And the people stood beholding,.... This dismal and affecting sight; insulting and reviling him, and wagging their heads at him, as did also those that passed by: and the rulers also with them derided him; the chief priests, Scribes, and elders, the members of the sanhedrim, whose characters should have restrained them from such an inhuman conduct. The phrase, "with them", is wanting in the Oriental versions, and in one of Beza's copies: saying, he saved others; by healing their diseases, or raising them from the dead: let him save himself; from death, by unnailing himself, and coming down from the cross; See Gill on Mat 27:42. if he be Christ; the Messiah, he and his followers give out he is; even the chosen of God, referring to Isa 42:1. The Arabic version reads, "the chosen Son of God", very wrongly; for Christ was not chosen to be the Son of God; he was so by nature; but he was chosen to be a servant, as the text cited shows, to be a Mediator between God and man, and the Saviour of his people.