Criminals
The criminal in scripture is rarely a generic figure. He is named, his offense is named, the institutional response to him is described, and very often the narrative tracks not only the crime but the prison cell, the dungeon, the fetter, the king's verdict, and Yahweh's separate verdict over the whole proceeding. Across the Hebrew Bible, the deuterocanonical histories of 1 Maccabees and Sirach, and the Greek Gospels, the topic of "criminals" gathers a wide field — capital offenses and the death sentences spelled out in Torah, the prophets thrown into mire, the wisdom warnings against companions of bloodshed, the man rolled into a pit by ambushers on the Jericho road, the two crucified beside Jesus. The pages below trace these threads in the order the topic moves: from the offense itself, through arrest and confinement, to sentence and execution, and finally to the figure of the wrongly imprisoned and the divine declaration of release.
Capital Offenses Defined in Law
The earliest legal frame is set in Genesis: "Whoever sheds man's blood, by man will his blood be shed: For in the image of God he made man" (Gen 9:6). The Sinai code re-states it as a flat command — "You will not kill" (Ex 20:13) — and "You will not steal" (Ex 20:15) — and Paul gathers these together in the love-of-neighbor summary: "For this, You will not commit adultery, You will not kill, You will not steal, You will not covet, and if there be any other commandment, it is summed up in this word, namely, You will love your fellow man as yourself" (Rom 13:9).
The capital sentence is then specified for particular offenses. Wilful homicide: "He who strikes a man, so that he dies, will surely be put to death" (Ex 21:12); "And a man who strikes any soul of man, will surely be put to death" (Lev 24:17); and the murderer-by-iron-instrument language of Num 35:16 — "if he struck him with an instrument of iron, so that he died, he is a murderer: the murderer will surely be put to death." Numbers adds the rule against ransom: "Moreover you⁺ will take no ransom for the soul of a murderer, who is guilty of death; but he will surely be put to death" (Num 35:31). The premeditated murderer who flees to a city of refuge — "if any man hates his fellow man, and lies in wait for him, and rises up against him, and strikes him in the soul so that he dies, and he flees into one of these cities" (Deut 19:11) — falls outside the protection.
Other capital crimes: presumption against altar-mercy, "if a man comes presumptuously on his fellow man, to slay him with guile; you will take him from my altar, that he may die" (Ex 21:14); the goring ox whose owner has been warned, "But if the ox was in the habit to gore in time past, and it has been testified to its owner, and he has not kept it in, but it has killed a man or a woman, the ox will be stoned, and its owner also will be put to death" (Ex 21:29); idolatrous sacrifice, "Whoever sacrifices to the gods will be completely destroyed" (Ex 22:20); Sabbath labor, "whoever does any work in it will be put to death" (Ex 35:2); adultery, "the adulterer and the adulteress will surely be put to death" (Lev 20:10); contempt of the priestly judgment, "the man who does presumptuously, in not listening to the priest who stands to minister there before Yahweh your God, or to the judge, even that man will die: and you will put away the evil from Israel" (Deut 17:12); the rebellious son, "And all the men of his city will stone him to death with stones: so you will put away the evil from the midst of you; and all Israel will hear, and fear" (Deut 21:21); and the seducer to apostasy, where the witness is to act first — "but you will surely kill him; your hand will be first on him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people" (Deut 13:9).
Sirach and 1 Maccabees keep the same vocabulary. Sirach's wisdom warns against the man for whom blood is nothing: "Do not harden your forehead with one who is given to anger; And do not ride with him in the way. For blood is as nothing in his eyes; And where there is none to deliver, he will destroy you" (Sir 8:16). And the murderer is identified not only as the one who kills but as the one who deprives a worker of wages: "He slays his neighbor who takes away his [means of] living, And a shedder of blood is he who deprives the hired worker of his wages" (Sir 34:26-27). The Antiochan persecution in 1 Maccabees runs the death penalty in reverse — against fidelity rather than against crime: "And that whoever would not do according to the word of the king should be put to death" (1Ma 1:50); "And every one with whom a book of the covenant was found, and whoever consented to the law, they put to death, according to the decree of the king" (1Ma 1:57); "Now the women who circumcised their children, were slain according to the commandment" (1Ma 1:60); and "they hanged the infants about their necks, and put to death their families, and those who had circumcised them" (1Ma 1:61).
