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Mark15:6–11

The Crowd Chooses Barabbas

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Mark 15:6–11 — The Crowd Chooses Barabbas. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.

6

Now it was Pilate’s custom at the feast to release to the people a prisoner of their choosing.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

de Kata heortēn apelyen autois hena desmion hon parētounto

Word by word9 · parsed
δὲdeNow {it was Pilate’s custom}G1161
√ δέ — but, and, etcConjunction
ΚατὰKataatG2596
√ κατά — (prepositionally) down (in place or time), in varied relations (according to the case (genitive, dative or accusative) with which it is joined)Preposition
kata: according to, at Distributive with the accusative: feast by feast, as each festival came around.
ἑορτὴνheortēn[the] feastG1859
√ ἑορτή — a festivalNounAccusative Feminine Singular
heortē: a festival The noun occurs in 23 verses. Anarthrous here, which is why Cambridge translates "at festival time" and denies that the custom must be tied to Passover alone; Gill, by contrast, insists from John 18:39 that the Passover is meant and notes that the Syriac, Arabic, Persic and Ethiopic versions read "at every feast." The brief preserves both readings, and the Greek does not settle it.
ἀπέλυενapelyento releaseG630
√ ἀπολύω — to free fully, iVerbImperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
apolyō: to free fully, release The imperfect makes this a standing practice, not a single act. This verb is the spine of the whole unit: Pilate habitually releases (v. 6), offers to release the King of the Jews (v. 9), and is finally pushed to release Barabbas (v. 11). One amnesty verb, three uses, and the passage turns on which man it lands upon.
αὐτοῖςautoisto [the people]G846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounDative Masculine 3rd Person Plural
ἕναhenaaG1520
√ εἷς — oneAdjectiveAccusative Masculine Singular
heis: one Strictly numerical, and the number is the point: one, and only one, goes free.
δέσμιονdesmionprisonerG1198
√ δέσμιος — a captive (as bound)NounAccusative Masculine Singular
desmios: a captive, as bound Formed from deō, to bind (v. 7 will use the cognate participle of Barabbas). The word names a man by the fact of his chains, not by his crime. Sixteen verses in the New Testament carry it, several of them Paul naming himself "the prisoner of Christ Jesus," so the term is not automatically a term of guilt.
ὃνhonvvvG3739
√ ὅς — the relatively (sometimes demonstrative) pronoun, who, which, what, thatPersonal / Relative PronounAccusative Masculine Singular
παρῃτοῦντοparētountoof their choosingG3868
√ παραιτέομαι — to beg off, iVerbImperfect Indicative Middle or Passive3rd Person Plural
paraiteomai: to beg off Imperfect middle, and in the New Testament the verb far more often means to refuse, decline or excuse oneself. Here the sense runs the other way: they beg a prisoner off. Mark's syntax thus records a people practiced at asking Rome for a man, which is precisely the reflex the chief priests will exploit.
7

And a man named Barabbas was imprisoned with the rebels who had committed murder during the insurrection.

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Greek — tap a word ↓

de ho legomenos Barabbas ēn dedemenos meta tōn stasiastōn hoitines pepoiēkeisan phonon en tē stasei

