And led him away to Annas first; for he was father in law to Caiaphas, which was the high priest that same year.
For the exposition, see the note at Mark 14:53, etc., as far as page 204, second paragraph.
Our Evangelist, it would seem, had nothing to add to the ample details of the trial and condemnation of the Lord Jesus and the indignities with which He was thereafter treated, and next to nothing on the sad fall of Peter in the midst of these transactions. With all this he holds his readers already familiar, through the records of the three preceding Evangelists. In the first of these four verses, accordingly, he simply tells us that "Annas sent Him bound unto Caiaphas the high priest," without so much as mentioning what this was for, still less giving any particulars of the trial. And though he relates in the briefest terms two of Peter's denials, and the crowing of the cock, this is merely to supply one small but striking particular which had not been noticed in the preceding Gospels-how one of those who charged Peter with being a disciple of Jesus was able to identify him, by his own relationship to the man whose ear Peter had cut off in the garden, and who saw him do it (John 18:26). For the exposition of all the Evangelical matter embraced by these four verses, see the notes at Mark 14:53-72, page 203, second paragraph, and 204, second paragraph to page 211.
As one of the most important details of this varied section is omitted altogether by our Evangelist, while the rest are given very summarily, we must avail ourselves of the other Gospels in order to have the whole before us for exposition.
From the time of the deposition of Archelaus, and the reduction of Judea to the condition of a Roman province (see the note at Matthew 2:22), the power of life and death was taken from the Jewish tribunals. No sentence of death, therefore, which they pronounced could be executed without the sanction of the Roman Governor. Accordingly, as soon as our Lord was condemned by the Sanhedrim to die, and the contemptuous treatment of Him which followed had time to spend itself-it being now early morn-they proceed to bring Him before Pilate that he might authorize His execution.