John 11:57

ἐντολάς for ἐντολήν, with אBIaM against AD.

57. οἱ�. οἱ Φ. see on John 7:32. The verse explains why the people doubted His coming to the Feast. Note that once more the Sadducean hierarchy takes the lead. Comp. John 11:47; John 12:10; John 18:3; John 18:35; John 19:6; John 19:15; John 19:21. In the history of the Passion the Pharisees are mentioned only once (Matthew 27:62), and then, as here, after the chief priests.

ἐντολάς. This is the better reading, which has been altered to ἐντολήν because only one command was given: comp. our phrase ‘to give orders.’ We have a similar use of ἐντολάς in Colossians 4:10, if ἐντολὰς refers to ἐὰν ἕλθῃ δέξασθε αὐτόν. Here the plural may indicate repetition of the order.

ἵνα … πιάσωσιν. see on John 4:47; John 7:30. The decree for His arrest had been published; the sentence of death was probably kept secret. But the Babylonian Gemara preserves a tradition that “an officer for 40 days publicly proclaimed that this man, who had seduced the people by his imposture, ought to be stoned, and that any one who could say aught in his defence was to come forward and speak. But no one doing so he was hanged on the eve of the Passover.”