Section 23:13–25
Jesus was sentenced to death
In this section Pilate again tried to release Jesus, because he believed that Jesus had done nothing wrong. However, the Jewish leaders insisted that Jesus must be killed, so Pilate ordered his soldiers to crucify him.
Examples of headings for this section are:
Jesus Is Sentenced to Death (Good News Translation)
-or-
Pilate condemned Jesus to die
-or-
Governor Pilate said that Jesus must be executed
There are parallel passages for this section in Matthew 27:15–26, Mark 15:6–15, and John 18:39–19:16.
Paragraph 23:13–16
23:13a–c
This verse begins after Herod’s men brought Jesus back to Pilate. It tells what Pilate did next in Jesus’ trial after Herod sent Jesus back to him. Verse 12 is background information. In many languages there is a special way to continue a story after this type of information. Continue the story in a natural way in your language. Some ways to connect this verse to the preceding section are:
Then (God’s Word)
-or-
After ⌊Herod’s men arrived with Jesus⌋
-or-
So ⌊when Jesus was returned to Pilate⌋
Then Pilate called together the chief priests, the rulers, and the people: The phrase called together indicates here that Pilate sent messengers to tell people to come to him. The chief priests and the rulers were members of the council who first brought Jesus to Pilate. They also accused Jesus to Herod. These accusers may have been nearby waiting until Pilate was ready to continue with Jesus’ trial or they may have gone to their homes for a while. The people may have been part of the crowd in 23:4.
Some other ways to translate the verse are:
Pilate sent messengers to tell the chief priests, the rulers, and the people to come.
-or-
Pilate gave orders to summon the chief priests, rulers, and people.
the chief priests: This term occurred in 23:4.
the rulers: The phrase the rulers probably refers to the same group as the phrase “the elders” in 19:47. You may be able to translate it in the same way here. These men were members of the Jewish council who were not priests. Since the priests were also rulers (leaders), it may be necessary to indicate that here. For example:
and other leaders
See the note at 19:47b–d for more information.
the people: The text does not specify exactly who the phrase the people refers to. They were probably Jewish people who lived in Jerusalem. The context implies that they were supporters of the chief priests and other council members. They may have been people from the crowd that had gathered in 23:4.
The word the does not necessarily imply here that the people refers back to a particular group of people. It may imply that Pilate considered them to be representatives of ordinary Jewish people. Some ways to translate this phrase are:
other people
-or-
other ⌊Jewish⌋ people
© 2009, 2010, 2013 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.