And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him: but the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar.
And from thenceforth - particularly this speech, which seems to have filled him with awe, and redoubled his anxiety,
Pilate sought to release him - that is, to gain their consent to it; for he could have done it at once on his own authority.
But the Jews cried - seeing their advantage, and not slow to profit by it,
If thou let this man go, thou art not Cesar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Cesar. 'This,' as Webster and Wilkinson observe, 'was equivalent to a threat of impeachment, which we know was much dreaded by such officers as the procurators, especially of the character of Pilate or Felix. It also consummates the treachery and disgrace of the Jewish rulers, who were willing, for the purpose of destroying Jesus, to affect a zeal for the supremacy of a foreign prince.' The reader will do well also to observe how they go backwards and forwards in their charges. Failing in obtaining a condemnation on the ground of treason, they had just before this fallen back in despair on the charge of blasphemy. But as they could not but see how weak that was as an argument with a mere civil governor, they avail themselves of Pilate's manifest embarrassment and vacillation to re-urge the charge of treason, but in the form of a threat against Pilate himself, if he should dismiss the Prisoner.