The New Testament does not retract the categorical force of the prohibition. "For let none of you⁺ suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or an evildoer, or as a meddler in other men's matters" (1Pet 4:15) lists the four offenses side by side. And John writes the prohibition inward: "Whoever hates his brother is a murderer: and you⁺ know that any murderer does not have eternal life staying in him" (1John 3:15).
Examples of Murder
Cain: "And Cain told Abel his brother. And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him" (Gen 4:8). Simeon and Levi at Shechem: "O my soul, don't come into their council; To their assembly, my glory, don't be united; For in their anger they slew a man, And in their self-will they hocked an ox" (Gen 49:6). Pharaoh's order to the midwives: "When you⁺ do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birth-stool; if it is a son, then you⁺ will kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she will live" (Ex 1:16). Abimelech's slaughter at Ophrah: "he went to his father's house at Ophrah, and slew his brothers the sons of Jerubbaal, being seventy persons, on one stone: but Jotham the youngest son of Jerubbaal was left; for he hid himself" (Judg 9:5). Doeg the Edomite at Nob: "the king said to Doeg, You turn, and fall on the priests. And Doeg the Edomite turned, and he fell on the priests, and he slew on that day eighty-five persons who wore a linen ephod" (1Sam 22:18). Absalom's murder of Amnon: "And Absalom commanded his attendants, saying, Now watch⁺, when Amnon's heart is merry with wine; and when I say to you⁺, Strike Amnon, then kill him; don't be afraid; haven't I commanded you⁺? Be courageous, and be valiant" (2Sam 13:28). The judicial murder of Naboth: "the base fellows came in and sat before him: and the base fellows bore witness against him, even against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, Naboth cursed God and the king. Then they carried him forth out of the city, and stoned him to death with stones" (1Kings 21:13). Zechariah son of Jehoiada at the king's command: "they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of Yahweh" (2Chron 24:21).
The 1 Maccabees catalog of treacherous killings is dense: the army that slew the priests, "So the army slew them. And Demetrius sat on the throne of his kingdom" (1Ma 7:4); the sixty slain in one day (1Ma 7:16); Bacchides's pit-murders, "he sent, and took many of those who had fled away from him, and some of the people he killed, and threw them into a great pit" (1Ma 7:19); Zabdiel's beheading of Alexander, "Zabdiel the Arabian took off Alexander's head, and sent it to Ptolemy" (1Ma 11:17); the trap at Ptolemais, "as soon as Jonathan entered into Ptolemais, those of Ptolemais shut the gates of the city, and took him: and all those who came in with him they slew with the sword" (1Ma 12:48); the execution at Bascama, "when he approached to Bascama, he slew Jonathan, and he was buried there" (1Ma 13:23); the treacherous slaying of the young king, "Tryphon when he was on a journey with the young King Antiochus, treacherously slew him" (1Ma 13:31); and the banquet murder of Simon and his sons, "when Simon and his sons had drunk freely, Ptolemy and his men rose up, and took their weapons, and entered into the banqueting place, and slew him, and his two sons, and some of his servants" (1Ma 16:16). The lament-vocabulary of the Maccabean prayer voices what these killings amount to: "The vessels of her glory are carried away captive: Her infants are murdered in the streets, And her young men have fallen by the sword of the enemies" (1Ma 2:9).
