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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - Luke 23:54 - 23:54
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Greek, subbaton epefwske, the sabbath shined. What preparation was here intended, whether to the weekly sabbath of the Jews, (that it was most certainly), or to the passover also, which some will have to have been this year put off to that day, because of the concurrence of the weekly and the annual feast, I shall not determine, though the most judicious interpreters skilled in the Hebrew writings, think the passover this year was kept in its season, the night before.
And the sabbath, that is, the seventh day, drew on. The Greek word signifies shined, the propriety of which term hath cost critics some pains to make out, for it rather began to be dark than lightsome, their sabbath beginning after the setting of the sun. Some think the word referred to the evening star, which began to shine. Others, that it referred to a lamp or candle, which they were wont to set up, they call it luminare discriminationis, the light of discrimination, which being set up in their several families, the sabbath was accounted to be begun. Others think it referred to the following day. But there need not much labour in the case, for by the same reason that it is said, the evening and the morning made the sabbath day, the sabbath might be said epifwskein (that is, to begin) when it began to be dark, not taking the word in a proper, but in a metaphorical sense.