Word by word15 · parsed
δὲdeAndG1161
√ δέ — but, and, etcConjunction
ὁho[a man]G3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Singular
λεγόμενοςlegomenosnamedG3004
√ λέγω — properly, to "lay" forth, iVerbPresent Participle Middle or PassiveNominative Masculine Singular
legō: to lay forth, to say, to name Present passive participle: "the one being called." Mark does not vouch for the name, he reports what he was called, which is the ordinary idiom for a by-name or patronymic.
ΒαραββᾶςBarabbasBarabbasG912
√ Βαραββᾶς — son of AbbaNounNominative Masculine Singular
Barabbas: son of Abba Strong's G912 itself glosses the name "son of Abba." Cambridge sets out the two derivations, Bar-Abbas, son of the father, or Bar-Rabbas, son of a Rabbi, and records that three manuscripts of Matthew 27:16 give his full name as "Jesus Bar-abbas," a reading supported by the Armenian and Syriac and cited by Origen. Pulpit gives the same etymology. That is where the sourced evidence stops; what the name is made to mean theologically is synthesis, not lexicon.
ἦνēnwasG1510
√ εἰμί — I exist (used only when emphatic)VerbImperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
δεδεμένοςdedemenosimprisonedG1210
√ δέω — to bind (in various applications, literally or figuratively)VerbPerfect Participle Middle or PassiveNominative Masculine Singular
deō: to bind Perfect passive, the state of a man already chained. Matthew Henry, commenting on the whole block, turns the chain the other way: "It is good for us often to remember the bonds of the Lord Jesus, as bound with him who was bound for us." Mark's own narrative had bound Jesus at the head of this chapter; now the verb reappears on the man who will walk free.
μετὰmetawithG3326
√ μετά — properly, denoting accompanimentPreposition
τῶνtōntheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Masculine Plural
στασιαστῶνstasiastōnrebelsG4955
√ συστασιαστής — a fellow-insurgentNounGenitive Masculine Plural
stasiastēs: a fellow-insurgent Genitive plural after μετά. Cambridge places the man historically: Barabbas had headed one of the numerous insurrections against Roman power, in which blood had been shed and apparently some Roman soldiers killed. He is therefore not a petty criminal but exactly the charge Rome most feared, and exactly the charge the priests will level at Jesus.
οἵτινεςhoitineswhoG3748
√ ὅστις — which some, iPersonal / Relative PronounNominative Masculine Plural
πεποιήκεισανpepoiēkeisanhad committedG4160
√ ποιέω — to make or do (in a very wide application, more or less direct)VerbPluperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Plural
poieō: to make, to do Pluperfect indicative active, third plural: the killing was already done and settled before the narrative opens. The same verb reappears in verse 8 of Pilate's custom, so Mark's page holds one verb doing two works: a murder committed, and an amnesty practiced.
φόνονphononmurderG5408
√ φόνος — murderNounAccusative Masculine Singular
phonos: murder Nine verses only. Gill notes that Peter, preaching in Acts 3:14, calls this man exactly that, a murderer, and asks the crowd why they desired him. Mark records the fact; Peter later makes it an indictment.
ἐνenduringG1722
√ ἐν — "in," at, (up-)on, by, etcPreposition
τῇtētheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleDative Feminine Singular
στάσειstaseiinsurrectionG4714
√ στάσις — a standing (properly, the act), iNounDative Feminine Singular
stasis: a standing, an uprising Also nine verses. The irony of the unit is lexical: στάσις is the political crime Rome kills for, and Luke 23:5 reports the priests charging Jesus with stirring up the people. The man actually convicted of στάσις goes free.
8

So the crowd went up and began asking Pilate to keep his custom.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

kai ho ochlos anabas ērxato aiteisthai kathōs epoiei autois

Word by word9 · parsed
καὶkai[So]G2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ὁhotheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Singular
ὄχλοςochloscrowdG3793
√ ὄχλος — a throng (as borne along)NounNominative Masculine Singular
ochlos: a throng, as borne along Strong's own gloss carries the image: a mass carried along. The crowd enters this scene as the grammatical subject, acting on its own initiative; by verse 11 the same noun is in the accusative, the object of what someone else does to it. That shift from subject to object is the moral shape of the passage.
ἀναβὰςanabaswent upG305
√ ἀναβαίνω — to go up (literally or figuratively)VerbAorist Participle ActiveNominative Masculine Singular
anabainō: to go up Aorist participle. Pulpit observes that the geographical position of Pilate's residence quite justifies the term: the praetorium stood above them, so the crowd literally climbs to make its petition. The variant reading ἀναβοήσας, "crying aloud," differs by two letters and produces the older English of Gill and Geneva.
ἤρξατοērxato[and] beganG756
√ ἄρχομαι — to commence (in order of time)VerbAorist Indicative Middle3rd Person Singular
archomai: to commence Aorist middle. Mark's habitual idiom for beginning an action that the narrative will then carry.
αἰτεῖσθαιaiteisthaiasking [Pilate]G154
√ αἰτέω — to ask (in genitive case)VerbPresent Infinitive Middle
aiteō: to ask Present infinitive middle, durative: they keep on asking. The same verb stands in Matthew 27:20 of the crowds asking for Barabbas, and Acts 3:14 turns it into Peter's charge, that they asked for a murderer to be granted to them. In Mark the asking is still innocent of its object; two verses later it will have one.
καθὼςkathōsto keep his customG2531
√ καθώς — just (or inasmuch) as, thatAdverb
ἐποίειepoiei. . .G4160
√ ποιέω — to make or do (in a very wide application, more or less direct)VerbImperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
poieō: to make, to do Imperfect: "he was doing, he used to do." Paired with ἀπέλυεν in verse 6, it is the second of the two customary tenses Ellicott flags. Mark builds the whole amnesty institution out of verb morphology alone.
αὐτοῖςautois. . .G846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounDative Masculine 3rd Person Plural
9

