Matthew 27

KJV · Chapter 27/28

¹When the morning was come, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death:

²And when they had bound him, they led him away, and delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor.

³Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,

⁴Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that.

⁵And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.

⁶And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.

⁷And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in.

⁸Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day.

⁹Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value;

¹⁰And gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord appointed me.

¹¹And Jesus stood before the governor: and the governor asked him, saying, Art thou the King of the Jews? And Jesus said unto him, Thou sayest.

¹²And when he was accused of the chief priests and elders, he answered nothing.

¹³Then said Pilate unto him, Hearest thou not how many things they witness against thee?

¹⁴And he answered him to never a word; insomuch that the governor marvelled greatly.

¹⁵Now at that feast the governor was wont to release unto the people a prisoner, whom they would.

¹⁶And they had then a notable prisoner, called Barabbas.

¹⁷Therefore when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ?

¹⁸For he knew that for envy they had delivered him.

¹⁹When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.

²⁰But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus.

²¹The governor answered and said unto them, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? They said, Barabbas.

²²Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified.

²³And the governor said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified.

²⁴When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it.

²⁵Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.

²⁶Then released he Barabbas unto them: and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified.

²⁷Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall, and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers.

²⁸And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe.

²⁹And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews!

³⁰And they spit upon him, and took the reed, and smote him on the head.

³¹And after that they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him, and put his own raiment on him, and led him away to crucify him.

³²And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name: him they compelled to bear his cross.

³³And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull,

³⁴They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink.

³⁵And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots.

³⁶And sitting down they watched him there;

³⁷And set up over his head his accusation written, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

³⁸Then were there two thieves crucified with him, one on the right hand, and another on the left.

³⁹And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads,

⁴⁰And saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.

⁴¹Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said,

⁴²He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.

⁴³He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God.

⁴⁴The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth.

⁴⁵Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.

⁴⁶And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

⁴⁷Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias.

⁴⁸And straightway one of them ran, and took a spunge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink.

⁴⁹The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him.

⁵⁰Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.

⁵¹And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;

⁵²And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,

⁵³And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

⁵⁴Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.

⁵⁵And many women were there beholding afar off, which followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto him:

⁵⁶Among which was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee’s children.

⁵⁷When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus’ disciple:

⁵⁸He went to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered.

⁵⁹And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth,

⁶⁰And laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.

⁶¹And there was Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre.

⁶²Now the next day, that followed the day of the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate,

⁶³Saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again.

⁶⁴Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first.

⁶⁵Pilate said unto them, Ye have a watch: go your way, make it as sure as ye can.

⁶⁶So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

Jesus is brought before Pilate, who hands him over to be crucified after the crowd demands the release of Barabbas; Judas hangs himself in remorse, Jesus dies on the cross amid mockery, and is buried by Joseph of Arimathea in a tomb guarded by soldiers.

Explanation

Pilate, the Roman prefect of Judea, held the authority to carry out the death penalty, something the Jewish Sanhedrin could not do on its own under Roman rule, which is why Jesus had to be brought before him. The custom of releasing a prisoner at Passover, though not documented outside the Gospels, was consistent with Roman practices of granting favors to keep the peace in provinces during major religious festivals. Details such as the temple veil tearing in two, from top to bottom, symbolize the end of the separation between God and people that had previously been maintained by restricted access to the Most Holy Place. Jesus's death is told with restraint, without sensationalism, yet with signs that the onlookers themselves, including a Roman centurion, took as confirmation that he truly was the Son of God.

Fun facts

'Golgotha,' the site of the crucifixion, means 'place of the skull' in Aramaic, possibly because of the shape of a nearby hill outside the walls of Jerusalem.
The Roman practice of crucifixion was generally reserved for slaves, rebels, and non-citizens, and was considered one of the most degrading and painful forms of execution in the ancient world.

