John 18:28 - Exposition

Then they lead Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the Praetorium —to the imperial palace of the Roman governor. The word is used primarily for the general's tent in the Roman camps, and for the legal residence of the chief of a province. Now, the ordinary residence of the Roman governors was at Caesarea, but at the time of the great feasts they were in the habit of going up to Jerusalem, and at a later time than this (Josephus, 'Bell. Jud.,' 2.14. 8; 15.5) the governors utilized for this purpose the former palace of Herod, a gorgeous residence in the upper city. It is, however, more probable that Pilate occupied the palace of the Castle of Antonia, overlooking the northwest corner of the temple area, and having means of direct communication with it. Edersheim inclines to the palace of Herod. From the high-priestly palace to the castle they led Jesus. And it was early. [In Matthew 14:25 and Mark 13:35 πρωΐ́ is equivalent to the fourth watch of the night, between three and six o'clock. The breadth of the phrase would cover the period of the hurried council and the session of Pilate. The Roman judgments were often conducted in early morning (Seneca, 'De Ira,' 2.7) —prima luce .] The council having in their indecent haste conveyed Jesus to the Praetorium, while ( and £ ) they themselves went not into the Praetorium, £ lest they should be defiled ( μιαίνω , the solemn word for "profane" in Plato, Sophocles, and the LXX .). This defilement by entrance into the house of a Gentile was not an enactment of the Law, but was a purely rabbinic observance; 'Zeitschrift fur die gesammte Luth. Theol.'). We find it operative in Acts 10:28 , and thus a hint given not merely of the author's knowledge of the inner life of Judaism, but of his quiet recognition of the stupendous spectacle of malicious ritualism, and of unscrupulous antagonism to the Holiest One, busying itself about attention to the letter of that which was only a rabbinic legislation. But £ might eat the Passover . Here in this passage we come once more face to face with the persistent puzzle occasioned by the divergent intimations of John and the synoptists as to the day of our Lord's death. In Matthew 26:17 and Mark 14:12-14 this very phrase is used for the preparation of that Paschal supper which our Lord celebrated with his disciples. So that we have at any rate a discordant verbal usage, however the problem be solved. The day is breaking, which constitutes, according to John ( prima facie ), the 14th of Nisan, in the evening of which and commencement of the 15th the Passover would be killed. According to the synoptists, that Passover meal was already over, and the first great day of the feast had commenced—the day of convocation, with sabbatic functions and duties. The statements are apparently in hopeless variance. Many emphasize, exaggerate, and declare insoluble the contradiction, repudiating either the authority of John or that of the synoptists. Meyer and Lucke give their verdict with John, the eye-witness, as against the synoptic tradition. Strauss and Keim, who also hold the invincible discrepancy, lift the synoptic account to a comparatively high state of historic validity, and thereby discredit the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel. We have two methods of reconciling the difficulty:

(a) That the entire proceeding of the trial was inconsistent with the feast-day;

(b) that Simon the Cyrenian could not bear the cross on that day;

(c) the circumstance that that Friday evening was the preparation of the Passover; and

(d) that the reckonings of the weeks till the Pentecost Sunday are all made to show that the synoptic narrative itself admits that the Crucifixion took place before the Passover meal. So also does the decision of the priests, that they would put Jesus to death μὴ ἐν τῆ ἑορτῆ . On this understanding the passage before us is interpreted in its natural sense; the Jews were unwilling to contract ceremonial defilement, because they were about to eat the Passover, and so with respect to the other references in John's Gospel, which all, prima facto , suggest the same chronological arrangement.