John 18:39

This custom was not commanded in the law, but had been handed down by tradition from the old fathers, viz. that in remembrance of their deliverance out of Egypt, they should release a prisoner at the passover. Pilate tries to persuade them: Will ye therefore that I release unto you the King of the Jews.

Pilate, then, hesitates to condemn Christ, Who had been taken in and convicted of no criminal act, and says that He That was far removed from all guilt ought not to pay a penalty, and strongly maintains that it is wholly at variance with the laws he observed; putting to shame the frightful frenzy of the Jews in contradiction to their own Law. For he thought that, as they professed to reverence the doctrine of impartial justice, they ought at once to yield to the statement of what was just and right that he put before them. But, perceiving that to acquit Him That they had brought to him of all blame would imply no small condemnation of the precipitancy of the Jews, that they might not on this account insist the more vehemently, and stir up a strange commotion, he paved the way, as it were, and put the best complexion upon the matter, by saying: Ye have a custom, that I should release unto you one prisoner at the Passover: will ye therefore that I release unto you the King of the Jews? When he called Jesus King of the Jews, he spoke in jest, and tried to abate by ridicule the anger of the furious mob, and hereby also clearly showed that this particular accusation was brought in vain; for a Roman officer would never have thought a man condemned of plotting for a kingdom and revolution against Rome, worthy to be released. He bore witness, then, to His utter guiltlessness by the very reasons he gave for His release.

And as I was considering and meditating in my mind how the custom arose for the Jews to ask for one man to be released to them (a robber, it might be, or a murderer), the idea occurred to me that they no longer regulated their actions altogether according to the Law, but, choosing rather to use their own customs, they fell into a decayed state of manners not altogether in accordance with the Mosaic dispensation. But while I was searching the Divine Scriptures, and hunting everywhere for the origin of this custom, I came upon one of the Divine dictates, which caused me to suspect that when the Jews sought the release of a malefactor, they were, in fact, in however mistaken a way, fulfilling one of the customs of the Law. At the end of the book called Numbers we find recorded the law concerning voluntary and involuntary homicide; and when the penalty in the case of premeditated murder has been clearly laid down, the book goes on to speak of involuntary homicide, and, after other remarks, makes the following declaration: But if he thrust him suddenly without enmity, or have cast upon him anything without laying of wait, or with any stone wherewith a man may die, seeing him not, and cast it upon him that he die, and was not his enemy, neither sought his harm: then the congregation shall judge between the slayer and the revenger of blood, and the congregation shall restore him to the city of his refuge, whither he was fled. Such, then, being the written commandment, when any, as it chanced, were involved in such a calamity, the Jews, when they were congregated together, that they might not appear altogether to neglect this enactment, sought the release of one of them. For the Law laid down that it was to be the act of the entire assembly. As, then, they were permitted by the Law to ask for the release of a prisoner, they make this request of Pilate. For after they had once accepted the Roman yoke they were henceforth, for the most part, in the administration of their affairs ruled by their laws. Nay, further, though it was lawful for them to put to death any one convicted of a crime, they brought Jesus to Pilate as a criminal, saying: It is not lawful for us to put any man to death. For though they alleged as a plea their purification by the sacrifice of the Passover, yet they showed themselves flatterers of Rome, in entrusting to the laws of the Romans the duty…