John 11:49 Commentary and Bible Study

Caiaphas was high priest for the time being, he was deposed a little later, but he was for the time being high priest. Josephus, the Jewish historian at the time, tells us that he was a cunning man and a very clever man, but very cunning and even violent.‘Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all.’ I think we have to understand the spirit in which Caiaphas would have said this. The chairman of the council of seventy leading clergy among the Jews would hardly have been so blunt in a general sense. He would not have said to all the people under his chairmanship – you know nothing at all. As we may imagine, that is not the best way to be chairman and to get what you want. In fact, he agreed with them. Caiaphas, I think, says this with a sneer and with a half-smile.Let me suggest we put it in this way: ‘You council members, you do not know anything about how to frame a resolution.’ Now they would not have minded that so much. They were saying, ‘We are not doing enough. What are we doing? If we go on like this, this man will live, do these signs, the people will follow him, and the Romans will come and destroy us.’ They are all of one mind – well, there are dissidents no doubt, but they are cowed and silent; on the whole, they are of one mind – and then Caiaphas says, ‘Yes but you people do not know how to frame a resolution. Let me put it for you in a way so that we can sell it to the people. What we are going to have to do is pretty rough here. We are going to have to destroy this man. We are going to have to do away with him. We will not look good. We will find a charge, blasphemy, something of that kind. Now what you say is quite right, but I can tell you how to frame it.’ And that is what he was good at, and he does. So their objective was also wrong.