The man laden with bloodguilt has nowhere to turn: "[A] man who is laden with the blood of a soul Will flee to the pit; let no man uphold him" (Prov 28:17). Sirach writes the same picture from the inside — the patient adversary who waits for his moment: "With his lips, an adversary tarries; But with his heart, he considers deep pits. And even though he weeps with his eyes; When he finds the [right] time, he will not be filled with blood" (Sir 12:16). And the prophet's verdict on the murderous society: "Swearing, lying, killing, stealing, and committing adultery are rampant; and blood is everywhere" (Hos 4:2).
Theft and Robbery
The Sinai prohibition is bare — "You will not steal" (Ex 20:15). The case-law expands it. The vineyard-rule restrains even hospitality from becoming theft: "When you come into your fellow man's vineyard, then you may eat your fill of grapes according to the pleasure of your soul; but you will not put any in your vessel" (Deut 23:24). The stolen heart is reproved in narrative: Rachel's theft of the household talismans, "Now Laban was gone to shear his sheep: and Rachel stole the talismans that were her father's" (Gen 31:19); Laban's complaint, "[though] you would surely be gone, because you intensely longed after your father's house, [yet] why have you stolen my gods?" (Gen 31:30); Achan's spoil at Jericho, "when I saw among the spoil a goodly Babylonian mantle, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them; and, look, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it" (Josh 7:21).
The general indictment runs through the prophets. Amos against the palace classes: "they don't know to do right, says Yahweh, who stores up violence and robbery in their palaces" (Amos 3:10). Ezekiel against the people of the land: "The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised robbery; yes, they have vexed the poor and needy, and have oppressed the sojourner wrongfully" (Ezek 22:29). And Job's portrait of the burglar: "In the dark they dig through houses: They shut themselves up in the daytime; They don't know the light" (Job 24:16).
Robbery as a band-organized crime appears at Shechem against travelers — "the men of Shechem set ambushers for him on the tops of the mountains, and they robbed all who came along that way by them" (Judg 9:25) — and in the parable of the Jericho road: "A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho; and he fell among robbers, who both stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead" (Luke 10:30).
The apostolic correction brings the ex-thief into the working economy: "Let him who stole steal no more: and even better, let him labor, working with his own hands the thing that is good, that he may have something to give to him who has need" (Eph 4:28). Servants are warned against pilfering: "not purloining, but showing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things" (Tit 2:10). And Peter's list places the thief beside the murderer (1Pet 4:15). Sirach pairs the thief with the slanderer in a single shame: "Do not be called double-tongued; And with your tongue do not slander a friend. For a thief, shame was created; And reproach for the friend of the double-tongued" (Sir 5:14).
Fugitives
Flight is the natural reflex of the suspected man and the wronged man both. Moses fled Pharaoh after the killing of the Egyptian: "Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and he settled in the land of Midian after having moved to the land of Midian. And [one day] he sat down by a well" (Ex 2:15). Adoni-bezek fled Bezek but was caught (Judg 1:6). Absalom fled after the murder of Amnon: "But Absalom fled. And the young man who kept the watch lifted up his eyes, and looked, and saw that many people came upon the Horonaim road" (2Sam 13:34). Jeroboam fled Solomon's plot: "Solomon sought therefore to kill Jeroboam; but Jeroboam arose, and fled into Egypt, to Shishak king of Egypt, and was in Egypt until the death of Solomon" (1Kings 11:40). And the slaves of Shimei fled to Gath: "two of the slaves of Shimei ran away to Achish, son of Maacah, king of Gath" (1Kings 2:39).
The Maccabean histories add the sea-flight and the political fugitive: "King Antiochus pursued after him, and he fled along by the sea coast and came to Dora" (1Ma 15:11); "Tryphon fled away by ship to Orthosia" (1Ma 15:37); and Simon's right of extradition, "If therefore any treacherous men have fled out of their country to you, deliver them to Simon the high priest, that he may punish them according to their law" (1Ma 15:21).
