Answerest thou nothing? — A different punctuation gives, Answerest Thou nothing to what these witness against Thee? as one question. The question implies a long-continued silence, while witness after witness were uttering their clumsy falsehoods, the effect of which it is not easy to realise without a more than common exercise of what may be called dramatic imagination. I remember hearing from a distinguished scholar who had seen the Ammergau Passion-mystery, that, as represented there, it came upon him with a force which he had never felt before. In the silence itself we may perhaps trace a deliberate fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah 53:7. In 1 Peter 2:23 we find a record of the impression which that fulfilment made on the disciples.
What is it ...? — The question was clearly put, as it had been before Annas (John 18:19), with the intention of drawing out something that would ensure condemnation.