Charles Ellicott Commentary Luke 22:4

"And he went away, and communed with the chief priests and captains, how he might deliver him unto them." — Luke 22:4 (ASV)

Chief priests and captains. The latter term is used by Luke, and only by him in the New Testament, to refer to the officers who presided over the Levite guardians of the Temple. Here and in Luke 22:52, it is used in the plural. In Acts 4:1 and Acts 5:24, we read of the captain of the Temple, presumably the chief officer in command. In earlier times, Pashur was such an officer, the governor of the house of the Lord (Jeremiah 20:1). As watchmen, the Levite sentinels carried clubs and would use them freely against any sacrilegious intruder. The attempt to seize our Lord, recorded in John 7:32, shows why Judas applied to these officers as well as to the priests.