“Do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?” Pilate asked.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

Thelete apolysō hymin ton Basilea tōn Ioudaiōn de Ho Pilatos apekrithē autois legōn

Word by word13 · parsed
ΘέλετεTheleteDo you wantG2309
√ θέλω — to determine (as an active option from subjective impulseVerbPresent Indicative Active2nd Person Plural
thelō: to determine, to will Strong's glosses it as an active option from subjective impulse, that is, willing as choice rather than mere wish. Pilate hands the verb to the crowd, and Mark will never say that Pilate wills anything again in this unit; at the end, per Benson's reading of v. 15, he simply gives way.
ἀπολύσωapolysōme to releaseG630
√ ἀπολύω — to free fully, iVerbAorist Subjunctive Active1st Person Singular
apolyō: to free fully Aorist subjunctive, deliberative. Its third appearance in four verses, and the first time the verb is aimed at Jesus. In verse 6 it was a custom, here it is an offer, in verse 11 it will be a demand for someone else.
ὑμῖνhyminto youG4771
√ σύ — thouPersonal / Possessive PronounDative 2nd Person Plural
τὸνtontheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Masculine Singular
ΒασιλέαBasileaKingG935
√ βασιλεύς — a sovereign (abstractly, relatively, or figuratively)NounAccusative Masculine Singular
basileus: a sovereign The title Rome tried Jesus for, and the only name Pilate gives him in this unit. Mark's reader already knows from the trial that the charge is treason, so Pilate's word is legally loaded: to release a claimed king would be to release a rival of Caesar, which is why Benson calls the proposal a failure of justice, courage or common sense at once.
τῶνtōnof theG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Masculine Plural
ἸουδαίωνIoudaiōnJewsG2453
√ Ἰουδαῖος — Judæan, iAdjectiveGenitive Masculine Plural
Ioudaios: Judaean, Jewish Genitive plural, the people defined territorially as Rome defined them. "King of the Jews" is an outsider's phrase, spoken in Mark's passion by Pilate, by the soldiers and by the charge nailed over the cross, never by a disciple. Gill takes it as possible derision; Benson suspects Pilate repeated it partly to ridicule the whole scheme of a Messiah, and partly to draw from the Jews, in their zeal against Jesus, the strongest and most public professions of their subjection to Caesar.
δὲdeG1161
√ δέ — but, and, etcConjunction
ὉHoG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Singular
ΠιλᾶτοςPilatosPilateG4091
√ Πιλᾶτος — close-pressed, iNounNominative Masculine Singular
Pilatos: close-pressed Strong's derives the name from the sense "close-pressed," which is the one thing the narrative makes of him. He is named only here in these six verses, and named as the subject of a question rather than of a verdict: he answers, he proposes, he perceives (v. 10), and he never once decides. Benson's charge, that it is hard to say whether he shows most want of justice, of courage, or of common sense, is a judgment on exactly this grammatical passivity.
ἀπεκρίθηapekrithēaskedG611
√ ἀποκρίνομαι — to conclude for oneself, iVerbAorist Indicative Passive3rd Person Singular
αὐτοῖςautois. . .G846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounDative Masculine 3rd Person Plural
λέγωνlegōn. . .G3004
√ λέγω — properly, to "lay" forth, iVerbPresent Participle ActiveNominative Masculine Singular
legō: to say The redundant participle of Semitic-flavored narrative style, introducing direct speech after a verb of answering.
10

For he knew it was out of envy that the chief priests had handed Jesus over.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

