When he was set down (was sitting) on the judgment seat. This was a curule chair placed on a raised stone platform in front of the Praetorium, where the Roman governors sat to give judgment in cases brought before them (see John 19:13).
It was while he was waiting to hear the decision of the multitude with respect to the selection of the prisoners that the episode that follows (mentioned alone by St. Matthew) occurs. His wife. Her name, according to ecclesiastical tradition, was Claudia, the addition of Procula being probably a mistake.
In the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus (Matthew 2:1-23) she is said to have been a convert to Judaism. Other accounts affirm that she ultimately became a Christian; and the Greek Church has canonized her, and inserted her in the Menology on October 27.
It is probable that she was well acquainted with, and favourably disposed towards, the claims of Christ; and if she had impressed her husband in some degree with her own views, this fact may have influenced him to make some effort to save Jesus.
Doubtless she had thought much upon the subject, and talked it over with Pilate; hence her dream was the natural sequence of that with which her mind had been filled in her waking moments, though providentially ordered.
It speaks for the accuracy of the evangelist's account, that lately the governors had been allowed to take their wives with them into their official districts, a law previously having forbidden this indulgence (see Tacitus, 'Annul.
,' 3.33, 34). Have thou nothing to do with that just Man. Wordsworth well remarks, "In the whole history of the Passion of Christ no one pleads for him but a woman, the wife of a heathen governor, the deputy of the emperor of the world."
This was another wanting given to Pilate to arrest him in his criminal cowardice. The expression used means literally, "Let there be nothing to thee and that Righteous One," which is equivalent to "Do nothing to him for which you will be hereafter sorry."
I have suffered ( ἐ ìπαθον, I suffered) many things this day in a dream because of him. It is useless to inquire the nature of her dream. From the way in which it is here introduced, and from what we know of God's employment of dreams in other cases to communicate his will to men, we may reasonably conclude that this was divinely sent to convey a lesson to Pilate through his wife, who alone, perhaps, was able to arouse the better feelings of his heart.
The mention of her suffering shows that she had some dreadful experiences to relate in connection with the fate of the righteous Jesus. As at the beginning of Christ's life, so at its close, such communications were addressed to strangers.
Pilate's superstitious fears would be excited by this mysterious dream, but they were not able to overpower counteracting influences.