passover lamb and keeping tlie feast, at the very time when they were about to slay the true Lamb of God, of whom thia passover was a type 1 No wonder that Samuel says, " To obey is better than sacrifice." (1 Sam. xv. 22.)
Bullinger calls attention here to the wide difference between inward sanctification of the heart, and outward sanctimonious- ness about forms, ordinances, and ceremonies.
Calvin remarks, that it is one mark of hypocrisy, " that while it is careful in performing ceremonies, it makes no scruple of neglecting matters of the highest importance."
29. — [Pilate then went out. ..said, etc.] This " going out " means that Pilate hearing that the chief priests had brought a pris- oner to the courtyard, or open space before his palace, and knowing from experience, as a governor of Judaea, that they would not come into his palace for fear of defilement, but waited for him to come out to them, went out and spoke to them. His first question is one which became his office as a magistrate and judge. He inquires what is the charge or accu- sation brought against the prisoner before him. " Of what crime do you accuse this man ? "
The well-known Valerian law among the Romans made it unlawful to judge or condemn any one without hearing the charge against him stated.
30. — [They answered and said, etc.] The reply of the chief priests to Pilate's inquiry, as given by John, is peculiar and elliptical. They began by saying that the prisoner was a convicted evil- doer according to their law, or else they would not have brought Him there. They had found Him, by examination be- fore the Sanhedrim, to be a breaker of the law, and they only came there to have sentence pronounced on Him by Pilate. " If He were not a person guilty and worthy of death, we would not have delivered Him up to thee. We have discovered Him to be such a person, and we now ask thee to sentence Him to death. We have convicted Him, and we ask thee, as our chief ruler, to slay Him." There is a proud, haughty, supercilious tone, we may remark, about this answer, which was not likely to please a Roman Governor.
It is plain, by a comparison with St. Luke's Gospel, that at this point the Jews added a statement which St. John has omit- ted. " If thou wouldst know the precise nature of this prison- er's evil-doing, we tell thee that we found Him perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that He is a King." (Luke xxiii. 2.) Why St. John omitted this we cannot tell, but he evidently takes it for granted that his readers knew this accusation was made, by telling us in verse thirty-three, that Pilate asked Him if He was " the King of the Jews."
Tholuck remarks, that " if the authorities had not regarded