Matthew 27:19 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

When he was set down, &c.— Or, While he was sitting on, &c. While Rome was governed by a commonwealth, it was unusual for the governors of provinces to take their wives with them; but afterwards it grew customary, and the motion made against it in the fourth year of Tiberius was rejected with some indignation. This circumstance ascertains the time of the event, and affords a strong proof of the veracity of the sacred historian. Possibly the word σημερον, rendered this day,may imply, that she had dreamed these things that morning, since Pilate rose; and as the heathens imagined those dreams most significant which came about break of day, she might on that account lay the greater stress upon them. Jansenius thinks, and very probably, that she had now a representation or foresight of those calamities which afterwards befel Pilate and his family. Josephus assures us, that Pilate, having slain a considerable number of seditious Samaritans, was deposed from his government by Vitellius, and sent to Tiberius at Rome, who died before he arrived there. And Eusebius tells us, that quickly after having been banished to Vienne in Gaul, he laid violent hands upon himself, falling on his own sword. Agrippa, who was an eye-witness to many of his enormities, speaks of him in his oration to Caius Caesar, as one who had been a man of the most infamous character. The words δικαιω εκεινω, would be rendered more properly, that just or righteous one.