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Specific Bible Studies - Jesus Part 3 F
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PART 3-----ITEM F-----The Day of the Week of the Crucifixion---- Appendix 156 of the Companion Bible
Resource: Bullinger's Companion Bible Appendix 156
In this Companion Appendix, the author takes a close look at the 6 days before the Passover, as recorded in the scripture, to prove what day of the week the crucifixion took place and how long Jesus was in the grave. Following is just an excerpt of this Appendix.
"Six Days Before The Passover" (John 12:1).
We are furnished by Scripture with certain facts and fixed points which, taken together, enable us (1) to determine the events which filled up the days of "the last week" of our Lord's life on earth; (2) to fix the day of His crucifixion; and (3) to ascertain the duration of the time He remained in the tomb.
The difficulties connected with these three have arisen (1) from not having noted these fixed points; (2) from the fact of Gentiles' not having been conversant with the law concerning the three great feasts of the LORD; and (3) from not having reckoned the days as commencing (some six hours before our own) and running from sunset to sunset, instead of from midnight to midnight.
To remove these difficulties, we must note :-
That the first day of each of the three feasts. Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, was " a holy convocation", a "sabbath" on which no servile work was to be done. See Leviticus 23:7, 24, 35. Compare Exodus 12:16.
"That sabbath" and the "high day" of John 19:31, was the "holy convocation", the first day of the feast, which quite overshadowed the ordinary weekly sabbath.
It was called by the Jews Yom tov = (Good day), and this is the greeting on that day throughout Jewry down to the present time.
This great sabbath, having been mistaken from the earliest times for the weekly sabbath, has led to all the confusion.
This has naturally caused the futher difficulty as to the Lord's statement that "even as Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights, so shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights" (Matthew 12:40). Now, while it is quite correct to speak according to Hebrew idiom of "three days" or "three years", while they are only parts of three days or three years, yet that idiom does not apply in a case like this, where "three nights" are mentioned in addition to "three days". It will be noted that the Lord not only definitely states this, but repeats the full phraseology, so that we may not mistake it.
We have therefore the following facts furnished for our sure guidance:
The "high day" of John 19:31 was the first day of the feast.
The "first day of the feast" was on the 15th day of Nisan.
The 15th day of Nisan, commenced at sunset [even] on what we should call the 14th.
"Six days before the passover" (John 12:1) takes us back to the 9th day of Nisan.
"After two days is the passover" (Matthew 26:2. Mark 14:1) takes us to the 13th day of Nisan.
"The first day of the week", the day of the resurrection (Matthew 28:1, etc.), was from our Saturday sunset [even] to our Sunday sunset [even]. This fixes the days of the week, just as the above fix the days of the month, for:
Reckoning back from this, "three days and three nights" (Matthew 12:40), we arrive at the day of the burial, which must have been before sunset [even], on the 14th of Nisan; that is to say, before our Wednesday sunset [even].
This makes the sixth day before the passover (the 9th day of Nisan) to be our Thursday sunset [even] to Friday sunset [even]. >
Therefore Wednesday, Nisan 14th (commencing on the Tuesday at sunset [even]), was "the preparation day", on which the crucifixion took place: for all four Gospels definitely say that this was the day on which the Lord was buried (before our Wednesday sunset [even]), "because it was the preparation [day]" the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, "for that sabbath day was a high day", and, therefore, not the ordinary seventh day, or weekly sabbath. See John 19:31.
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