‘Then Pilate therefore took Jesus and scourged him.'
Throughout the ages, until fairly recent centuries, the treatment of prisoners has been similar. Unless they were important people (in the case of Rome, Roman citizens) they could be treated abysmally regardless of whether they were innocent or guilty. This was done ‘for the good of the state'. Guilt or innocence were irrelevant. What mattered was ‘getting at the truth', so that the ill-treatment and even torture of detainees to ‘get at the truth' was commonplace.
The thought appeared to be that once they had had a taste of what might be coming to them if they did not, they would tell the truth, and this just became the custom. They failed to recognise that thereby men would say whatever they wanted in order to escape more torture. The fact was that common people were not considered important, and it was therefore not uncommon for a person who was acknowledged to be innocent from the start, to leave custody with his health ruined because of the methods used to ‘obtain the truth' from him about a crime, even when he had not been involved. Thus a preliminary scourging like that applied to Jesus was not unexpected, and would be carried out by the soldiers present.
At this stage Pilate appears still to have been seeking to release Jesus because He was innocent, and the scourging must not necessarily be seen as suggesting otherwise. It did, however, demonstrate that he might be prepared to go further.
Three forms of corporal punishment were employed by the Romans, in increasing degrees of severity, the fustigatio (beating), the flagellatio (flogging), and the verberatio (scourging). The first could, on occasion, be a punishment in itself, leaving the person then free to go. But the more severe forms were usually part of the capital sentence as a prelude to crucifixion. The most severe, verberatio, is what was usually indicated by the use of the Greek verb mastigo-o, which is used in John 19:1. Men sometimes died when being scourged. So this would not be just a mild beating.
The Roman scourge was a dreadful thing. It consisted of a short wooden handle to which a number of leather thongs were attached whose ends were equipped with pieces of lead, brass and sharp bone depending on choice. The victim's back was bared and the scourge laid on more or less heavily. It could cause severe damage penetrating well below the outer flesh. The choice of wording here may suggest an allusion to Isaiah 50:6, "I gave my back to those who scourge me…".
When Pilate first said, “I will scourge him and let him go' (Luke 23:22) it was because he saw Him as innocent of the charges. The beating would merely serve as a warning, for it was felt in such cases that a scourging would give a warning to someone who, while not guilty, was no doubt guilty of something, as all common people were assumed to be. When that offer was refused Pilate then appears to have felt that if he could present the man in a sufficiently pathetic condition, a kind of parody of a king who was clearly no danger, he would be able to discharge Him. He had not yet recognised the vindictiveness of the Jewish leaders.
So the One Who had borne the burden of man' suffering as He preached and healed, now received the marks of the dreaded scourge. His back was torn to ribbons as He commenced the path to the cross. The light Who had come to the world was seemingly being quenched (John 1:5). The One Who had come to reveal God's love for the world was being returned after suitable treatment by that world.
He had been smitten in the face before Annas (John 18:22), spat on and beaten before Caiaphas and the council (Matthew 26:67; Mark 14:65), mocked and caricatured before Herod (Luke 23:11), and He was now scourged by Pilate and knocked around by the Roman soldiers. He would be scourged again before being led out to crucifixion as a matter of course. We remember the words of Lamentation, ‘Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by, look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow which is done to me with which God has inflicted me in the day of His fierce anger.' (Lamentations 1:12). These words, spoken of the sufferings of Zion, well fit what Jesus as the representative of Israel was now undergoing.