Verse-by-verse explanation

Matthew 27:1The formal council held in the morning gives a veneer of legality to a decision that, according to the account, had already been made during the night—the Jewish leaders had no authority to execute anyone, so the next step is to hand Jesus over to Pilate.
Matthew 27:2The word translated here as “governor” refers to the Roman governor of the province of Judea—the office was closer to a “procurator” or “prefect,” Rome’s direct representative with power of life and death over the region. The Jewish leaders hand Jesus over to him because, under Roman occupation, the Jewish council had no authority to execute anyone on its own.
Matthew 27:3Judas’s remorse comes only after seeing the condemnation already decided—suggesting he perhaps did not expect the betrayal to actually lead to Jesus’s death.
Matthew 27:4The chief priests’ cold reply, “What is that to us? see thou to that,” shows that they used Judas merely as an instrument, with no real concern for his conscience or well-being afterward.
Matthew 27:5Throwing the money back inside the temple was a gesture of total rejection of what he had gained—Judas’s suicide is the only one recorded in the New Testament among Jesus’s close disciples.
Matthew 27:6The priests’ hesitation to put “the price of blood” into the temple treasury shows a concern for ritual purity that contrasts with their willingness to pay for a betrayal that would lead to an innocent man’s death.
Matthew 27:7Buying a potter’s field, probably land already exhausted from clay extraction and worthless for farming, was a practical and cheap way to use the money without technically returning it to the sacred treasury.
Matthew 27:8“Unto this day” indicates that the field’s name was already known and used by the gospel’s original readers, decades after the event itself.
Matthew 27:9The combined citation from Jeremiah and Zechariah about the thirty pieces of silver is attributed by Matthew to Jeremiah alone, a common practice at the time of citing the better-known prophet even when the text came from more than one source.
Matthew 27:10Closes the prophetic citation by directly applying the purchase of the field to the very sum of money handed to Judas—Matthew sees in this seemingly small detail the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy.
Matthew 27:11“King of the Jews” was the political accusation that mattered to Pilate, different from the religious charge of blasphemy that had driven the trial before Caiaphas—only a threat to Rome’s power would justify the death penalty under Roman authority.
Matthew 27:12Jesus’s silence before the formal accusations echoes the same posture already seen at the religious trial, and fulfills a prophetic image from Isaiah 53 about a servant who does not open his mouth in the face of injustice.
Matthew 27:13Pilate tries to provoke a defense, perhaps hoping for some argument that would make it easier to acquit Him in the face of pressure from the accusers.
Matthew 27:14Pilate’s astonishment at Jesus’s silence suggests he was not used to this kind of behavior from defendants, who normally defended themselves actively against accusations that could lead to death.
Matthew 27:15There is no record outside the gospels of this specific custom of releasing a prisoner at Passover, but similar amnesty practices on festival dates existed elsewhere in the Roman Empire. This custom gives Pilate an apparent way out to free Jesus without seeming to give in to pressure from the crowd—a way out that ends up not working.
Matthew 27:16Barabbas is described in the other gospels as an insurgent involved in riot and murder against the Roman government—the choice between him and Jesus presents a direct contrast between a violent revolutionary and someone accused, yet without any proven crime.
Matthew 27:17Offering the choice between Barabbas and Jesus may have been Pilate’s attempt to free Jesus through the amnesty tradition, hoping the crowd would prefer someone without proven violent crimes.
Matthew 27:18Pilate already recognizes that the accusation against Jesus came from the religious leaders’ envy, not from any real crime—a detail that exposes the injustice of the process even before the final verdict.
Matthew 27:19The message from Pilate’s wife, based on a disturbing dream, is a unique detail recorded only by Matthew—one more voice warning of Jesus’s innocence, this time coming from inside the governor’s own household.
Matthew 27:20The religious leaders work actively to sway the crowd into asking for Barabbas, showing that the popular decision was not spontaneous but the result of deliberate manipulation.
Matthew 27:21Pilate repeats the question, giving the crowd the chance to choose—but the pressure already applied by the religious leaders makes the outcome practically decided beforehand.
Matthew 27:22Pilate’s question about what to do with Jesus receives a unanimous, immediate answer demanding crucifixion—the crowd’s decision already seems settled, with no room for any other option.
Matthew 27:23Pilate’s question about what crime Jesus had committed gets no direct answer—the crowd simply intensifies its demand for crucifixion, without backing the accusation with concrete facts.