Torah, however, distinguishes between the criminal fugitive and the runaway slave: "You will not deliver to his master a slave who escapes from his master to you" (Deut 23:15) — a rule against forced return that protects the fleeing servant. Sirach treats the same situation pastorally: "If you have but one servant, treat him as your brother, For as your own soul you have need of him; If you maltreat him, and he departs and runs away, Which way will you go to seek him?" (Sir 33:31). The fugitive in Sirach is the consequence of a master's cruelty, not the slave's vice.
Arrest and Confinement
When a person was taken, he was first "put in ward" — held while the case was sorted. The blasphemer's son in Leviticus: "they put him in ward, that it might be declared to them according to the mouth of Yahweh" (Lev 24:12). The Sabbath-stick gatherer in Numbers: "they put him in ward, because it had not been declared what should be done to him" (Num 15:34). Joseph's brothers, suspected as spies in Egypt: "And he put them all together into ward three days. And Joseph said to them the third day, Do this, and live: for I fear God: if you⁺ are true men, let one of your⁺ brothers be bound in your⁺ prison-house" (Gen 42:17-19).
After ward came prison proper. Joseph's first-person account names the institution: "Joseph's master took him, and put him into the prison, the place where the king's prisoners were bound: and he was there in the prison. But [the Speech of] Yahweh was with Joseph, and showed kindness to him, and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison committed to Joseph's hand all the prisoners who were in the prison" (Gen 39:20-22). Joseph himself protests his innocence: "I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews: and here also I have done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon" (Gen 40:15). And the cupbearer and baker are remanded "in ward in the house of the captain of the guard, into the prison, the place where Joseph was bound" (Gen 40:3) — the same facility, the captain-of-the-guard's house.
Persian Yehud knew four civil sanctions in escalating order. Ezra's commission sets them out: "And whoever will not do the law of your God, and the law of the king, let judgment be executed on him with all diligence, whether it is to death, or to banishment, or to confiscation of goods, or to imprisonment" (Ezra 7:26).
The dungeon — the hole below the prison floor — is its own image. The Egyptian firstborn span the social map "from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon" (Ex 12:29). Joseph is brought "hastily out of the dungeon" when Pharaoh summons him (Gen 41:14). The eschatological Isaiah pictures the wicked "gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and will be shut up in the prison; and after many days they will be visited" (Isa 24:22). Lamentations gives the dungeon a voice: "They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and have cast a stone on me. Waters flowed over my head; I said, I am cut off. I called on your name, O Yahweh, out of the lowest dungeon" (Lam 3:53-55).
Improvised prisons existed alongside the official ones. The princes "put him in prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe; for they had made that the prison" (Jer 37:15) — a private house turned into a "house of binding," in the UPDV footnote's literal gloss. The court of the guard inside the king's own house held Jeremiah for an extended detention while the Babylonian army besieged the city: "Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard, which was in the king of Judah's house" (Jer 32:2). And the dungeon at the bottom of that court is the worst of the architecture: "Then they took Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchijah the king's son, that was in the court of the guard: and they let down Jeremiah with cords. And in the dungeon there was no water, but mire; and Jeremiah sank in the mire" (Jer 38:6).
Fetters, Stocks, and Hard Labor
The prisoner's body was bound. Samson is the longest-running picture: "the Philistines laid hold on him, and put out his eyes; and they brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of bronze; and he ground in the prison-house" (Judg 16:21). Manasseh of Judah was taken "in chains, and bound him with fetters" (2Chron 33:11). Zedekiah was blinded and "bound in fetters, and carried him to Babylon" (2Kings 25:7), then put in prison "until the day of his death" (Jer 52:11). Jeremiah was led off "being bound in chains among all the captives of Jerusalem and Judah" before Nebuzaradan released him (Jer 40:1).