gar eginōsken dia phthonon hoti hoi archiereis paradedōkeisan auton

Word by word9 · parsed
γὰρgarForG1063
√ γάρ — properly, assigning a reason (used in argument, explanation or intensificationConjunction
ἐγίνωσκενeginōskenhe knew [it was]G1097
√ γινώσκω — to "know" (absolutely) in a great variety of applications and with many implications (as follow, with others not thus clearly expressed)VerbImperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
ginōskō: to know Imperfect, durative. The verb Strong's describes as knowing in a great variety of applications: here, perception of motive during a hearing. Mark's point is not that Pilate was told, but that he saw it for himself, which removes any plea of ignorance from the man who nonetheless yields in verse 15.
διὰdiaout ofG1223
√ διά — through (in very wide applications, local, causal, or occasional)Preposition
φθόνονphthononenvyG5355
√ φθόνος — ill-will (as detraction), iNounAccusative Masculine Singular
phthonos: ill-will, envy Nine verses in the New Testament, and Paul lists it beside φόνος, murder, in Romans 1:29, the same pairing of near-identical words that Mark's own page produces across verses 7 and 10. Cambridge names the object of the envy exactly: the influence He had gained and the favour He had won throughout the land. Envy, unlike hatred, concedes the worth of what it destroys, which is why the word is a confession as much as an accusation.
ὅτιhotithatG3754
√ ὅτι — demonstrative, that (sometimes redundant)Conjunction
οἱhoitheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Plural
ἀρχιερεῖςarchiereischief priestsG749
√ ἀρχιερεύς — the high-priest (literally, of the Jews, typically, Christ)NounNominative Masculine Plural
archiereus: high priest Plural, the priestly aristocracy. Strong's records the further New Testament application of the term to Christ himself, which is the quiet scandal of the verse: the chief priests hand over the true High Priest, and the motive a pagan detects in them is envy.
παραδεδώκεισανparadedōkeisanhad handed [Jesus] overG3860
√ παραδίδωμι — to surrender, iVerbPluperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Plural
paradidōmi: to surrender, hand over Pluperfect active. The word runs the whole passion like a relay: Judas hands him to the priests, the priests to Pilate, Pilate to the will of the crowd and to crucifixion. Matthew Henry reads the transfer as covenantal, that by delivering up the King they in effect delivered up the kingdom of God. Gill notes that the motive was not equity, justice, or any regard to Caesar.
αὐτὸνauton. . .G846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounAccusative Masculine 3rd Person Singular
11

But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas to them instead.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

de Hoi archiereis aneseisan ton ochlon hina apolysē ton Barabban autois mallon

Word by word12 · parsed
δὲdeButG1161
√ δέ — but, and, etcConjunction
ΟἱHoitheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Plural
ἀρχιερεῖςarchiereischief priestsG749
√ ἀρχιερεύς — the high-priest (literally, of the Jews, typically, Christ)NounNominative Masculine Plural
archiereus: high priest Subject of the sentence, as in verse 10. Mark's two consecutive verses give the priests two verbs, handing over and shaking up, and a pagan magistrate's diagnosis of the reason for both.
ἀνέσεισανaneseisanstirred upG383
√ ἀνασείω — figuratively, to exciteVerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Plural
anaseiō: figuratively, to excite Aorist active, and one of the rarest words in the unit: Cambridge states that it occurs only here and in the parallel, Luke 23:5. That parallel is the sharpest irony Mark's vocabulary affords, since Luke 23:5 is the charge the priests themselves brought, that Jesus stirs up the people. The word they used as an accusation is the word Mark uses of them.
τὸνtontheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Masculine Singular
ὄχλονochloncrowdG3793
√ ὄχλος — a throng (as borne along)NounAccusative Masculine Singular
ochlos: a throng, as borne along Now the object. Nothing in Mark suggests the crowd is compelled; it is worked upon and consents, which is why Henry's warning lands, to judge persons and things by their merits and the standard of God's word, and not by common report.
ἵναhinatoG2443
√ ἵνα — compare G3588 (ὁ))Conjunction
ἀπολύσῃapolysēhave him releaseG630
√ ἀπολύω — to free fully, iVerbAorist Subjunctive Active3rd Person Singular
apolyō: to free fully The fourth and decisive use. The amnesty verb finally acquires a name, and the name is not the one Pilate proposed.
τὸνtonG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Masculine Singular
ΒαραββᾶνBarabbanBarabbasG912
√ Βαραββᾶς — son of AbbaNounAccusative Masculine Singular
Barabbas: son of Abba Accusative now, the object of release, where in verse 7 he was the nominative subject of being bound. Between those two grammatical positions the entire transaction of this unit takes place.
αὐτοῖςautoisto themG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounDative Masculine 3rd Person Plural
μᾶλλονmalloninsteadG3123
√ μᾶλλον — (adverbially) more (in a greater degree)) or ratherAdverb
mallon: more, rather A comparative adverb doing the work of a judgment. Two men, one release, and the crowd's preference is recorded in a single word.

The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.

