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Updated: May 20, 2025
His prolonged agony of thirst and pain on the cross at last breaks his spirit, and he dies with a cry of "My God: why hast Thou forsaken me?" Meanwhile he has been definitely rejected by the people as well as by the priests. But they insist on his releasing a prisoner named Barabbas instead, and on having Jesus crucified.
Matthew gives no clue to the popularity of Barabbas, describing him simply as "a notable prisoner." The later gospels make it clear, very significantly, that his offence was sedition and insurrection; that he was an advocate of physical force; and that he had killed his man.
But these incidents of marriage have furnished matter for thirty thousand comedies and a hundred thousand romances. Physiology, for the third and last time I ask you What is your meaning? So far everything is commonplace as the pavement of the street, familiar as a crossway. Marriage is better known than the Barabbas of the Passion.
And so Pilate, willing to content the people, released Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged him, to be crucified. And the soldiers led him away into the hall, called Praetorium; and they call together the whole band. And they clothed him with purple, and platted a crown of thorns, and put it about his head, And began to salute him, Hail, King of the Jews!
The vulgar cry for the real would bury in deepest grave every eternal fact. It is the cry, "Not this man, but Barabbas!" The day would reveal a river stained with loathsome refuse, and rich gardens on hill-sides mantled in sooty smoke and evil-smelling vapors, sent up from a valley where men, like gnomes, toiled and caused to toil too eagerly.
Prohack too had often chatted and laughed with this same picker-up of a million, who happened to be a quite jolly and generous fellow. Mr. Prohack would have chatted and laughed with Barabbas, convinced as he was that iniquity is the result of circumstances rather than of deliberate naughtiness. He seldom condemned.
Let us go together to the crowds to encourage them, to inflame them." Annas added, "From all the streets of Jerusalem will we lead the exasperated people before the judgment seat." The rabbi said complacently, "If Pilate wishes to hear the voice of the people, let him hear it!" "Let him hear," said Caiaphas, "the unanimous cry of the nation; release Barabbas; the Galilean to the cross!"
And so it is his right to destroy the weak. Strength is the only virtue, and the only good deed is to exterminate the weak." When he made an end of speaking, the other turned his face towards him and said: "What extraordinary words are those? I never heard such talk before. In whose heart were such ideas born?" "They were not born in the heart," said Barabbas. "The heart is dumb.
Jesus was led, apparently, to the ordinary place of criminal execution, and with two others, probably insurrectionary robbers like those with whom Barabbas had been associated, he was crucified. Of the cruelty and torture of crucifixion much has been written and often. It would be difficult to exaggerate it.
Pilate had to call them together, presumably from the temple." See Keim's note. Westcott and Hort reject it. Some have further seen an impressive coincidence in the name Barabbas, interpreting it "son of the father." Jesus was by no means a rare name. Hence the contrast, common in popular preaching, between the multitude crying "Hosanna" and the same multitude crying "Crucify" is incorrect.
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