The governor answered and said unto them, Which of the two will you that I release unto you? They said, Barabbas.
All Commentaries on Matthew 27:21 Go To Matthew 27
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
But the Governor answered and said unto them, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? They said, Barabbas. That Isaiah , after he had given them time for consideration, he again asked them, and demanded an answer.
Bede (on Mark 15:9) strikingly remarks, "The demand they made still cleaves to them. For as they preferred a robber to Jesus, a murderer to the Saviour, the destroyer to the Giver of Life, they deservedly lost both their property and their life. They were reduced, indeed, so low by violence and sedition as to forfeit the independence of their country, which they had preferred to Christ, and cared not to recover the liberty of body and soul which they had bartered away."
A1legorically: "Their choice of Barabbas foreshadowed," says S. Jerome, "that robber Antichrist, whom they would hereafter choose in the end of the world." And S. Ambrose (in Luke 22), "Barabbas means the son of a father. They, therefore, to whom it was said, "Ye are of your father the devil," are set forth as those who would afterwards prefer Antichrist, the son of his father, to the true Son of God."
