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7X

Yeshua invoked unconsciousness after the first blow of the Roman flagellum. The soldiers tried to rouse him with water but to no avail. Seeing he was  not dead, the  Romans proceeded  with the flogging as  ordered,  which  had  the  effect  of  practically skinning him alive. When Yeshua was conscious again  his teeth chattered from shock, and he was a gruesome sight.

The Romans,   it  was  universally  conceded,   had  a  certain engineering genius  when it  came  to  building arenas,  roads, bridges, and aqueducts. They applied the same  acumen to  the death penalty. In Jerusalem the Romans liked to run a practical joke when they crucified men. Near Damascus Gate the cross had a platform of wood for the feet, bristling with  nails pointy end up, and a second platform was laminated under it to prevent the nails from being pushed out. They tied prisoners to the cross by his wrists  with ropes,  but  let  their  legs kick  free. The victim's own body weight made it impossible to breathe unless he brought his head to a level with his arms. After his arms were exhausted he must do that by standing on something.

In the case of the cross near Damascus Gate,  the only thing to stand on was a little bed of sharp nails. Invariably the victims "volunteered" to impale their  own feet  on the  nails, because continued life was important to them early  in the crucifixion. Later, after a day or two of this, continued life was worth much less to them. Very soon after the prisoner had  perforated his own feet just  to stay  alive,  the Roman  soldiers lashed  his ankles to the cross to make sure he could not change his mind in the hours or days to come.

After that  he  transformed  into  a  reciprocating  engine  of suffering. When the prisoner  died  of  thirst and  shock  and exposure after a number of days, it was a simple thing to tug on the arm ropes and haul the  prisoner's feet from the  points of the nails. That way the same cross could be  used again, as the one at the north gate frequently was.

Now it was Yeshua's turn. Each wrist was secured by a knot with several turns of rope. The two ropes had been  passed through iron rings at the ends of the crossbeam. The Romans hauled him up and tied the ropes off at another iron ring mounted under the little bed of nails. From experience Longinus, the centurion who was supervising the execution, knew just how much slack to leave in Yeshua's body  to maximize  his  suffering But  after a  few moments he grew dismayed. Yeshua, silent now, had sagged against the cross and showed no sign of attempting to preserve his life by pulling himself up to  breathe. His feet remained dangling, entirely motionless, along the vertical post.