Stocks and shackles appear in priestly-judicial context. The letter to Zephaniah the priest preserves the language: "that there may be officers in the house of Yahweh, for every man who is insane, and makes himself a prophet, that you should put him in the stocks and in shackles" (Jer 29:26). Wisdom borrows the image: the fool walks "as [one in] fetters to the correction of the fool" (Prov 7:22).
Cruelty to a prisoner could go further. The Gerasene demoniac is described in those terms: "he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been rent apart by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: and no man had strength to tame him" (Mark 5:4). Sirach gives the steward's counsel for the obstinate slave-prisoner — a hard saying: "Set him to [such] works as are suited to him, And if he does not obey make his fetters heavy" (Sir 33:28).
The ration was bread and water of affliction. Ahab to Micaiah's jailer: "Put this fellow in the prison, and feed him with bread of affliction and with water of affliction, until I come in peace" (1Kings 22:27). Hard labor was the Philistine sentence on Samson and the conscript-labor sentence David imposed on the Ammonites: "he brought forth the people who were in it. And he put [them to work] with saws, and with harrows of iron, and with axes of iron. And he made them serve making bricks" (2Sam 12:31; UPDV footnotes flag a Variant Exception on this verse).
Where the keeper of the prison was kind, the narrative slows down to record it. Ebed-melech rescues Jeremiah from the mire: "Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, a eunuch, who was in the king's house, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the dungeon... My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have cast into the dungeon; and he is likely to die in the place where he is, because of the famine... Ebed-melech took the men with him, and went into the house of the king under the treasury, and took from there rags and worn-out garments, and let them down by cords into the dungeon to Jeremiah" (Jer 38:7-11). Severe hardship was sometimes mitigated by the king himself: Jeremiah's request that he not be returned to Jonathan's house was granted, and "they committed Jeremiah into the court of the guard; and they gave him daily a loaf of bread out of the bakers' street, until all the bread in the city was spent" (Jer 37:21). After the city fell, "they sent, and took Jeremiah out of the court of the guard, and committed him to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, that he should carry him home" (Jer 39:14).
Yahweh's word continued to come to Jeremiah inside the prison: "Moreover the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah the second time, while he was yet shut up in the court of the guard, saying" (Jer 33:1). The prophet inside the dungeon-house and the cells "had remained there many days" (Jer 37:16) before any intervention came.
The Executioner and the Sentence Carried Out
Capital sentences in scripture are carried out by named officers. "Then Daniel returned answer with counsel and prudence to Arioch the captain of the king's guard, who had gone forth to slay the wise men of Babylon" (Dan 2:14). The Babylonian executioner-figure is Nebuzaradan: "Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive into Babylon the rest of the people who remained in the city, the deserters also that fell away to him, and the rest of the people who remained" (Jer 39:9). The Herodian executioner is anonymous: "right away the king sent forth a soldier of his guard, and commanded to bring his head: and he went and beheaded him in the prison" (Mark 6:27) — the death of John the Baptist, who had earlier been bound there: "Herod himself had sent forth and laid hold on John, and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife" (Mark 6:17).
The methods themselves are catalogued in narrative. Stoning: the Sabbath-breaker, "all the congregation brought him outside the camp, and stoned him to death with stones; as Yahweh commanded Moses" (Num 15:36); Achan and his household, "all Israel stoned him with stones; and they burned them with fire, and heaped stones upon them" (Josh 7:25); Naboth, "they carried him forth out of the city, and stoned him to death with stones" (1Kings 21:13). Burning under God's own act: "And there came forth fire from before Yahweh, and devoured them, and they died before Yahweh" (Lev 10:2). The earth itself opening: "the earth opened its mouth, and swallowed them up, and their households" (Num 16:32). Hanging on a gallows: "they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the king's wrath was pacified" (Esth 7:10). Throwing down from a height: Jezebel — "And he said, Throw her down. So they threw her down; and some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall, and on the horses: and he trod her under foot" (2Kings 9:33). The slaying of Athaliah at the horse-gate: "they made way for her; and she went to the entrance of the horse gate to the king's house: and they slew her there" (2Chron 23:15). And the personal-vengeance reversal in Judith Maccabeus's family: "he seized the men who came to kill him, and he put them to death: for he knew that they sought to kill him" (1Ma 16:22).
