John Lightfoot on John 19:13

[In a place that is called the Pavement.] What is it could be objected against it, should we say, that the evangelist, by this title of the Pavement, should mean the room Gazith, where the Sanhedrim sat? and that, when the Jews would not go into Pilate's judgment hall, he would himself go into theirs?

Aristeas tells us concerning the Temple, "that it looked towards the east, the back parts of it towards the west; but the floor was all paved with stone." To this the Talmudists all witness; and to the Pavement especially Josephus by a memorable story: "One Julian, a centurion in Titus' army, pursuing and killing the Jews with infinite hardness and strength, in the very court of the Temple, having many and very sharp nails fastened to the bottom of his shoes, as every other soldier had, and running along upon the pavement, his heels tripped up, and he fell backward," &c.

But had not the room Gazith a pavement laid in a more than ordinary manner? Whence else had it its name? "It is called the room Gazith (saith Aruch), because it was paved with smooth square stone." Were not all the other places so too?

They distinguish between bricks, half bricks, squared hewn stones, and rough or unhewn. Now, therefore, when there were so many apartments about the courts, were those all paved with rough stone or bricks, and this only of square and hewn stone? Without doubt the whole building was much more uniform. And then we shall hardly find out any more probable reason why this place was particularly and above all other rooms called Gazith, but that it was laid with a more noble and rich pavement than all the rest. And, therefore, what should forbid that the Pavement, should not in this place be meant of the room Gazith?

Obj. But Gazith was in the holy place; and it was not lawful for Pilate, being a Gentile, to enter there.

Sol. I. If he would do it 'per fas et nefas' who could hinder him?

II. It is a question whether he could not sit in that room, and yet be within the bounds of the Court of the Gentiles, into which it was lawful for a Gentile to enter. Half of that room, indeed, was within the court of Israel; but there the fathers of the council themselves did not sit, because it was lawful for none to sit in that court but the king only. The other half part in which they sat was in Chel, and extended itself, as it should seem, into the Court of the Gentiles. For if Chel was but ten cubits' breadth within the walls, it would be much too narrow a room for seventy men to sit in, if the Gazith did not extend itself a little within the Court of the Gentiles.

[But in the Hebrew, Gabbatha.] The Syriac renders it by a mound or fence: which may fall in with what we have said: for Chel, which was part of this room, was the fence to all the courts, excepting the Court of the Gentiles.

That Gab, amongst other things, signifies a surface, doth not stand in need of much proof: and so the pavement and surface of the floor are convertible...What if that in Jerusalem Sanhedrim [fol. 18. 3.] should be rendered, the elders that sit in the upper 'Gab' in the Mount of the Temple. But we will not contend.