Matthew 27:24Washing his hands was a symbolic gesture of Jewish origin, associated with innocence before unjustly shed blood—Pilate uses this gesture to try to shift responsibility for the decision onto the crowd.
Matthew 27:25The people’s response, accepting responsibility upon themselves and their own children, has historically been used in tragic ways to justify antisemitic persecution—a reading that ignores the context of one specific crowd, not the entire Jewish people of every era.
Matthew 27:26Roman scourging was carried out with a whip of leather strips with pieces of bone or metal tied to the tips, used before crucifixion to weaken the condemned man—many people died from this punishment alone. It was a standard part of the Roman process: almost no one went to the cross without going through it first.
Matthew 27:27“Cohort” was a Roman military unit of several hundred soldiers—gathering this whole number around Jesus shows the kind of public, organized spectacle the mockery that follows would become.
Matthew 27:28The scarlet cloak, probably a red military cloak worn by Roman soldiers, mockingly imitates the royal garments a real king would wear.
Matthew 27:29The crown of thorns and the reed used as a scepter complete the mockery of Jesus’s kingship, turning the very symbols of royal honor into instruments of humiliation and physical pain.
Matthew 27:30Striking His head with the same reed that had been placed as a mock scepter intensifies the cruelty of the mockery, combining symbolic humiliation with real physical pain.
Matthew 27:31Dressing Jesus again in His own clothes, after all the mockery, sets the scene for the public crucifixion, where He would be recognized by His normal appearance, not by the costume used during the torture.
Matthew 27:32Roman soldiers had the legal right to force any person to carry a load for them—it was this same right that forced Simon, who was probably just passing along the road, to carry Jesus’s cross. The condemned man normally carried his own cross to the execution site, and Jesus, after the scourging, no longer had the strength for it.
Matthew 27:33Golgotha, “a place of a skull,” was probably located outside the walls of Jerusalem, along a busy road—crucifixion sites were deliberately chosen in visible locations, to serve as a public warning.
Matthew 27:34This bitter drink worked as a kind of rudimentary sedative, offered out of mercy to ease the pain of someone about to be crucified—other accounts of the same episode describe something similar, wine mixed with myrrh. Jesus tastes it and refuses, apparently choosing to face the suffering fully conscious, rather than numbed.
Matthew 27:35Dividing up clothing by casting lots was a common custom among Roman soldiers, who had a right to the personal belongings of those they executed—the detail fulfills a direct citation from Psalm 22.
Matthew 27:36The soldiers remain standing guard during the crucifixion, a standard practice to make sure no one tried to rescue the condemned man before death was confirmed.
Matthew 27:37The inscription above His head, stating the formal charge, was a common Roman practice in executions—it served both as a public warning and as a legal justification displayed openly for anyone passing by.
Matthew 27:38Crucifying Jesus between two common criminals, one on each side, may echo another prophetic citation from Isaiah about the suffering servant numbered among the transgressors.
Matthew 27:39“Wagging their heads” was a gesture of scorn and contempt, also used in Old Testament psalms to describe mockery directed at someone in suffering.
Matthew 27:40The mockery repeats the distorted accusation about destroying the temple, already heard at the trial—those passing by challenge Jesus to prove His own divine identity by coming down from the cross, something He chooses not to do.
Matthew 27:41The same groups that had already conspired to arrest and condemn Jesus—chief priests, scribes, elders, and now also Pharisees—join together in the public mockery, showing the extent of the hostility against Him.
Matthew 27:42The logic of the mockery is cruelly simple: they promise to believe if He comes down from the cross, but Jesus’s very mission, according to the gospel, depended precisely on His not coming down and completing the sacrifice.
Matthew 27:43The mockery quotes almost directly from Psalm 22, a psalm Jesus Himself will quote shortly on the cross—the mockers, without realizing it, use the same prophetic language that describes the very suffering they are witnessing.
Matthew 27:44Even the two criminals crucified beside Jesus join in the general mockery, according to Matthew—Luke’s account tells how one of them changes his attitude later, but Matthew focuses on the unanimous scorn at this moment.
Matthew 27:45Darkness at noon, lasting three hours, is described without scientific explanation in the text—many readers of the time would have seen it as a supernatural sign tied to divine judgment, echoing prophetic images of darkness on days of judgment.
