<p>15:18 <i>And they began to salute him: Hail, King of the Jews</i>- <i>&quot;</i>Hail&quot; is literally, 'Be happy'. J.D. Crossan mentions a Jewish tradition, quoting Mishnah passages to support it, that the bruised scapegoat had scarlet wool tied to it, and that the Jews spat on the scapegoat in order to place their sins upon it (J.D. Crossan, <i>Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography </i>(San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994)). It could be that the Roman soldiers were doing all this in mockery of this tradition. It would have given the Lord something more to fill His holy mind with. He knew that He was actually doing what they were mockingly suggesting- carrying Israel&rsquo;s sins. God worked even through the spitting and mocking of men to work out the finest details of our redemption. The spitting is in the context of their mocking His Kingship. &ldquo;Hail, King of the Jews &ldquo;was in parody of &lsquo;Ave, Caesar&rsquo;. It was customary to give a kiss of homage to royalty. Their parody of this was to spit at Him, in the face, according to the type of Job 30:10. Earlier, at the trial, the Jews had spat in His face (Mt. 26:67). Now He tasted Roman spittle. And this was the face from which the glory of God had shone (Mk. 9:15?). One of the themes of the crucifixion records is that the same abuse and suffering was repeated to the Lord. Hence the frequent usage of the continuous tense. During the trial by Pilate, the Lord underwent mock worship and spitting (Jn. 19:3). Then later it was mock worship, spitting, hitting on the head (Mt. 27:29,30). And then hitting on the head, spitting, mock worship (Mk. 15:19,20). It seems they alternated bruising / spitting on Christ with bruising / kneeling before Him in mock homage. The reed was used as a mock diadem, although instead of touching His shoulder with it they hit Him on the head with it. They put it in His hand as a sceptre and then snatched it back to hit Him on the head with it. Wave after wave of the same treatment. Notice how many times the word &ldquo;again&quot; features in the Greek text (<i>palin</i>). This is the essence of our temptations. And it was a big theme in the Lord's final human experience. Likewise a comparison of the records shows that &quot;Come down...&quot; was clearly said more than once, the continuous tenses notwithstanding (Mt. 27:40 cp. Mk. 15:30). However, it is worth cataloguing the use of continuous tenses in this part of the record: The crowd <i>kept on </i>crying out (as demons did), &quot;Crucify him&quot; (Mt. 27:23); the soldiers <i>kept on</i> clothing Him (Mt. 27:28), <i>kept on </i>coming to Him and kept on saying... (Jn. 19:3 Gk.), Pilate <i>kept on seeking</i> (imperfect) to deliver the Lord (Jn. 19:12), thereby agitating the tension in the Lord's mind. They <i>kept on </i>kneeling (27:29), <i>kept on </i>spitting (v.30), <i>kept on </i>passing in front of Him on the cross and <i>kept on</i> shaking their heads (v. 39), <i>kept on </i>saying &quot;...save thyself&quot;, <i>kept on </i>mocking and asking Him to come down from the cross (vv. 40,41), the soldiers <i>kept on</i> coming to Him and offering Him their vinegar in mock homage (Lk. 23:36), they <i>kept on</i> offering Him the pain killer. They <i>kept on and on and on</i>. This is an undoubted theme.</p>