Prisoners of War and the Captured Fugitive
Combat produced its own class of prisoner. The five Amorite kings flee, hide in the cave at Makkedah, are sealed in by Joshua's men until the Israelite army can return for them, and are then brought out and executed: "Joshua struck them, and put them to death, and hanged them on five trees: and they were hanging on the trees until the evening. And it came to pass at the time of the going down of the sun, that Joshua commanded, and they took them down off the trees, and cast them into the cave in which they had hidden themselves, and laid great stones on the mouth of the cave, to this very day" (Josh 10:26-27). Adoni-bezek, captured after his flight, suffers the maiming he had himself imposed: "they pursued after him, and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and his great toes. And Adoni-bezek said, Seventy kings, having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered [their food] under my table: as I have done, so God has repaid me" (Judg 1:6-7).
Prisoners taken in war could be enslaved, conscripted, or executed. The Midianite war records both extremes: "the sons of Israel took captive the women of Midian and their little ones; and all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods, they took for a prey" (Num 31:9), followed by the order, "Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has had any sex with a man" (Num 31:17). David's disposition of the Ammonites: "He brought forth the people who were in it. And he put [them to work] with saws, and with harrows of iron, and with axes of iron. And he made them serve making bricks. And thus he did to all the cities of the sons of Ammon" (2Sam 12:31). Zedekiah's sons were slain in his sight before he himself was blinded and bound in fetters (2Kings 25:7).
Lamentations sets a moral edge against the crushing of the captive: "To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth" (Lam 3:34) is named, in the verses around it, as something Yahweh does not approve.
The Death Penalty and the Unwarranted Sentence
Where the law ordered execution, the law also ordered restraint. The bloodguilt verdict in Genesis grounds the principle on the image of God in man (Gen 9:6). Numbers's rule against ransom (Num 35:31) keeps the murderer from buying his way clear, but the same chapter's distinction between the deliberate and the accidental killer protects the innocent. The cities-of-refuge clause is the legal counterweight to the avenger of blood.
The death-sentence narrative is not always righteous. Jezebel's hired witnesses at Naboth's vineyard show the form of legality used to execute an innocent man (1Kings 21:13); the king's order to Doeg falls in the same category (1Sam 22:18). And the Antiochan persecution in 1 Maccabees is the death penalty used as the engine of apostasy. The capital sentence in the law is meant to put away evil from Israel (Deut 13:9, 17:12, 21:21); the Maccabean texts show the sentence used by a foreign king to compel evil instead.
Hands Washed in Token of Innocence
A specific ritual marked the gap between the killing and the killing's responsibility. When a slain man was found in the open country and no killer could be identified, the elders of the nearest town broke the neck of a heifer in the valley and washed their hands over it: "And all the elders of that city, who are nearest to the slain man, will wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley" (Deut 21:6). The Psalmist appropriates the gesture inwardly — "I will wash my hands in innocence: So I will go about your altar, O Yahweh" (Ps 26:6) — and Asaph's lament inverts it under disillusionment: "Surely in vain I have cleansed my heart, And washed my hands in innocence" (Ps 73:13).
Barabbas, the Two Criminals, and the Released-at-the-Feast Custom
The Gospels describe a custom at the feast: "Now at the feast he used to release to them one prisoner, whom they asked of him" (Mark 15:6); "But you⁺ have a custom, that I should release to you⁺ one at the Passover: do you⁺ want therefore that I release to you⁺ the King of the Jews?" (John 18:39). UPDV does not carry the equivalent verse at Luke 23:17. The man released was Barabbas: "there was one called Barabbas, [lying] bound with those who had made insurrection, men who in the insurrection had committed murder" (Mark 15:7); "one who for a certain insurrection made in the city, and for murder, was cast into prison" (Luke 23:19); "they cried out all together, saying, Away with this man, and release to us Barabbas" (Luke 23:18); "Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber" (John 18:40).
