and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!”
And they spit upon him,.... The Syriac and Persic versions add, "upon his face", which he did not hide from spitting; see Isa 1:6, and so what with sweat, by being hurried from place to place, and with blood trickling down from his temples, scratched with thorns, and with the spittle of these filthy soldiers, his visage was more marred than any man's, and his...
Verse 29. Had platted. The word platted here means woven together, or having made a wreath of a thorn-bush. A crown. Or perhaps, rather, a wreath. A crown was worn by kings, commonly made of gold, and precious stones. To ridicule the pretensions of Jesus, that he was a king, they probably plucked up a thorn-bush growing near, made it into something resembling, in shape...
[A reed in his right hand.] See those fictions in Tanchum [fol. 59. 4.], concerning an angel that appeared in the shape of Solomon: In whose hand there was a reed: and whom they struck with a reed.