⚙

Grand Commentary — the unit, read whole

synthesis · verify

AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.

i. A custom carried by two imperfect tenses — 15:6, 15:8

⚙ Mark builds the amnesty out of grammar. There is no Greek noun for "custom" anywhere in this unit; there are only two imperfects, ἀπέλυεν (he was releasing, v. 6) and ἐποίει (he was doing, v. 8). Ellicott states it exactly: both verbs stand in the tense which implies custom, and he corrects the older English of verse 8 to "as he ever used to do unto them." Where the practice came from is genuinely unknown. Cambridge says so plainly, that the origin of the custom is unknown and that it may have been of Jewish origin continued by the Roman governors from motives of policy, and Cambridge also denies, from the absence of the article in κατὰ ἑορτὴν, that it was confined to Passover. Benson takes the opposite line, tying the release to the feast of deliverance from Egypt and calling it therefore agreeable to the nature of the feast, citing Whitby. Gill records the versional split: the Syriac, Arabic, Persic and Ethiopic read "at every feast," though he holds it was only at Passover. The brief does not adjudicate, and neither will we. What the Greek does settle is that Rome had a habit of letting the crowd name one man, and that the crowd had a habit of asking, παρῃτοῦντο, imperfect middle: they kept begging a prisoner off, for themselves.

ii. Two men, one release, and a name that means son of the father — 15:6-15:7, 15:11

⚙ Verse 6 puts one prisoner in the balance; verse 7 fills the other pan. δεδεμένος is a perfect participle, a man bound and still bound, and Ellicott notes that Mark alone preserves the detail that his fellow insurgents were jailed with him. Cambridge places him historically as the leader of one of the numerous insurrections against Roman power in which blood had been shed and apparently some Roman soldiers had been killed; Gill says he had been at the head of a seditious mob. On the name itself the sources agree and stop: Strong's G912 glosses Βαραββᾶς as "son of Abba," Pulpit says it is better written Bar-Abbas and means "son of father," and Cambridge gives both derivations along with the striking manuscript variant at Matthew 27:16 in which the man's full name is Jesus Bar-abbas, a reading Cambridge says is supported by the Armenian and Syriac and cited by Origen. None of the commentators in this brief makes a doctrine of the name. We note only what the page itself does: Mark names Barabbas four times in six verses and never once writes the name Jesus, who is only "him" and "the King of the Jews."

iii. Envy, seen by a pagan and named in the record — 15:9-15:10

⚙ Pilate's question in verse 9 is grammatically hopeful. Ellicott finds in the Greek form, as in the parallel at John 18:39, a half hope of an affirmative answer, and Cambridge says the people's own request concurred with Pilate's wishes so that he resolved deliberately to give the populace their choice. Pulpit reconstructs the calculation: knowing the priests acted from envy, he reasonably supposed the people, who had experienced so many kindnesses, would want him to live. Benson is the dissenting voice and the harshest: if Pilate made this proposal to preserve the life of Jesus, it is hard to say which he discovers most, his want of justice, or of courage, or of common sense. Verse 10 then supplies the motive as a stated cause, διὰ φθόνον, διά plus accusative. Cambridge specifies its object, envy of the influence He had gained and the favour He had won throughout the land; Pulpit calls envy the low passion that influenced the chief priests; Gill says it was not from any principle of equity and justice, nor from any regard to Caesar. That the prosecution's motive is recorded by the governor who then convicts anyway is the hinge of Mark's account.

iv. The verb that shakes the crowd — 15:11

⚙ The unit ends on its rarest word. Cambridge observes that ἀνέσεισαν occurs only here and at Luke 23:5, and lays out the force: to shake to and fro, to brandish, to make threatening gestures, to instigate. Pulpit compares Matthew's milder ἔπεισαν, they persuaded, and says Mark's word implies a rousing of their bad passions, agitating them to a blind zeal for his crucifixion. The syntax marks the same reversal: in verse 8 ὁ ὄχλος is nominative and acts, in verse 11 τὸν ὄχλον is accusative and is acted upon. Benson says the priests moved the people to desire the release of Barabbas, though he was a scandalous and outrageous criminal; Gill, borrowing Peter's language from Acts 3:14, says they chose rather to have a murderer granted unto them than the holy and just one. And the Greek sentence closes on μᾶλλον, rather: one word, holding two men.

Read under Sola Scriptura — this tool’s own fallible reading (⚙)

⚙ Read under Sola Scriptura and offered to be tested: this passage is not primarily about Pilate's weakness or the crowd's fickleness, though both are on the page. It is about a substitution performed in public, with paperwork. Roman law had a slot for exactly one release, and Mark's four uses of ἀπολύω track that slot until a name drops into it. The man who fills it is a convicted insurrectionist and, by Peter's word in Acts 3:14, a murderer; the man left standing is the one whose innocence the presiding magistrate has already perceived, ἐγίνωσκεν, imperfect, while the hearing ran. Scripture elsewhere calls that arrangement an abomination: he who justifies the wicked and condemns the righteous, both alike are detestable to the LORD (Proverbs 17:15). The passage therefore stages the exact injustice God's own law forbids, and Scripture's own answer is that God does at the cross what no judge may do, and does it righteously, because the righteous One consents and bears the guilt himself (Isaiah 53:6). The commentators in this brief do not draw that line; they stop at envy, cowardice and mob psychology, and they are right about all three. Our fallible addition is only this: the transaction Mark records is not merely a miscarriage of justice that God later redeemed, it is the shape of redemption itself, visible in a Roman courtyard before a single nail is driven. Test it against the text.

