John Chapter 19 verse 13 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 13. - When Pilate therefore heard these words, or, sayings his fear of Tiberius became greater than his fear of Christ; his anxiety for himself predominated over his desire for justice and fair play. He found he had gone too far. Some commentators and harmonists here introduce the "hand-washing" (see above, John 18:40); but such a proceeding at this moment, when he was straightening up his back for the last act of injustice, would have roused fresh and dangerous charges against his personal honor. He brought Jesus out from the Praetorium to a place in view of the peoples and sat down (not, as some say, caused Jesus, in mockery, to take his place upon the judgment-seat (κάθιζω has the transitive sense in 1 Corinthians 6:4 and Ephesians 1:20, but not in John; and undoubtedly it has the intransitive sense, not only in John, but in Acts 25:6, 17. Moreover, the mockery was the act of the soldiery and of Herod's men of war, not of Pilate). It is remarkable, as Dr. James Drummond (Theological Review, 1877) points out, that Justin Martyr ('Apol.,' 1:35) apparently refers to this supposed transitive usage of κάθιζω in this very connection by John, by the words, Διασύροντες αὐτὸν ἐκάθισον ἐπὶ βήματος καὶ εϊπον κρῖνον ἡμῖν. It is reasonable inference that Justin read John's Gospel, and supposed him to give transitive force to the verb (see Dr. Salmon, 'Introduction to New Testament,' p. 89, note). Upon the judgment-seat in a place called λιθόστρθτον, the tessellated Pavement - equivalent to "stone-joining" - in which Romans delighted from the days of Sulla; a decoration which Julius Caesar carried about with him (Suet., 'Vit.,' 46.) for purposes of judgment - but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha. This was probably an elevated and fixed platform overlooking the temple-courts, or joining the Castle of Antonia with the temple. Its etymology is גַּב־בִיתָא, the ridge of the house or temple. Ewald has endeavored to find in the word the root קָבַּע, Aramaic for "insert," modified into גָּעָ, and then to suppose that we have here an exact equivalent to λιθόστρωτον; but where this word occurs in the LXX. it is the equivalent of the Hebrew רָצַפ, Song of Solomon 3:10. The λιθόστρωτον was possibly some elevated seat reached by a flight of stairs, and in the open air, not the bema within the Praetorium, where the more private conversations took place.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(13) When Pilate therefore heard that saying.--Better . . . these sayings--i.e., the two sayings of the previous verse.He brought Jesus forth ., .--Comp. John 19:9. He hesitates no longer about the course to be taken. His own position and life may be in danger, and he prepares, therefore, to pronounce the final sentence, which must necessarily be done from the public judgment seat outside the palace. (Comp. Matthew 27:19.)The Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha.--Both these words occur here only, and are instances of the writer's minute knowledge of the localities in Jerusalem. It may have been better to have preserved the Greek name (Lithostr?ton), as well as that by which the place was known in the Hebrew (Syro-Chaldaic) of the time. The word literally means "stone-paved," and was the Greek name for the tesselated "pavement" of marble and coloured stones with which from the time of Sylla the Romans delighted to adorn the Praetorium. The Chaldee word means "an elevated place," so that the one name was given to it from its form, and the other from the material of which it was made. Suetonius (Life, chap. 46) tells us that Julius Caesar carried about with him such pieces of marble and stone, but the mention of the "place" bears the impression that it was a fixture in front of the Praetorium at Jerusalem, in which the Bema was placed; or it may have been a portion of the northern court of the sanctuary to which Pilate came out, if we identify the Praetorium with the tower Antonia. (Comp. Note on Matthew 27:27.) Josephus mentions that the whole of the Temple mountain was paved with this kind of Mosaic work (Ant v. 5. 2. Caspari, Chron. Geogr., Introd., Eng. Trans., p. 225).