Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him.
Pilate.
Matthew 27:26 Then released he Barabbas unto them: and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified.
Mark 15:15 And so Pilate, willing to content the people, released Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged him, to be crucified.
Luke 23:16,23 I will therefore chastise him, and release him…
scourged.
Psalm 129:3 The plowers plowed upon my back: they made long their furrows.
Isaiah 50:6 I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.
Isaiah 53:5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
and had Him flogged.
Flogging, or scourging, was a brutal Roman punishment often preceding crucifixion. It involved whipping the victim with a flagrum, a whip with multiple leather thongs embedded with metal or bone, causing severe physical trauma. This act fulfilled the prophecy of the suffering servant in Isaiah 53:5, "by His stripes we are healed." The flogging of Jesus is a type of His sacrificial suffering, prefiguring the atonement for sin. It also reflects the fulfillment of Jesus' own prediction of His suffering (Mark 10:34). The severity of Roman flogging underscores the physical and emotional agony Jesus endured, highlighting His willingness to suffer for humanity's redemption.
• Pilate, the Roman governor, stands at a decisive moment—his authority is real, yet he is swept along by public pressure (John 18:38–40).
• His previous declaration, “I find no basis for a charge against Him” (John 18:38), shows that the following action is not about justice but expediency (cf. Matthew 27:24).
• The contrast between human authority and God’s sovereign plan is evident: even rulers act within boundaries God permits (John 19:11; Acts 4:27–28).
• Jesus is handed over; He does not resist, fulfilling His own words: “No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord” (John 10:18).
• The voluntary submission aligns with Isaiah 53:7—“He was led like a lamb to the slaughter,” underscoring the prophetic thread running through the Passion narratives (cf. Luke 22:53).
• By allowing Himself to be taken, Jesus demonstrates the depth of His obedience to the Father’s will (Philippians 2:8).
• Roman flogging was brutal, often leaving a victim near death; it fulfills Jesus’ own prediction that He would be “mocked and flogged and crucified” (Matthew 20:19).
• The scourging precedes the crucifixion in all four Gospels (Matthew 27:26; Mark 15:15; Luke 23:16), confirming its historical certainty.
• Isaiah 53:5 declares, “By His stripes we are healed,” linking the physical lashes to the atoning purpose of His suffering (1 Peter 2:24).
• While some see Pilate’s act as an attempt to appease the crowd and spare Jesus from death (Luke 23:22), God’s redemptive design moves inexorably toward the Cross (John 3:14–17).
John 19:1 records a deliberate, painful step in God’s redemptive plan: Pilate, pressured yet responsible, orders Jesus—who willingly submits—to be scourged. The governor’s action exposes human injustice, Jesus’ obedience, and the fulfillment of prophecy, all converging to lead the sinless Lamb to the cross where His wounds would secure our healing and salvation.
(1) Then Pilate therefore took Jesus.--For the connection and the force of "therefore" comp. Luke 23:21-23.(1) That the earlier Gospels all make the darkness last from twelve until three (the sixth hour until the ninth hour). This is apparently intended to indicate the time of the Crucifixion, and they thus agree generally with St. John's account.
Verses 1-3. - (d) [Within the Praetorium.] The unjust scourging, and the crown of thorns. Verse 1. - Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him. The force of the "therefore" may be seen in the foregoing observations (see especially Luke 23:23-25). He obviously fancied that the sight of their Victim's utter humiliation, his reduction to the lowest possible position, would sate their burning rage. Scourging was the ordinary preliminary of crucifixion, and it might be regarded as Pilate's verdict, or the conclusion of the whole matter. Roman and Greek historians confirm the custom (Josephus, 'Ant.,' 5:11.1; 'Bell. Jud.,' 2:14. 9; comp. Matthew 20:19; Luke 18:33) of scourging before crucifixion. It may have had a twofold motive - one to glut the desire of inflicting physical torment and ignominy, and another allied to the offer of anodyne, to hasten the final sufferings of the cross. But the governor clearly thought that he might, by first humoring the populace, in releasing Barabbas from his confinement, and then reducing to a political absurdity the charge of treason against Caesar, save the suffering Prisoner from further wrong. The morbid suggestion of a mind accustomed to gladiatorial shows, and to the sudden changes of feeling which ran through the amphitheatres at the sight of blood, not only reveals the incapacity of Pilate to understand the difference between right and wrong, but proves that he had not sounded the depth of Jewish fanaticism, nor understood the people he had been ordered to coerce. John uses the word ἐμαστίγωσεν, a purely Greek word. Matthew and Mark, who refer to the scourging which preceded Christ's being led to Calvary, use another official and technical word φραγελλώσας (identifiable with the Latin word flagellans). This does not require us to believe in two scourgings. Matthew and Mark simply refer to the scourging, which had been arbitrarily and informally inflicted, as John informs us, before the condemnation was pronounced. The Roman punishment flagellis inflicted hideous torture. "It was executed upon slaves with thin elm rods or straps having leaden balls or sharply pointed bones attached, and was delivered on the bent, bare, and tense back." The victim was fastened to a pillar for the-purpose, the like to which has actually been found by Sir C. Warren in a subterranean cavern, on the site of what Mr. Ferguson regards as the Tower of Antonia (Westcott). The flagellation usually brought blood with the first stroke, and reduced the back to a fearful state of raw and quivering flesh. Strong men often succumbed under it, while the indignity of such a proceeding in this case must have cut far deeper into the awful sanctuary of the Sufferer's soul.