Reader's note, not Scripture, and offered to be tested: one release was available, and the guilty man walked out under a name that means son of the father.

⚙

Canonical Threads — out to the whole of Scripture

cross-refs · verify

AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.

The word they used as a charge becomes the word used of them verbal / quotation: confirmed

The verb Mark chooses in 15:11, ἀνέσεισαν (anaseiō, G383), is almost unique in the New Testament. Cambridge states it outright: the word occurs only here and in the parallel, Luke 23:5. In that parallel the chief priests are the accusers, charging that Jesus stirs up the people. In Mark the same rare verb is predicated of the priests themselves, and Pulpit notes that Mark's word is stronger than Matthew's ἔπεισαν, they persuaded. The Verifier returns Luke 23:5 as the highest-scoring candidate for this unit on exactly this lexeme.

Luke 23:5

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexeme G383 ἀνασείω, present in only 2 verses in the whole New Testament, both within the passion narrative. A genuinely rare verbal link between two Greek texts, not a quotation of one by the other; the tier records the lexical identity, and G756 ἄρχομαι (in 84 vv) in the same candidate is common and carries no weight.

Barabbas in all four Gospels: one name, one amnesty verb verbal / quotation: confirmed

Every evangelist records the same transaction with the same two words. The Verifier scores Matthew 27:16-17, 27:20-21, 27:26, Luke 23:18 and John 18:40 against this unit on Βαραββᾶς (G912) together with ἀπολύω (G630), the release verb Mark uses four times. Cambridge notes at Matthew 27:16 the manuscript reading "Jesus Bar-abbas," supported by the Armenian and Syriac and cited by Origen, so the choice may have been put to the crowd between two men bearing the same first name. Ellicott adds that Mark alone preserves the detail of the fellow insurgents in the cell.

Matthew 27:16 · Matthew 27:20 · Luke 23:18 · John 18:40

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexeme G912 Βαραββᾶς (in 10 vv, rare and proper) across Matthew 27:16/27:20, Luke 23:18 and John 18:40, with G630 ἀπολύω (in 61 vv) and G1198 δέσμιος (in 16 vv) supporting. Gospel parallels, not quotation of one another; all four are Greek New Testament texts, so a shared-lexeme basis is legitimate.

Murder and envy: two rare words one verse apart, and Paul's pairing structural / thematic: confirmed

Mark writes φόνον (murder, G5408) in 15:7 and φθόνον (envy, G5355) in 15:10. The two nouns differ by one letter, each occurs in only nine verses, and Paul sets them side by side in a single vice list at Romans 1:29. The Verifier returns Romans 1:29 on precisely this pair, and Matthew 27:18 on φθόνος together with παραδίδωμι. Mark's narrative makes Paul's list concrete: the man guilty of φόνος is released, and the men guilty of φθόνος walk free of any charge at all.

Romans 1:29 · Matthew 27:18

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexemes G5408 φόνος (in 9 vv) and G5355 φθόνος (in 9 vv) with Romans 1:29; G5355 φθόνος plus G3860 παραδίδωμι (in 117 vv) with Matthew 27:18. Both lexemes are rare, but Romans 1:29 neither quotes nor alludes to Mark; the shared vocabulary supports a thematic link only, so the tier is deliberately downgraded from verbal.

The Day of Atonement: two goats, one released alive typological

⚙ On the one day of the Hebrew year when guilt was publicly transacted, two goats were set before the sanctuary and lots were cast: one was killed, and one was presented alive and let go, carrying the iniquities away (Leviticus 16:7-10, 16:20-22). Mark's scene has the same architecture: two men, one release available, and the sins of the people determining which is which. The inversion is exact and total. In Leviticus the goat that goes free carries the guilt away; in Mark the man who goes free is the guilty one, and the guilt is carried by the man who stays. None of the commentators gathered in this brief draws this comparison. It is offered as a figural reading, not as an exegetical claim about Mark's intent.