Matthew 27:46Jesus is quoting, in Aramaic, the opening line of Psalm 22—a psalm that begins with this cry of abandonment but ends in trust, something any Jew listening would have recognized by heart. Quoting the first line of a well-known psalm often called to mind the whole psalm, but scholars disagree on how far that changes the meaning of Jesus’s cry on the cross.
Matthew 27:47The confusion of some onlookers, hearing “Eli” and thinking of “Elias,” shows how the Aramaic citation of Psalm 22 could sound phonetically similar to the prophet’s name to anyone not paying full attention.
Matthew 27:48Offering vinegar on a sponge, raised on a reed to Jesus’s mouth, may have been either a gesture of continued mockery or an attempt at momentary relief—the text does not make the exact intention clear.
Matthew 27:49The ironic expectation that Elijah would come to rescue Jesus reflects a popular belief about the prophet intervening in moments of crisis—a hope that, according to the account, is not fulfilled that way.
Matthew 27:50“Yielded up the ghost” describes Jesus’s death as a final act, not merely a passive collapse—the phrase suggests a deliberate surrender, consistent with statements elsewhere in the gospels about Him laying down His own life by His own will.
Matthew 27:51That huge, heavy curtain separated off the innermost space of the temple, where only the high priest entered, and only once a year—tearing it on purpose would have been physically difficult even for a group of strong men. The detail that it tore from top to bottom, not the other way around, is what readers of the time would have noticed: a tear like that did not look like human work.
Matthew 27:52The opening of the tombs and the resurrection of “many bodies of the saints” is a detail recorded only by Matthew among the four gospels, with no further information about who these people were or what happened to them afterward.
Matthew 27:53These resurrected people only enter the city after Jesus’s own resurrection, not immediately after His death—a detail that links this extraordinary sign directly to the central event of the Christian Easter, not to the crucifixion on its own.
Matthew 27:54The declaration of the Roman centurion, a pagan soldier and not a Jew, recognizing Jesus as “the Son of God” closes the crucifixion scene with a confession coming from a completely unexpected source.
Matthew 27:55The women who had followed Jesus from Galilee, watching from a distance, contrast with the general flight of the male disciples—they remain present as witnesses to the very end, and will go on being central witnesses in the following chapter.
Matthew 27:56Mary Magdalene appears for the first time explicitly named in Matthew’s gospel in this list—she will be the first witness of the empty tomb in the following chapter.
Matthew 27:57Joseph of Arimathea, described as rich and a disciple of Jesus, was probably a member of the very religious council that had condemned Jesus, according to the other gospels—a detail that shows unexpected support coming from within the religious elite itself.
Matthew 27:58Asking Pilate directly for the body took courage, since publicly associating himself with a man condemned for sedition could bring political risk to Joseph—but the request is granted without major obstacles.
Matthew 27:59Wrapping the body in a fine, clean linen cloth was part of the Jewish custom of preparing a body for burial, normally followed by more time and care than was possible in this case, because the sabbath was so close.
Matthew 27:60A new tomb, never yet used, and cut into the rock, was a type of burial place reserved for families with means—Joseph offers his own planned burial site for Jesus.
Matthew 27:61The two Marys remain keeping watch at the tomb even after the burial, marking the exact spot—a detail that connects directly to their return to the same place at the start of chapter 28.
Matthew 27:62“After the preparation” would already be the sabbath—the religious leaders going to Pilate on that day shows how urgent it was for them to secure the tomb, even though it was normally a day set aside for rest.
Matthew 27:63The religious leaders show they know Jesus’s own words about rising again after three days quite well, even while calling Him a “deceiver”—a concern that suggests they took seriously, at least as a practical risk, the possibility of public misunderstanding.
Matthew 27:64The fear of a “last error worse than the first” reveals that the religious leaders feared the claim of resurrection, even a false one, more than the crucifixion itself—a detail that directly sets up the accusation of fraud that will circulate in the following chapter.
Matthew 27:65“Sealing the stone” meant stretching a cord across the rock that closed the tomb and fastening it at both ends with stamped wax or clay—anyone who broke the seal would be openly defying Roman authority. The guard was a group of soldiers posted there for the very purpose of preventing the accusation the priests feared: that the disciples would come and steal the body at night.
Matthew 27:66Sealing the stone and posting a formal guard represented the full weight of Roman authority committed to making sure the tomb stayed intact—making it all the more remarkable, in the following chapter, that these precautions did not stop what happened.