Matthew 27:27-32

27:27 Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the governor’s residence ¹  and gathered the whole cohort ²  around him. 27:28 They ³  stripped him and put a scarlet robe ⁴  around him, 27:29 and after braiding ⁵  a crown of thorns, ⁶  they put it on his head. They ⁷  put a staff ⁸  in his right hand, and kneeling down before him, they mocked him: ⁹  “Hail, king of the Jews!” ¹⁰  27:30 They ¹¹  spat on him and took the staff ¹²  and struck him repeatedly ¹³  on the head. 27:31 When ¹⁴  they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes back on him. Then ¹⁵  they led him away to crucify him.

The Crucifixion

27:32 As ¹⁶  they were going out, they found a man from Cyrene named Simon, whom they forced ¹⁷  to carry his cross. ¹⁸ 

¹ tn Or “into their headquarters”; Grk “into the praetorium.”

² sn A Roman cohort was a tenth of a legion, about 500-600 soldiers.

³ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.

⁴ sn The scarlet robe probably refers to a military garment which had the color of royal purple, and thus resembled a king’s robe. The soldiers did this to Jesus as a form of mockery in view of the charges that he was a king.

⁵ tn Or “weaving.”

⁶ sn The crown may have been made from palm spines or some other thorny plant common in Israel. In placing the crown of thorns on his head, the soldiers were unwittingly symbolizing God’s curse on humanity (cf. Gen 3:18) being placed on Jesus. Their purpose would have been to mock Jesus’ claim to be a king; the crown of thorns would have represented the “radiant corona” portrayed on the heads of rulers on coins and other artifacts in the 1st century.

⁷ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.

⁸ tn Or “a reed.” The Greek term can mean either “staff” or “reed.” See BDAG 502 s.v. κάλαμος 2.

⁹ tn Grk “they mocked him, saying.” The participle λέγοντες (legontes) is redundant and has not been translated.

¹⁰ tn Or “Long live the King of the Jews!”

⁷ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.

⁸ tn Or “the reed.”

⁹ tn The verb here has been translated as an iterative imperfect.

⁹ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.

¹⁰ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.

¹¹ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

¹² tn Or “conscripted”; or “pressed into service.”

¹³ sn Jesus was beaten severely with a whip before this (the prelude to crucifixion, known to the Romans as verberatio, mentioned in Matt 27:26; Mark 15:15; John 19:1), so he would have been weak from trauma and loss of blood. Apparently he was unable to bear the cross himself, so Simon was conscripted to help (in all probability this was only the crossbeam, called in Latin the patibulum, since the upright beam usually remained in the ground at the place of execution). Cyrene was located in North Africa where Tripoli is today. Nothing more is known about this Simon. Mark 15:21 names him as father of two people apparently known to Mark’s audience.