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New Testament in a Year

Read the New Testament from start to finish, from Matthew to Revelation.

Duration: 365 days

John 19:1-22

Chapter 19

¹^[a]^(A)Then Pilate took Jesus and had him scourged. ²And the soldiers wove a crown out of thorns and placed it on his head, and clothed him in a purple cloak, ³and they came to him and said, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they struck him repeatedly. ⁴Once more Pilate went out and said to them, “Look, I am bringing him out to you, so that you may know that I find no guilt in him.”^(B) ⁵So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple cloak. And he said to them, “Behold, the man!”^(C) ⁶When the chief priests and the guards saw him they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him. I find no guilt in him.”^(D) ⁷^[b]The Jews answered,^(E) “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.” ⁸Now when Pilate heard this statement, he became even more afraid, ⁹and went back into the praetorium and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” Jesus did not answer him.^(F) ¹⁰So Pilate said to him, “Do you not speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you and I have power to crucify you?” ¹¹Jesus answered [him], “You would have no power over me if it had not been given to you from above. For this reason the one who handed me over to you has the greater sin.”^(G) ¹²Consequently, Pilate tried to release him; but the Jews cried out, “If you release him, you are not a Friend of Caesar.^[c] Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.”^(H)

¹³When Pilate heard these words he brought Jesus out and seated him^[d] on the judge’s bench in the place called Stone Pavement, in Hebrew, Gabbatha. ¹⁴It was preparation day for Passover, and it was about noon.^[e] And he said to the Jews, “Behold, your king!” ¹⁵They cried out, “Take him away, take him away! Crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your king?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” ¹⁶Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.^[f]

The Crucifixion of Jesus. So they took Jesus, ¹⁷^(I)and carrying the cross himself^[g] he went out to what is called the Place of the Skull, in Hebrew, Golgotha. ¹⁸There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus in the middle. ¹⁹^[h]Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read, “Jesus the Nazorean, the King of the Jews.” ²⁰Now many of the Jews read this inscription, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. ²¹So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that he said, ‘I am the King of the Jews.’”^(J) ²²Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”

Footnotes

19:1 Luke places the mockery of Jesus at the midpoint in the trial when Jesus was sent to Herod. Mark and Matthew place the scourging and mockery at the end of the trial after the sentence of death. Scourging was an integral part of the crucifixion penalty.
19:7 Made himself the Son of God: this question was not raised in John’s account of the Jewish interrogations of Jesus as it was in the synoptic account. Nevertheless, see Jn 5:18; 8:53; 10:36.
19:12 Friend of Caesar: a Roman honorific title bestowed upon high-ranking officials for merit.
19:13 Seated him: others translate “(Pilate) sat down.” In John’s thought, Jesus is the real judge of the world, and John may here be portraying him seated on the judgment bench. Stone Pavement: in Greek lithostrotos; under the fortress Antonia, one of the conjectured locations of the praetorium, a massive stone pavement has been excavated. Gabbatha (Aramaic rather than Hebrew) probably means “ridge, elevation.”
19:14 Noon: Mk 15:25 has Jesus crucified “at the third hour,” which means either 9 a.m. or the period from 9 a.m. to 12 noon, the time when, according to John, Jesus was sentenced to death, was the hour at which the priests began to slaughter Passover lambs in the temple; see Jn 1:29.
19:16 He handed him over to them to be crucified: in context this would seem to mean “handed him over to the chief priests.” Lk 23:25 has a similar ambiguity. There is a polemic tendency in the gospels to place the guilt of the crucifixion on the Jewish authorities and to exonerate the Romans from blame. But John later mentions the Roman soldiers (Jn 19:23), and it was to these soldiers that Pilate handed Jesus over.
19:17 Carrying the cross himself: a different picture from that of the synoptics, especially Lk 23:26, where Simon of Cyrene is made to carry the cross, walking behind Jesus. In John’s theology, Jesus remained in complete control and master of his destiny (cf. Jn 10:18). Place of the Skull: the Latin word for skull is Calvaria; hence “Calvary.” Golgotha is actually an Aramaic rather than a Hebrew word.
19:19 The inscription differs with slightly different words in each of the four gospels. John’s form is fullest and gives the equivalent of the Latin INRI = Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum. Only John mentions its polyglot character (Jn 19:20) and Pilate’s role in keeping the title unchanged (Jn 19:21–22).

New American Bible (Revised Edition) (NABRE)

Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.