Answered, to the various cries which reached him. Whether of the twain? Which of the two? He repeats the question before asked (Matthew 27:17), having given the multitude time for deliberation, and offering them no alternative but to choose one of these two prisoners.
Barabbas. They prefer a murderer to the Prince of life—a selection on their part guilty and malevolent, but on the part of God necessary for our salvation (Quesnel). Truly, Jesus "was despised and rejected of men."
If he had been released now, his liberation would not have been, as it ought to have been, an act of simple justice, but an imperial concession, an act of grace, in which the character of the prisoner was not regarded.