Note Note 5 — NOTES TO CHAPTER 34.

5. "His Blood be on us, and on Our Children."—Edersheim (vol. 2, p. 578) thus forcefully comments on the acknowledgment of responsibility for the death of Christ: "The Mishna tells us that, after the solemn washing of hands of the elders and their disclaimer of guilt, priests responded with this prayer: 'Forgive it to thy people Israel, whom thou hast redeemed, O Lord, and lay not innocent blood upon thy people Israel.' But here, in answer to Pilate's words, came back that deep, hoarse cry: 'His blood be upon us,' and—God help us!—'on our children.' Some thirty years later, and on that very spot, was judgment pronounced against some of the best in Jerusalem; and among the 3,600 victims of the governor's fury, of whom not a few were scourged and crucified right over against the Pretorium, were many of the noblest of the citizens of Jerusalem. (Josephus, Wars, xiv, chap. 8:9). A few years more, and hundreds of crosses bore Jewish mangled bodies within sight of Jerusalem. And still have these wanderers seemed to bear, from century to century, and from land to land, that burden of blood; and still does it seem to weigh 'on us and on our children'."