Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - John 19:14 - 19:14
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Joh_19:14. Day and hour of the decisive moment, after which the narrative then proceeds with καὶ λέγει , κ . τ . λ ., without the necessity of placing ἦν δὲ … ἔκτη in a parenthesis (rather, with Lachm. and Tisch., between two points).
παρασκ . τοῦ πάσχα ] That the παρασκευή may not be understood of the weekly one, referable to the Sabbath (Joh_19:31; Joh_19:42; Luk_23:54; Mar_15:42; Mat_27:62; Josephus, Antt. xvi. 6. 2, et al.), but may be referred to the Passover feast-day, of which it was the preparation-day, John expressly subjoins τοῦ πάσχα . It was certainly a Friday, consequently also a preparation-day before the Sabbath; but it is not this reference which is here to be remarked, but the reference to the paschal feast beginning on the evening of the day, the first feast-day of which fell, according to John, on the Sabbath. The expression corresponds to the Hebr. òÆøÆá äÇôÌÆñÇç , not indeed verbally (for παρασκευή = òøåáúà ), but as to the thing. Those expositors who do not recognise the deviation of John from the Synoptics in respect of the day of Jesus’ death (see on Joh_18:28), explain it as: the Friday in the Passover week (see especially Wieseler, p. 336 f.; Wichelhaus, p. 209 f., and Hengstenberg in loc., also Riggenbach). But it is in the later ecclesiastical language that παρασκ . first denotes directly Friday (see Suicer, Thesaur.), as frequently also in the Constitt. ap., and that in virtue of the reference to be therewith supplied to the Sabbath; which, however, cannot be here supplied, since another genitival reference is expressly given. An appeal is erroneously made to the analogy of Ignat. Phil. 13. interpol., where it is said that one should not fast on the Sunday or Sabbath, πλὴν ἑνὸς σαββάτου τοῦ πάσχα ; for (1) σάββατου in and of itself is a complete designation of a day; (2) σάββ . τοῦ πάσχα here denotes by no means the Sabbath in the Easter-tide, but the Sabbath of the Easter-day, i.e. the Saturday which precedes Easter-day, Easter Saturday. All the more decidedly, however, is this harmonistic and forced solution to be rejected, since, further, all the remaining statements of time in John place the death of Jesus before the first feast-day (see on Joh_13:1, Joh_18:28); and since John, if he had had the first feast-day before him as the day of death, would not have designated the latter (subtle evasions in Hengstenberg), with such a want of distinctness and definiteness, as “the Friday in Passover” (which in truth might have also been any other of the seven feast-days), especially here, where he wishes to proceed with such precision that he states even the hour. Comp. further Bleek, Beitr. p. 114 f.; Rückert, Abendm. p. 31 ff.; Hilgenfeld, Paschastr. p. 149 f., and in his Zeitschr. 1867, p. 190. Against Schneckenburger, Beitr. p. 1 ff., who, by referring παρασκ . to the feast of harvest, likewise brings out the 15th Nisan as the day of death, but makes it a Wednesday, see Wieseler, p. 338 f.
