Pilate was asking the accusers to name a crime, because he could not find one. This was the third time he had declared Jesus innocent (Luke 23:4, 14-15, 22). Gill puts the question in plain words: "what capital crime has he committed?" Barnes's note on Luke points to his note on Matthew 27:23, where he says Pilate asked this "three times," "so anxious was he to release him." Yet in the same breath Pilate offered to "chastise him" first. Barnes thinks he probably hoped a public whipping would satisfy the crowd so he could set Jesus free with their consent. The question was a real challenge, but it came from a man already looking for a way to bargain.

No one named a crime. Instead, "they were instant with loud voices, requiring that he might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed" (Luke 23:23). Pilate "gave sentence that it should be as they required" (Luke 23:24). He released Barabbas, who had been jailed "for sedition and murder," and "delivered Jesus to their will" (Luke 23:25). Matthew records the same answer to the same question: "they cried out the more" (Matthew 27:23).

At the feast the governor had to release one prisoner to the people (Luke 23:17), which is why Barabbas enters the story. Luke shows Pilate saying three times that Jesus is innocent, and here the Greek triton marks it as "the third time."

The word "chastise" is paideusas, from paideuo, a verb that usually means to train or discipline; here it means a punishment short of death. Mark and John record that Jesus was in fact scourged (Mark 15:15; John 19:1). Gill notes that crucifixion, the death the crowd wanted, was the death the Romans gave to slaves, thieves, robbers, and the worst of men.

Luke takes care to show that Jesus died innocent. Pilate finds no fault (Luke 23:4, 14, 22), Herod finds "nothing worthy of death" (Luke 23:15), a dying criminal says "this man hath done nothing amiss" (Luke 23:41), and the centurion says, "Certainly this was a righteous man" (Luke 23:47). The guilty man walks free while the innocent One is handed over.

Pilate's question was right, but he did not follow it. Matthew Henry asks, "If no fault be found in him, why chastise him?" and says Pilate "had not courage to go against so strong a stream." Barnes says he should have preferred "justice to popularity." The question that should have freed Jesus became the moment the governor gave Him up.