Leviticus 16:7-10 · Leviticus 16:20-22

basis: Cross-Testament, Greek to Hebrew, so no shared Strong's lexeme is possible and no verbal tier is available; the Verifier returned no candidate here. The basis is structural correspondence only, a pair of subjects with one release between them on a festival day of atonement. Novel with respect to this brief: Ellicott, Benson, Henry, Barnes, JFB, Poole, Gill, Geneva, Cambridge and Pulpit are all silent on it at these verses.

Justifying the wicked and condemning the righteous structural / thematic: confirmed

⚙ The law of Israel names this exact courtroom outcome and calls it detestable: acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent (Proverbs 17:15), and woe to those who acquit the guilty for a bribe and deny justice to the innocent (Isaiah 5:23). Mark supplies every element of the condemned formula. Pilate has perceived the prosecution's motive, ἐγίνωσκεν, imperfect and ongoing, and Gill records that it was not from any principle of equity and justice. What Pilate's court performs is therefore not an error but the specific act the Scriptures forbid.

Proverbs 17:15 · Isaiah 5:23

basis: Cross-Testament, Greek to Hebrew, so shared Strong's numbers cannot be computed and the tier can never be verbal. The basis is the legal formula itself, acquitting the guilty and condemning the righteous, which Mark's narrative supplies in full. Widely-held as a moral reading; no commentator in this brief cites these verses here.

Peter's charge: you asked for a murderer structural / thematic: confirmed

Gill, commenting on 15:7, points forward to Acts 3:14, where Peter tells the same city that they denied the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted to them. The verb behind Peter's "asked" belongs to the same family Mark uses of the crowd in 15:8, αἰτεῖσθαι (G154), and "murderer" is cognate with Mark's φόνον (G5408). Gill's phrase at 15:11, "the holy and just one," is lifted straight from that sermon, so his exposition of Mark is already Acts-inflected, and he says so.

Acts 3:14

basis: The Verifier did not return Acts 3:14 among the computed candidates for this unit, so no machine-verified shared-lexeme basis is recorded here. The link rests on Gill's own explicit citation of Acts 3:14 at Mark 15:7, plus cognate vocabulary (αἰτέω / φόνος family). Tiered structural rather than verbal because the shared-lexeme basis is uncomputed and the cognates are not identical lexemes.

Insurrection and murder: the charge Rome actually punished structural / thematic: confirmed

Luke's account of the same hours uses the same two rare nouns as Mark 15:7, στάσις (G4714) and φόνος (G5408), in Luke 23:19 and again in the closing summary of Luke 23:25, where Pilate releases the man imprisoned for insurrection and murder and delivers Jesus to their will. Benson notes that insurrection was a crime the Roman governors, and Pilate in particular, were more especially concerned and careful to punish. The Verifier scores both Lukan verses on these lexemes.

Luke 23:19 · Luke 23:25

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexemes G4714 στάσις (in 9 vv) and G5408 φόνος (in 9 vv) with Luke 23:19, and the same pair plus G630 ἀπολύω (in 61 vv) with Luke 23:25. Both lexemes are rare, but these are Synoptic parallels describing one event rather than one text quoting another, so the link is recorded as thematic.

⚙Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

The guilty released because the innocent is held ancient/widely-held

⚙ The mechanism of the atonement is visible here before any theology is spoken over it. One release was available; a convicted murderer received it; the man the magistrate had already perceived to be prosecuted out of envy did not. Isaiah had written that the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all, and that He was pierced for our transgressions (Isaiah 53:5-6); Paul states the exchange as doctrine, that God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). Matthew Henry, in the brief, reads the whole block in this key when he calls believers to remember the bonds of the Lord Jesus, as bound with him who was bound for us. The substitutionary reading of the passion is the common inheritance of the church; what this unit adds is that the substitution was executed as a public legal transaction, with a Roman procurator's signature on it.

Isaiah 53:5-6 · 2 Corinthians 5:21 · 1 Peter 3:18

Bar-Abbas and the Son of the Father novel

⚙ The sourced facts are narrow and firm: Strong's glosses Βαραββᾶς as "son of Abba"; Pulpit says the name means "son of father"; Cambridge gives both derivations and records the manuscript reading at Matthew 27:16 in which the man is called Jesus Bar-abbas, cited by Origen and supported by the Armenian and Syriac. If that reading stood in the crowd's hearing, Pilate offered a choice between Jesus son of the father and Jesus called Christ. The Son who prayed Abba, Father in Gethsemane (Mark 14:36) was kept, and the man whose by-name said son of the father was let go in his place. We mark this honestly: not one commentator in this brief presses the name this way, and the Jesus Bar-abbas reading is a textual variant, not the received text of Mark. It is offered as a reading to be tested, not as established exposition.