Around Jesus' arrest the criminal-vocabulary is explicit. The arresting party comes "as against a robber, with swords and staves to seize me. I was daily with you⁺ in the temple teaching, and you⁺ didn't take me: but [this is done] that the Scriptures might be fulfilled" (Mark 14:48-49); the Lukan parallel: "As upon a robber, did you⁺ come out with swords and staves?" (Luke 22:52). John's account of the seizure: "the battalion and the colonel, and the attendants of the Jews, seized Jesus and bound him, and led him to Annas first" (John 18:12-13).
At Golgotha, Jesus is placed between two others. Mark: "with him they crucify two robbers; one on his right and one on his left" (Mark 15:27); John: "where they crucified him, and with him two others, [one] on each side, and between them [was] Jesus" (John 19:18). Luke describes the same scene with a different vocabulary: "there were also two others, criminals, led with him to be put to death. And when they came to the place which is called The skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on the right and one on the left" (Luke 23:32-33). The titulus over Jesus reads, in UPDV's wording, "THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS" (Luke 23:38) and "JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS" (John 19:19); Pilate's response, "What I have written I have written" (John 19:22).
UPDV's footnote to Luke 23:34 records that the Critical Text is at Level A certainty that the first part of that verse — "And Jesus said, Father, forgive them; for they don't know what they do" — is not original. The exchange traditionally called the "Penitent Thief" (Luke 23:40-43) is not carried in UPDV, and a footnote at Luke 23:38 records that the section from Luke 23:39 through 24:53 has been reconstructed verse by verse using forensic stylometry, commentary evidence, and the Markan parallel; the article on the Gospel of Luke gives the methodology. The PENITENT THIEF heading resolves to a single placeholder entry.
The Wrongly Imprisoned and the Word Inside the Cell
Joseph protests that he has done nothing for which he should be put into the dungeon (Gen 40:15). Jeremiah is repeatedly thrown into prison for the content of his preaching, not for any crime, and the word of Yahweh continues to come to him there: "Moreover the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah the second time, while he was yet shut up in the court of the guard" (Jer 33:1). John the Baptist is bound in Herod's prison for naming Herodias's marriage (Mark 6:17). Jesus in the high priest's house, in Pilate's hall, on the cross, is the prisoner of an unjust sentence — the criminal between criminals.
The Psalter pleads the prisoner's case to Yahweh directly. "For Yahweh hears the needy, And does not despise his prisoners" (Ps 69:33). "Let the sighing of the prisoner come before you: According to the greatness of your power, preserve those who are appointed to death" (Ps 79:11). "For he has looked down from the height of his sanctuary; From heaven Yahweh looked at the earth; To hear the sighing of the prisoner; To loose those who are appointed to death" (Ps 102:19-20). And the programmatic statement, "Yahweh looses the prisoners" (Ps 146:7).
Liberty to the Captives
The figurative use closes the topic. Isaiah names an anointed servant whose mission is the prison-door: "The Spirit of the Sovereign Yahweh is on me; because Yahweh has anointed me to preach good news to the meek; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening [of the prison] to those who are bound" (Isa 61:1). Jesus reads the same text in the Nazareth synagogue: "The Spirit of Yahweh is on me, Because he anointed me to preach good news to the poor: He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovering of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are bruised" (Luke 4:18). The criminal as figure of every captive — and the captive as the one to whom good news is preached — is the close of the topic. The dungeon, the fetter, the stocks, the prison-house, the executioner's sword, and the cross all stand in scripture under the verdict pronounced from Yahweh's sanctuary: he hears the sighing of the prisoner, he looses those appointed to death.