27:27 The soldiers in view were probably Pilate's troops. The Praetorium or courtyard may refer to the one in Herod's palace near the Jaffa Gate or more probably the one in the Antonia Fortress.1059All the soldiers of the cohort present evidently took Jesus into the central courtyard. A cohort consisted of 600 soldiers.
27:28-31 The Sanhedrin and or its servants had abused Jesus as a false Messiah (26:67-68). Now Pilate's soldiers abused Him as a false king. Ironically Jesus was all they charged Him with being. The scarlet robe (Gr. chlamys) they put on Jesus (v. 28) was probably the reddish purple cloak that Roman military and civil officials wore. Perhaps the thorny spikes that the soldiers wove into a circle to resemble the one on Tiberius Caesar's head on Roman coins consisted of palm branches. The imperfect tense of the Greek verb translated "beat"means they beat Jesus on the head repeatedly (cf. Isa. 52:14). Typically four soldiers plus a centurion accompanied a condemned prisoner to his crucifixion. The criminal normally carried the crosspiece to which the soldiers would later nail his hands (cf. John 19:17, 23).1060
This pericope shows sinners at their worst mocking and brutalizing the very person who was laying His life down as a sacrifice for their sins (cf. 20:19).
"Few incidents in history more clearly illustrate the brutality in the desperately wicked heart of man than that which was inflicted on Jesus the Son of God."1061
