What happened when He answered Pilate? Or when he confronted those ready to stone the woman? (He wasn’t trying to defend Himself when He spoke to the Sanhedrin, and He didn’t give the entertainment-hungry Herod the time of day.)
Why not speak? The usual explanation is so that what needed to happen would happen, but when God’s involved I look for multiple reasons.
Given what He’d shown He could do with just words or writing in the dust, I suspect He could have argued Himself free from His captors. But would that have changed any hearts? Pilate decided Jesus was innocent, and tried to free Him, but lacked the courage to defend “Roman Justice;” and reports about his later life suggest that there was no conversion. If words were enough, words would have been used instead.
Alternatively, perhaps He had said all that He needed to, and they could pay attention to it or not.
Ezekiel 20 has the well-known warning that God “will not be inquired of” by the idolaters who sacrifice their children, presumably because they justify themselves instead of turning back. It also has the evocative phrase which I’d never noticed before: “and I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples.” That’s a good description of the 1900-year diaspora. (It also describes how I feel in great city crowds.) Lots of people, but wild and unfriendly.
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