ἕκτη ] According to the Jewish reckoning of hours, therefore twelve o’clock at noon,—again a deviation from the Synoptics, according to whom (see Mar_15:25, with which also Mat_27:45, Luk_23:44 agree) Jesus is crucified as early as nine o’clock in the morning, which variation in the determination of this great point of time includes much too large a space of time to allow us to resolve it into a mere indefiniteness in the statement of the hour, and, with Godet, following Lange, to say lightly: “the apostles had no watch in hand,” especially as according to Matt. and Luke the darkening of the earth is already expressly ascribed to the sixth hour. Since, however, with Hofmann,[239] with whom Lichtenstein agrees, we cannot divide the words: ἦν δὲ παρασκευή , τοῦ πάσχα ὥρα ἦν ὡς ἕκτη , but it was preparation-day, it was about the sixth hour of the paschal feast (reckoned, namely, from midnight forwards), which forced and artificial explanation would absolutely set aside παρασκευή , in spite of τοῦ πάσχα therewith expressed, and would yield an unexampled mode of computation of hours, namely, of the feast, not of the day (against Joh_1:40, Joh_4:6; Joh_4:52); since, further, the reading in our present passage is, both externally and internally, certain, and the already ancient assumption of a copyist’s mistake (Eusebius, Beza, ed. 5, Bengel; according to Ammonius, Severinus, τινὲς in Theophylact, Petavius: an interchange of the numeral signs γ and ς ) is purely arbitrary; since, further, as generally in John (comp. on Joh_1:40, Joh_4:6; Joh_4:52), the assumption is groundless,[240] that he is reckoning according to the Roman enumeration of hours (Rettig, Tholuck, Olshausen, Krabbe, Hug, Maier, Ewald, Isenberg; substantially so Wieseler, p. 414, who calls to his aid the first feast-day, Exo_12:29, which begins precisely at midnight); since, finally, the quarter of a day beginning with this hour cannot be made out of the third hour of Mark (Calvin, Grotius, Jansen, Wetstein, and others, comp. Krafft, p. 147; see in opposition, Mar_15:33-34), and just as little (Hengstenberg, comp. Godet) can the sixth hour of John (comp. Joh_4:6) be taken into consideration only as the time of day in question;[241]—the variation must thus be left as it is, and the preference must be given to the disciple who stood under the cross. The Johannean statement of the hour is not, however, in itself improbable, since the various proceedings in and near the praetorium, in which also the sending to Herod, Luk_23:7 ff., is to be included (see on Joh_18:38), may probably have extended from πρωΐ , Joh_18:28, until noon (in answer to Brückner); while the execution, on the adjacent place of execution, quickly followed the judicial sentence, and without any intermediate occurrence, and the death of Jesus must have taken place unusually early, not to take into account the space which ὡσεί leaves open. Comp. Marcus Gnost. in Irenaeus, Haer. i. 14. 6 : τὴν ἕκτην ὥραν , ἐν ᾗ προσηλώθη τῷ ξύλῳ . For the way, however, in which even this statement of time is deduced from the representation of the paschal lamb (the writer desired to bring out the áéï äòøáéí , Exo_12:6; Lev_23:5; Num_9:3), see in Weisse, Evangelienfrage, p. 131.
ἼΔΕ Ὁ ΒΑΣΙΛ . ὙΜῶΝ !] Pilate is indeed determined, on ascending his judicial seat, to overcome his sentiment of right; but, notwithstanding, in this decisive moment, with his moral weakness between the twofold fear of the Son of God and of the Caesar, he still, before actually yielding, makes the bitter remark against the Jews: see, there is your king! imprudently, without effect, but at least satisfying in some degree the irony of the situation, into the pinch of which he sees himself brought.
[239] In the Zeitschr. f. Prot. u. Kirche, 1853, Oct. p. 260 ff., and Schriftbew. II. 2, p. 204 f.
[240] In fact, it is precisely in the present passage that the inadmissibility of the Roman enumeration of hours is shown. For if Jesus was brought πρωΐ , Joh_18:28, to the praetorium, it is impossible that after all the transactions which here took place, including the scourging, mocking, and also the sending to Herod (who questioned Him ἐν λόγοις ἱκανοῖς , Luk_23:9, and derided Him), the case can have been matured for sentence as early as six o’clock in the morning, that is, at the end of about two, or at most three hours.
[241] On this theory Hengstenberg forms the certainly very simple example: the combination of the statements of Mark and John yields the result, that the sentence of condemnation and the leading away falls in the middle, between the third and sixth hour, therefore about 10.30 o’clock. Were this correct, the statements of both evangelists would be incorrect, and we should avoid Scylla to fall into Charybdis.—Godet only renews the idle subterfuge that in Mar_15:25 the crucifixion is reckoned from the scourging forwards.