Jesus is Mocked And Beaten (22:63-65)
What followed was now an indication of the inhumanity of man. It was quite the usual thing to have fun at the expense of those who had been arrested, and a Jewish prophet rejected by the authorities would have been seen as fair game. For in spite of the fact that they were Temple police, and Levites, they were no different from the rest of their kind. The Temple authorities had few scruples, and the temple police probably even less. And who were they to argue with their superiors?
Analysis
· The men who held Jesus mocked Him, and beat Him (Luke 22:63).
· And they blindfolded Him, and asked Him, saying, “Prophesy, who is he who struck you?” (Luke 22:64).
· And they spoke many other things against him, reviling him (Luke 22:65).
Note how in ‘a' they mocked and beat Jesus, while in the parallel they reviled Him, while centrally in ‘b' they called on Him to prophesy. They had the typical view of a prophet as being a kind of fortune-teller as that held by the average man.