 6:15). He was guilty of murder in the insurrection. — Wuest, page 278.

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knew (v.10) — It gradually dawned upon [Pilate]. Pilate would see the animus of the Sanhedrist in their many accusations (v.3), from which it would appear that Christ’s real offense was His great influence with the people. Hence the attempt to play off the one party against the other: the people against the priests. — Wuest, page 278.

whom you call (v.11) — Pilate, in an effort to turn the sympathy of the crowd to the side of Jesus, reminded them that they had hailed Jesus as king just a few days before.

Perhaps the crowd were nettled by Pilate’s imputation (whom ye call etc.), perhaps they resented his desire to dictate their answer, and with the fickle cruelty of the irresponsible multitude they clamored for the death of one whose release they had a few minutes before been disposed to demand (v.8) — Wuest, page 279.

Wuest (above) says that the crowd had been disposed to accept the release of Jesus. He makes this point because, at that stage in the proceedings, the priests found it necessary to stir up the crowd (v.11).

The priests falsely accused Jesus of insurrection, but demanded the release of Barabbas, who had committed actual insurrection.

Barabbas was just the type of political insurgent the hierarchy had wanted to see in the Messiah, one who would use force where Jesus had refused to do so …

The amazing fickleness of the crowd [which had hailed Jesus upon His entry into Jerusalem], stirred up as they were by the chief priests, is thought by some to be almost incredible. But it was undoubtedly a profound shock to them to see the supposed Messiah a helpless prisoner in the hands of the heathen procurator. There was a violent change of feeling, psychologically characteristic of a mob, and they were quickly ready to clamor for the punishment of the imposter. — Guthrie, pages 883-884.

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We find a Roman governor striving to kindle every disloyal passion of his subjects, on behalf of the King of the Jews — appealing to men whom he hated and despised, and whose charges have proved empty as chaff, to say, What evil has He done? and even to tell him, on his judgment throne, what he shall do with their king; we find the men who accused Jesus of stirring up the people to sedition, now shamelessly agitating for the release of a red-handed insurgent; forced moreover to accept the responsibility which they would fain have devolved on Pilate, and themselves to pronounce the hateful sentence of crucifixion, unknown to their law, but for which they had secretly intrigued; and we find the multitude fiercely clamoring for a defeated champion of brute force … What satire upon their hope of a temporal Messiah could be more bitter than their own cry, “We have no king but Caesar”? and what satire upon this profession more destructive than their choice of Barabbas and refusal of Christ? And all the while, Jesus looks on in silence, carrying out His mournful but effectual plan, the true Master of the movements which design to crush Him, and which He has foretold. — Chadwick, page 422.

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scourged (v.15) — The Roman scourge was a lash usually made of leather thongs loaded at intervals with bone or metal. Peter, in 1 Peter 2:24, in the words, “with whose stripes ye were healed,” gives us a vivid picture of his recollection of how our Lord’s back looked after the scouring. The word “stripes” in the Greek text is in the singular number. The word refers to a bloody wale [a mark raised on the skin, as by a whip] trickling with blood that arises under a blow. Our Lord’s back was so lacerated by the scourge that it was one mass of open, raw, quivering flesh trickling with blood, not a series of stripes or cuts, but one mass of torn flesh. — Wuest, page 280.