Barabbas Barabbas Barabbas (; "Bar ʾAbbaʾ", literally "son of the father") is a figure mentioned in the New Testament of the Bible, in which he is an insurrectionary held by the Roman governor at the same time as Jesus, and whom Pontius Pilate freed at the Passover feast in Jerusalem, while keeping Jesus as a prisoner. According to all four canonical gospels there was a prevailing Passover custom in Jerusalem that allowed or required Pilate, the "" or governor of Judea, to commute one prisoner's death sentence by popular acclaim, and the "crowd" ("ochlos"), "the Jews" and "the multitude" in some
Matthew 27:62 advocates for Jesus' death. This same pairing occurred at . Davies and Allison also note that this scene is similar in wording to , where the Jewish leaders plot against the infant Jesus. The description of the petitioners coming "together to Pilate" implies a formal and solemn meeting. Historically the Pharisees and the priests were fierce rivals. Their scheming together is thus a sign of how great a threat Jesus is to the ruling powers in Matthew's story. Matthew 27:62 Matthew 27:62 is the sixty-second verse of the twenty-seventh chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. This