John 19:1-7 1Therefore, Pilate then took and flogged Jesus. 2And the soldiers, having twisted together a crown of thorns, put it on his head, and put a purple robe on him; 3and they began coming up to him and saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and to give him slaps in the face.
The next passage has two scenes. The first takes place wherever prisoners were flogged. As a military fort, the praetorian contained a place for punishment. The irony and surprise of this situation is that Pilate had Jesus flogged because he had just declared Jesus to be innocent. Pilate was trying to walk a middle road. He wanted to keep his conscience clear since he believed Jesus to be innocent and a scapegoat for the Jews, but at the same time, he needed to placate the angry Jews and not create more problems. He was hoping a good whipping of Jesus would make them happy.
Flogging or scourging was a terrible punishment. It could go from a light whipping to the most severe form where bits of bones or metal were tied to the end of the leather straps. A person could die from such beating. It is possible that Jesus received two floggings. The one John records here is a lighter form, though still painful. Pilate was just trying to please the Jews and at the same time teach Jesus a lesson. Mark 15:15 could be a more severe beating that would debilitate Jesus to the point that he could hardly walk and carry a heavy cross.
On top of the beating, the Roman soldiers mocked Jesus as the King of the Jews. The crown of thorns would have been extremely painful on the head. Even a small wound on the head can lead to heavy bleeding, let alone multiple pokes from the thorns. The purple rob added more insults. These soldiers had a cruelty within them that found expression in hurting their prisoners. In their mockery, they thought it all was fun.
The slaps in the face added a third pain for Jesus. Slapping someone in the face is a universal sign of derision and destain. By hailing Jesus as the King, the soldiers had no idea that before them was the King of kings. No word from Jesus’ mouth is uttered in defense. Even by this point, his suffering was immense. The Jews rejected Jesus as Messiah, and the Romans mocked the claims that an itinerant Jewish peasant could make such a claim. Both Jews and Romans missed the whole point of the kingdom Jesus as Messiah came to bring. They only saw what their hatred and fear allowed them and ignored the shining light right in front of them. Although they acted in freewill, it was all part of God’s plan.
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