If one is going to read all of the New Testament, there is no way around reading about Jesus’ crucifixion. It’s a hard read. We know it was Jesus’ purpose to die like this. We know it was to repair our relationship with the Father, broken by sin. We know he will be raised in a very short time in triumph. It is still a very, very hard read.
In the NET translation, a translator’s note tells us that many never survived the flogging prior to crucifixion, so cruel it was. But the language Matthew uses doesn’t provide any details of the actual punishment Jesus received. His readers knew the reality of what Jesus went through. We can only imagine.
In the midst of this account, I want to mention a couple of things I noticed. First, Matthew has parallel language in the dismissal of Judas by the chief priests and elders, and in Pilate’s giving over of Jesus to be crucified — “What is that to us? You take care of it yourself!” (v.4) vs. “I am innocent of this man’s blood. You take care of it yourselves!” (v.24) The only difference in taking care of it is that it is singular when said to Judas, and plural when said to the crowd. In both cases, there is the rejection of any responsibility over what has or will take place.
Second, the soldiers have inadvertently drawn our attention back to Adam’s original punishment for his sin in the garden, a curse on the ground, when “braiding a crown of thorns, they put it on his head. (v.27a)
17 But to Adam he said,
“Because you obeyed your wife
Genesis 3:17-18a
and ate from the tree about which I commanded you,
‘You must not eat from it,’
the ground is cursed because of you;
in painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
Jesus is dying to make these things right.