Mark 14:36 · Romans 8:15 · Galatians 4:4-6

The title Pilate could not stop repeating ancient/widely-held

⚙ Pilate names Jesus exactly once in this unit, and the name he uses is a title: τὸν Βασιλέα τῶν Ἰουδαίων, the King of the Jews. The commentators divide on his motive. Gill says he either spoke it in derision of Christ and of them, or to shame them out of putting their own king to death; Benson thinks the repetition politically senseless, enraging the very men he sought to appease, and elsewhere wonders whether Pilate meant to ridicule the whole idea of a Messiah. Matthew Henry reads the transaction as forfeiture, that by delivering up the King they in effect delivered up the kingdom of God. The irony belongs to Mark, not to us: the one true statement made about the prisoner in this hearing is made by a pagan who does not believe it, and it will be nailed above his head.

Mark 15:26 · John 19:19-22 · Zechariah 9:9

Envy as the recorded motive, and the Firstborn it could not tolerate ancient/widely-held

⚙ Mark says the cause was φθόνος, and Cambridge names its object precisely: the influence He had gained and the favour He had won throughout the land. Envy is the sin that concedes the worth of what it destroys, which makes it a strange and backhanded testimony. Scripture tells the story before: his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind (Genesis 37:11), and the son sent last was killed by the tenants who said the inheritance would be theirs, a parable Mark himself had already recorded (Mark 12:6-8). Wrath is cruel and anger overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy (Proverbs 27:4). The line from Joseph through the wicked tenants to the chief priests of 15:10 is a pattern of the envied son, and it is the tradition's reading as much as ours.

Genesis 37:11 · Proverbs 27:4 · Mark 12:6-8 · Acts 7:9

Apparatus & Provenance

The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.

Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:

  • Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, — (1880s)
  • Charles Ellicott, Commentary for English Readers (1878)
  • Geneva Study Bible, Marginal Notes (1599)
  • John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1746–63)
  • Joseph Benson, Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1810s)
  • Matthew Henry, Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706)
  • The Pulpit Commentary, Spence & Exell, eds. (1880s)

Text. One substantive variant governs verse 8. Pulpit argues that ἀναβὰς (went up) is to be preferred over the older ἀναβοήσας (crying aloud), naming the Sinaitic, Vatican and Cambridge manuscripts, the Old Italic and the Gothic, and noting that the Ethiopic combines the two. Gill and Geneva, working from the received text, read "crying aloud," and Benson prints the older Greek in full. The Berean interlinear used in this brief reads ἀναβὰς, so our literal rendering follows Pulpit; the reader should know the older English is not an error but a different text.

Text, second. In verse 7 the number of "had committed murder" is disputed. Gill records that the Vulgate reads the singular, of Barabbas himself, while the Syriac, Arabic and Persic read the plural of his companions, and the Ethiopic renders it "he was bound with seditious persons and murderers." The interlinear gives the plural πεποιήκεισαν with οἵτινες, which is the reading our notes follow.

Sources. The commentary in this unit is thin in places by no fault of the editors. Barnes refers the whole chapter to his notes on Matthew 27 and says nothing else; Poole refers to Mark 15:2; JFB supplies only a chapter heading and a cross-reference to John 18:28. Matthew Henry's note covers Mark 15:1-14 as a single block, so his sentences are not comments on any one verse. Ellicott, Cambridge, Pulpit, Gill and Benson carry the verse-level work here, and our voices are drawn accordingly.

Corrupted source text. The digitized Cambridge note at verse 7 has been damaged by an automatic scripture-linker that replaced the word "Son" with "Song of Solomon" inside the two derivations of the name. We quote it verbatim as the rules require and flag the corruption in an editorial note rather than silently repairing it.

What is uncertain. The origin and scope of the release custom are unknown: Cambridge says so explicitly and doubts it was limited to Passover, Benson and Gill hold that it was a Passover practice, and there is no external documentation in the brief that settles it. Pilate's motive in verse 9 is likewise unsettled among the sources: Cambridge and Pulpit read genuine intent to free Jesus, Benson reads cowardice and folly, Gill leaves derision open. The Greek supports Ellicott's cautious "half hope" and no more.

What is ours. Every thread badge above records its own basis, and the two cross-Testament threads (Leviticus 16 and Proverbs 17:15 with Isaiah 5:23) carry no computed lexeme basis at all, because Greek and Hebrew cannot share Strong's numbers. They are figural and thematic readings offered under the ⚙ mark. The Day of Atonement typology and the Bar-Abbas name reading are not drawn by any commentator in this brief, and we say so where they appear.

✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)