"Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall, and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers. (28) And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe. (29) And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews! (30) And they spit upon him, and took the reed, and smote him on the head. (31) And after that they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him, and put his own raiment on him, and led him away to crucify him."
The indignities and cruelties shewn the person of our Lord, as the prelude to his crucifixion, formed no small part in the portion of sorrow; and we are too much interested in the whole, to pass the smallest circumstance by. For besides attending to those things in the bodily and soul anguish of the Lord Jesus; our own personal interest in them demands our attention.
Pilate, before he delivered the sacred person of Jesus to the Roman soldiers, scourged Jesus himself; or caused him to be scourged, And after this, as John relates, the soldiers scourged him, as was the custom of the Romans. John 19:8. But after this scourging, they stripped him of his raiment, and put on him a scarlet robe; thus adding mockery to pain. And had the crown they put upon his head, been merely designed for laughter, they would not have chosen thorns, which, when driven into his flesh, must have occasioned exquisite suffering. Their spitting on him was intended to manifest the highest indignation and contempt. Among the Jews it was the greatest indignity, imaginable. If a father spit in his daughter's face, so filthy was she considered thereby, that like the leper, the law enjoined the being shut out of the camp seven days. Numbers 12:14
Reader! let us for a moment pause over this awful scene, and behold the expediency and needs be of the whole. The Prophet had said, that it is with his stripes we are healed. Isaiah 53:5. And hence Jesus must be scourged. The Lord himself had said by the spirit of prophecy, that he gave his back to the smiters, and his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: and that he hid not his face from shame and spitting. Isaiah 50:6. And here we behold the accomplishment most compleatly. I pray the Reader to attend to what the Lord Jesus said by the spirit of prophecy concerning those things, and mark the sorrow of his soul. Psalms 22:1 and Psalms 69:1.