He took water, and washed his hands. — The act belonged to an obvious and almost universal symbolism. So in Deuteronomy 21:6 the elders of a city in which an undiscovered murder had been committed were to wash their hands over the sin-offering, and to say, “Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it.” (Comp. also Psalms 26:6.) Pilate probably chose it, partly as a relief to his own conscience, partly to appease his wife’s scruples, partly as a last appeal of the most vivid and dramatic kind to the feelings of the priests and people. One of the popular poets of his own time and country might have taught him the nullity of such a formal ablution —
“Ah nimium faciles, qui tristia crimina cædis
Flumineâ tolli posse putetis aquâ.”
“Too easy souls who dream the crystal flood
Can wash away the fearful guilt of blood.”
Ovid, Fast. ii. 45.