Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall, and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers.
Ver. 27. Then the soldiers of the governor] "Barbarous and brutish men, skilful to destroy," Ezekiel 21:31; "Let the young men arise and play before us," said Abner,2 Samuel 2:14. It is but a sport to soldiers to kill and put men to tormentful ends. At the taking of Tripolis in Barbary, the Turkish soldiers having in their hands one John de Chabos, a Frenchman born in Dauphine, they brought him into the town; and when they had cut off his hands and nose, they put him quick into the ground to the waist, and there, for their pleasure, shot at him with their arrows, and afterwards cut his throat. What insolencies and cruelties they exercised upon our Saviour for our sakes, even the whole band of them, we should read with regret for our sins, the weapons and instruments of all his sufferings; and see through his wounds the naked bowels, as it were, of his love to our poor souls.