John 19:1-16. The trial of Jesus continued under Pilate. He tried his best to get out of it by placing a crown of thorn on Jesus, let the soldiers mock him and hit him, hoping that would placate the Jews. But they cried Crucify! He tried and tried, but they cried “We have no King but Caesar” so Pilate finally gave in and handed Jesus over to be crucified.
In Exodus 7 God promised Moses to give him all the words he must say, and Aaron was to tell it to Pharaoh. God also said he would harden Pharaoh’s heart and not let the people go. Aaron threw down his rod and it became a snake. The Egyptians duplicated it. The first plague out of ten occurred, turning the water of the Nile to blood.
Exodus 8 is very interesting. It tells of three more plagues of Egypt, the plague of frogs, the plague of gnats and the plague of flies. The Egyptian magicians had no trouble duplicating elements of the plague of frogs, but when it came to the plague of gnats they threw up their hands and said “This is the finger of God”. From then on they could not duplicate any of the plagues.
What we have here is a failure to communicate. Pilate did what he could to get out of his dilemma. He knew Jesus was not guilty of anything under Roman law, and his wife had warned him, but the mob action was so strong that he gave in.
With Pharaoh on the other hand he wanted total control, and all insurrections, no matter how costly must be stopped.
Len Bilén's blog, a blog about faith, politics and the environment. 