John Chapter 19 verse 14 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 14. - Now it was the preparation of the Passover. Once more the question of the discrepancy between the Johannine and synoptic implication of the day of our Lord's death reappears. This statement is claimed eagerly by both classes of critics. Hengstenberg, M'Clellan, Lange, Schaff, etc., all urge that the word "preparation" is simply the "Friday" before the sabbath - "the eve of the sabbath," and that τοῦ Πάσχα is added in the broad Johannine sense of the entire Paschal festival, and means the "Friday" of the Passover week, and that thus John only confirms the synoptic narrative that the Passover had been sacrificed on the previous evening. To this it is replied, by Meyer, Godet, Westcott, Farrar, etc., that this use of παρασκευή belongs to a much later period, and here it is used in the sense of the "preparation" for the Paschal meal, without interfering with the fact afterwards mentioned, that it was the pro-sabbaton, the day before the sabbath; the first day of unleavened bread coinciding with the ordinary weekly sabbath. The τοῦ πάσχα here would have no meaning for a reader, who had not learned this technical and later patristic usage. Why should not John, on that understanding, have simply used the word in the sense which the synoptists give to it, as equivalent to the προσάββατον? [There is another difficulty in the former interpretation: if our Lord was crucified on the first day of unleavened bread and after the Paschal meal, there would be a second preparation of the Passover on that day week, so that John could not have spoken of it with the precision which he used (see notes on John 13:1; 18:28).] The balance of argument, so far as John is concerned, is in favor of the Passover meat being still in prospect, and the statement is made to call attention to the fact that, as St. Paul said, "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us." Thus doubtless the blindness of the Jews is aggravated, and the typical and symbolic meaning of the correspondence between the ritual and its antitype emphasized. Another serious perplexity occurs. It was about the sixth hour. This is in manifest opposition with Mark's statement (Mark 15:25) that the Crucifixion took place at the third hour, and with all three of the synoptists, that the supernatural darkness overspread Jerusalem from the sixth to the ninth hour. This is represented as taking place after our Lord had been hanging for some time upon the cross. Some relief to this great difficulty of horology is found in the slight modification of the text from ὥρα δὲ ὡσεὶ ἕκτη of T.R. to ὥρα η΅ν ὥς ἕκτη, which may suffer the reading of Lange ("es war gegen die"), "it was going on towards the sixth hour" - the third hour, 9 a.m., was passed, and it was moving on to midday. Westcott, in an elaborate note on John's measurement of time, endeavors to prove that he always uses the Roman system of measure from midnight to midday, instead of the Oriental method of measurement from sunrise to sunset, and that he meant by the sixth hour 6 a.m., not 12 midday. But if this is possible, the perplexity is rather increased than diminished. It is difficult to imagine that this stage of the proceedings could have been reached by six o'clock a.m., and that three hours still followed before the Lord was crucified. M'Clellan hotly espouses this interpretation, and, against Farrar, maintains that the Romans did adopt this computation, by quotations from Censorinus ('De Die Nat.,' 23.), Pithy ('Nat. Hist.,' 2:77), Aulus Gellius, and Maerobius; and he reminds his readers that John wrote in Ephesus, and proves that there was an Asiatic computation of time which corresponded with the Roman, and that there is abundant time before 6 a.m. for all that is needed to have taken place. This is the interpretation of Townson ('Discourses on the Four Gospels'), and it is espoused by Cresswell, Wieseler, Ewald, Westcott, Moulton. Coder, however, gives strong proof, on John 1:39, that the Greeks of Asia Minor were familiar with the Jewish reckoning from sunrise to sunset (see notes on John 1:39; 4:6; 11:9). Eusebius supposed an alteration of the text of John, converting Γ = 3 into ς = 6. It is strange that no manuscripts have revealed the fact, though the third correcter of א and the supplement to D suggest this early solution of the difficulty. Eusebius was followed by Ammonius and Severus of Antioch. Beza, Bengel, and Alford with hesitation accept this conclusion. Luthardt, Farrar, and Schaff seem inclined to think that this may be the explanation, unless the ὡς be used with great latitude of meaning, and that what is really intended was that it was moving on to midday. The nine o'clock had been passed. Luthardt is dissatisfied with every explanation, not simply because it is inconsistent with the synoptic narrative, but because it is incompatible with John's own reckoning. Hengstenberg thought that the division of the day into four periods of three hours each is far older than either the Talmud or Maimonides (cf. Mark 13:35; Luke 12:38; Matthew 20:3, 4), and that the synoptic narrative reckoned by the terminus a quo, which, taken literally, would be too early for the act of crucifixion, and that John's reckoning points to the terminus ad quem, which, taken literally, would be too late. M'Clellan thinks this "outrageous!" though Andrewes, Lewin, Ellicott, and Lange practically adopt it. Augustine says, "At the third hour (Mark) he was crucified by the tongues of the Jews, at the sixth hour (John) by the hands of the soldiers." Da Costa suggested that the sixth hour was reckoned backward from 3 p.m., the commencement of the preparation. Mark, by using the aorist, cannot have intended to convey that the whole process of crucifixion, commencing with the scourging, including the procession to Golgotha, and the last scene of all, was included in the verb. (Hesychius argued this view at length, saying that Mark refers to the verdict of Pilate, and John to the nailing to the cross.) At the hour, thus indicated by a term which cannot be finally interpreted, Pilate, trembling with rage and impotent fury, endeavored to fling at the head of the haughty priesthood another maddening taunt, and yet with a flash of inward conviction which, after all, staggered him: he pointed once more to the sublime Sufferer, bleeding from his wounds and crowned with thorns, having every mark upon him of their insulting cruelty and insensate hate, wearing the mock and cruel habiliments of royalty, and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King! There is the King whom you have crowned, and whose claim lies altogether beyond your ken. Wavering between the favor of Tiberius and the claims of justice, remembering that Sejanus, to whom he had personally owed his own appointment, had already been a victim to the jealousy of their common master, he yet cannot suppress the bitter taunt involved in Ἴδε ὁ Βασιλεὺς ὑμῶν

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(14) And it was the preparation of the passover.--Comp. Note on Matthew 26:17, and Excursus F: The Day of the Crucifixion of our Lord.And about the sixth hour.--Comp. Notes on Matthew 27:45; Mark 15:25; Luke 23:44. St. John's statement of time (twelve o'clock) seems opposed to that of St. Mark, who states that the Crucifixion took place at "the third hour" (nine o'clock); and no solution of the discrepancy is wholly satisfactory.There are, as we may have expected, some variations of MSS., and as early as the time of Eusebius we find a suggestion that "third" should be here read for "sixth." No competent critic would, however, for a moment admit that either in the parallel in St. Mark, or in this passage, there is even a strong presumption in favour of any reading except that of the Received text.The common supposition that St. John adopted the Roman division of hours, and that by "sixth hour" he meant six o'clock is equally unsatisfactory. (Comp. Notes on John 1:39; John 4:6; John 4:52; John 11:9.) Even if it could be proved that this method was in use at the time, the fact would not help us; for if we read this text as meaning six o'clock, it is as much too early for the harmony as twelve o'clock is too late. . . .