John 11:50

50 You don't see that it's better for you if one man dies on behalf of the people, so that the whole nation won't be destroyed."

John 11:50 Meaning and Commentary

John 11:50

Nor consider that it is expedient for us
Priests, Levites, Pharisees, the sanhedrim, and ecclesiastical rulers of the people; who, as Caiaphas apprehended, must suffer in their characters and revenues, must quit their honourable and gainful posts and places, if Jesus went on and succeeded at this rate: wherefore it was most expedient and advantageous for them, which was the main thing to be considered in such a council, so he thought it was,

that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation
perish not;
he proceeded entirely upon this political principle, that a public good ought to be preferred to a private one; that it was no matter what the man was, whether innocent or not; common prudence, and the public safety of the nation, required him to fall a sacrifice, rather than the Romans should be exasperated and provoked to such a degree, as to threaten the utter ruin and destruction of the whole nation.

John 11:50 In-Context

48 If we let him keep going on this way, everyone will trust in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both the Temple and the nation."

49 But one of them, Kayafa, who was cohen gadol that year, said to them, "You people don't know anything!

50 You don't see that it's better for you if one man dies on behalf of the people, so that the whole nation won't be destroyed."

51 Now he didn't speak this way on his own initiative; rather, since he was cohen gadol that year, he was prophesying that Yeshua was about to die on behalf of the nation,

52 and not for the nation alone, but so that he might gather into one the scattered children of God.