Luke 22:4

Chief priests and captains. — The latter term is used by St. Luke, and by him only in the New Testament, of the officers who presided over the Levite guardians of the Temple. Here and in Luke 22:52 it is used in the plural. In Acts 4:1; Acts 5:24, we read of “the captain of the Temple,” presumably the chief officer in command. Such was in earlier times Pashur, the “governor of the house of the Lord” (Jeremiah 20:1). As watchmen the Levite sentinels carried clubs, and would use them freely against any sacrilegious intruder. The attempt to seize our Lord, recorded in John 7:32, shows why Judas applied to these officers as well as to the priests.