"19 Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. 2 And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. 3 They came up to him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and struck him with their hands. 4 Pilate went out again and said to them, “See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him.” 5 So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!” 6 When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.” 7 The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God.” 8 When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. 9 He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer."
John 19:1-9
The reason why Pilate took Jesus and scourged Him was probably twofold - (i) he may have thought that scourging Jesus might satisfy the Jews, and that seeing this bleeding backed figure might put them in a frame of mind in which they would say, 'Let us call it a day, He has got His deserts, and that is enough'. Pilate was thus still temporising, trying to satisfy everyone and save his own face at the same time and quieten his own violated conscience; (ii) they had charged Him with treason; He was claiming to be a king, and now the governor had Him dressed up in robes of mockery and derision, took the bedraggled, bleeding Figure before the crowds and said, 'Behold the man!' A King? Is this your king? - as if to convince the Jews that they must be mistaken in thinking that such a contemptible figure could ever have claimed to be a king, or be a serious rival to Caesar. But they were not to be thus easily put off. So far as they were concerned, the die was cast; they were determined to have Him put to death. We note that twice in these verses, and once earlier (18:38) Pilate testifies that he could find no fault in Jesus. One wonders whether John is setting this threefold testimony to our Lord's innocence over against Peter's threefold denial. It is perhaps significant, in view of Pilate's testimony, that the Jews switch once more in 7 to the charge of blasphemy, abandoning the other - treason - since it is clear that the governor is refusing such a charge. It is also highly significant that he is no longer contemptuous, as he was in 18:31, at the mention of Jesus' claim to be the Son of God, but afraid (8). For now he had met and spoken with Jesus, and his whole soul had been challenged to the depths. And now (9) he is asking the profoundest of all questions, the question that John has been at pains to evoke throughout his entire gospel. So great was the impact Jesus had upon this unscrupulous Roman!