Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 27:26

"Then released he unto them Barabbas; but Jesus he scourged and delivered to be crucified." — Matthew 27:26 (ASV)

When he had scourged Jesus — The word used by St. Matthew, derived from the Latin flagellum, shows that it was the Roman punishment with knotted thongs of leather (like the Russian “knout” or the English “cat”), not the Jewish beating with rods (2 Corinthians 11:24–25). The pictures of the Stations of the Cross, so widely used throughout the Latin church, have made many people more familiar with the nature of this punishment than most English speakers are.

The prisoner was stripped—sometimes entirely, sometimes to the waist—and tied by the hands to a pillar, with his back bent to receive the full force of the blows. The scourge was made of stout leather and weighted with lead or pieces of bone.

Jewish law limited its penalty to forty stripes, which was reduced in practice to “forty stripes save one” (2 Corinthians 11:24; Deuteronomy 25:3). Roman practice, however, knew no limit but the cruelty of the executioner or the physical endurance of the sufferer.