Reverend Hale is compared to Pontius Pilate by John Proctor at the end of Act Two. News has arrived that Rebecca Nurse has been arrested for witchcraft, just as Elizabeth Proctor is being arrested as well. Hale tries to insist that if she is innocent, the court will send her home unscathed, and John yells, "Pontius Pilate! God will not let you wash your hands of this!"

Pilate was the governor of Judea who gave the crowd the chance to save either Barabbas, a notorious prisoner and murderer, or Jesus, who he felt did not deserve to be crucified. However, when the crowd defied his expectations and chose to pardon Barabbas instead of Jesus, Pilate did nothing to stop Jesus' execution. Instead, he symbolically washed his hands and declared himself innocent of Jesus' blood and not responsible for Jesus' death. Now, Hale knows that Rebecca Nurse is innocent and he is there when Mary Warren says that she hid the needle in her poppet's stomach (so Elizabeth did not push it in as part of some witchcraft designed to hurt Abigail Williams), and yet Hale does nothing to stand up to these clearly unjust accusations. He simply declares that the court will surely release the women if they are, indeed, innocent. In a way, then, he figuratively washes his hands of responsibility for their welfare, just as Pilate did.