1 When the morning was come, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death: 2 And when they had bound him, they led him away, and delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor. (Matthew 27:1-2 KJV)
William Burkitt’s Commentary
The foregoing chapter gave us an account of Judas’s treason, in delivering our Saviour into the hands of the chief priests unto Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, in order to his arraignment and condemnation.
Whence observe, that it has been the old policy of corrupt church governors to abuse the power of the civil magistrate, in executing their cruel and unjust censures upon holy and innocent persons. The chief priests and elders do not kill our Saviour themselves, but they deliver him over to the secular power, and desire Pilate, the civil magistrate, to sentence and condemn him, which soon after we shall find he did. They bound him, and led him away; but what need was there of binding him, that never made any resistance? And O, what ingratitude was it to bind him with cords, who came to unloose those bands of sins wherewith we were bound.