Pilate had not expected the people to choose Barabbas. Gill says Pilate "could not have thought they would have asked the life of so vile a wretch," and he puts Pilate's thought this way: surely you would not have me put Him to death only because He is called Christ. Pilate again calls Him "Jesus which is called Christ," the same words he used in Matthew 27:17. The judgment was his to give, yet his question hands the decision back to the crowd.

The answer was unanimous: "They all say unto him, Let him be crucified" (Matthew 27:22). Mark records, "they cried out again, Crucify him" (Mark 15:13), and Luke, "Crucify him, crucify him" (Luke 23:21). Pilate tried once more with another question (Matthew 27:23), but their cry only grew louder.

"Christ" is the Greek title for the Anointed One. Gill, on Matthew 27:17, explains it as "the Christ, the Messiah, the king of the Jews," and Mark records Pilate's question as "him whom ye call the King of the Jews" (Mark 15:12). Crucifixion was not a Jewish penalty. Gill calls it "a Roman punishment, inflicted on the meanest and worst of men." So the crowd was asking the Roman governor to give the One called Messiah the death reserved for the lowest criminals.

Pilate asked what to do with Jesus, but the real issue sat inside his own question: who is this "Jesus which is called Christ"? Pilate never answered that. He tried to set the decision aside by washing his hands and saying, "I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it" (Matthew 27:24). Barnes is direct: Pilate was "bound as a magistrate to free an innocent man." Matthew Henry says, "This unjust judge was wearied by importunity into an unjust sentence."

God was not absent from this unjust hour. Peter later reminded Jerusalem that Pilate "was determined to let him go" (Acts 3:13), yet through their denial God fulfilled what the prophets had said, "that Christ should suffer" (Acts 3:18).