“Summi vero sacerdotes et omne concilium quærebant adversus Jesum testimonium ut eum morti traderent : nec inveniebant.”
“And the chief priests and all the council sought for witness against Jesus to put him to death; and found none.”
“Now the chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were seeking testimony against Jesus to put Him to death, but they did not find any.”
“Now the chief priests and the whole council sought witnesses against Jesus to put him to death, and found none.”
“Now the chief priests and the whole council sought witness against Jesus to put him to death; and found it not.”
Though the law prescribed there should be only one high priest, yet at this time there were many, being appointed yearly by the Roman governor; and those are here called chief priests who had once been invested with the dignity of high priest, but were at that time out of office. (Theophylactus)
III. Great diligence was used to procure, for love or money, false witnesses against Christ. They had seized him as a malefactor, and now they had him they had no indictment to prefer against him, no crime to lay to his charge, but they sought for witnesses against him; pumped some with ensnaring questions, offered bribes to others, if they would accuse him, and endeavored to frighten others, if they would not, v. 55, 56. The chief priests and elders were by the law entrusted with the prosecuting and punishing of false witnesses (Deut 19 16, 17); yet those were now ringleaders in a crime that tends to overthrow of all justice. It is time to cry, Help, Lord, when the physicians of a land are its troublers, and those that should be the conservators of peace and equity, are the corrupters of both.
Verses 53-65 We have here Christ's condemnation before the great council of the Jews. Peter followed; but the high priest's fire-side was no proper place, nor his servants proper company, for Peter: it was an entrance into temptation. Great diligence was used to procure false witnesses against Jesus, yet their testimony was not equal to the charge of a capital crime, by the utmost stretch of their law. He was asked, Art thou the Son of the Blessed? that is, the Son of God. For the proof of his being the Son of God, he refers to his second coming. In these outrages we have proofs of man's enmity to God, and of God's free and unspeakable love to man.