John 18:19 - Exposition

The οὖν connects the following incident with the thirteenth and fourteenth verses. The high priest . Hengstenberg, Godet, and Westcott here say that the high priest is Caiaphas, present i.e. at the examination over which Annas presides as the older man; but Renan, Meyer, Lange, Steinmeyer ('Passion and Resurrection History'), and Moulton, with many others, say Annas was here the high priest in question. Tholuck dismisses the idea of Annas altogether, and, by inverting the place of John 18:24 or treating the ἀπεστείλε as pluperfect, suppose that Annas had sent the Lord to Caiaphas (so Calvin, De Wette, Hase, and others), who thus commenced his interrogatory. But the text of John 18:24 , now recovered, will not admit of this rendering. We find it far more satisfactory to accept this less formal examination, under the presidency of Annas, at which an attempt is made to put the Lord, if possible, to a test which will incriminate him. Keim says, "If Caiaphas were the acting high priest, and at the same time the soul of the movement against Jesus, it was for him and not for his father-in-law to take knowledge of the matter and report to the Sanhedrin." We must choose between two difficulties: