Verse 1 Nothing is known of this occurrence except what is here stated. The altar, on which sacrifices to God were offered, was considered a sort of sanctuary, where human life was sacred, except in extreme cases of crime, such as demanded a sudden and terrible retribution. (See Exodus 21:14; also the narrative commencing 1 Kings 2:28-46.) It seems that Pilate, the Roman governor, exasperated by some sedition of certain Galileans who had come to Jerusalem to worship, had violated this sanctuary, and slain them in the very courts of the temple, mingling their blood with the blood of their sacrifices. The persons who came to Jesus with the tidings, expected, probably, that he would be betrayed into some expressions of abhorrence for this act of violence perpetrated against his countrymen, which might be made the means of involving him in difficulty with the Roman government. Instead of this, he simply deduces from the case a great moral truth, which is aptly illustrated by it, namely, that the calamities of this life are not to be understood as tests of guilt.