“Therefore when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ?”
King James Version (KJV)
27:15 At every feast - Every year, at the feast of the passover. #Mark 15:6|; Luke 23:17; John 18:39.
27:18 He knew that for envy they had delivered him - As well as from malice and revenge; they envied him, because the people magnified him.
Mt 27:17 Therefore when they were gathered together. After the first examination, Pilate, finding that Jesus was from Galilee, sent him to Herod, tetrarch of Galilee, then in Jerusalem, to be tried by him as belonging to his jurisdiction. Herod, however, after trying to induce him to work a miracle and mocking him, sent him back (Lu 23:6-11). Now they had gathered after his return. Barabbas, or Jesus? Pilate, desirous of releasing an innocent man, afraid to oppose the Sanhedrin, adopted this expedient in the hope that the increasing multitude of people would demand Christ rather than a blood-stained robber.