November 12, 2023

Never To Be Rid Of The Jews

(Some information may be too graphic for small children)

“So the chief priests of the Jews were saying to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews’; but that He said, ‘I am King of the Jews.’ Pilate answered, ‘What I have written I have written.’” John 19:21-22 (NASB)

            Have you had a gnat flying around you and it won’t go away? Pilate must have sensed this too. The gnat was the Jewish people. He wanted to be rid of them, but it wouldn’t happen.

            “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews’; but that He said, ‘I am King of the Jews.” Perhaps if the Jews were paying attention to the entire process of Jesus’s walk through the streets they may have already observed Pilate’s placard either hanging around Jesus’s neck or carried by soldiers to the execution site. Lenski offers an interesting observation about John’s writing: “It is John who calls it a τίτλος or ‘title,’ and, in fact, it merely gave Jesus a title. That is the remarkable thing about Pilate’s superscription: it names no crime whatever, it only records a most significant title. In three languages and thus to all the world it shouts out the great title of Jesus. No implication of secular kingship appears in Pilate’s title. That is completely shut out by ‘of Nazareth,’ which John would not have us overlook and on which we may well compare 1:46... Pilate is having his last revenge on ‘the high priests of the Jews.’ Only here does John call them thus; and though it has been denied, John certainly has in mind the contrast: ‘the king of the Jews’ and ‘the high priests of the Jews.’ To the very last these high priests have hurled at Pilate the charge, ‘King, king!’ which he knew was false and which he knew they knew was false. They had forced Pilate to crucify Jesus as a king. Very well then, they should have him on the cross but only as a king, their King! Let all the world read, ‘The King of the Jews!’”[1] Then “Pilate answered, ‘What I have written I have written.” Pilate was fed up with the Jews. Formally, he was correct. Jesus’s sentence was already executed and now he would not alter it. It sure must have made Pilate feel better to take one more stab at the Jews. They made him miserable, and now he could return the favor. In all of Pilate’s final words to the Jews, we see the plan of God working its way out. Later in his career, Pilate would deal with the Jews in future uprisings. One occurred when water shortage became a problem. Josephus records, “Deciding Jerusalem required more water, Pilate planned to bring a stream from a source of water twenty-five miles away. To finance the work, he used sacred money from the temple, again angering the Jews. Thousands of them gathered to insist he abandon his plan, some of them openly reproaching and talking against Pilate, as crowds are apt to do. Pilate dressed a great number of soldiers in the same manner as the crowd was dressed, then had them hide their weapons under their clothing and secretly surround the protestors. When he told them to disperse to their homes and they began to boldly reproach him, Pilate signaled his soldiers, who attacked and killed the crowd more viciously than Pilate ordered, killing many of the peaceful as well as the unruly.”[2]

            We see Pilate’s trouble with the Jews continued far beyond the crucifixion of Jesus. He murdered thousands more in the future. He hated them. They were trouble for his career.

[1] Lenski, R. C. H. (1961). (p. 1283). Augsburg Publishing House.

[2] Josephus, Thrones of Blood, A History of the Times of Jesus 27 B. C. to A. D. 70, (p. 61), Barbour Publishing.