Lightfoot says, " The Sabbatical candles which were lighted iD honour of the Sabbath were now set up." He also gives a quotation from a Rabbinical writer, which says, " By the light of the fourteenth day they made a search for leayen by the light of a candle/'
Poole says that some refer the expression to the eveniiig star which was beginning to rise. Cocceius thinks it must mean the next morning. '
Campbell says, ** In all other nations but the Jewish, it was customary to reckon the morning the first part of the day, and the evening the second. Luke, who according to Eusebius had lived much among the Gentiles and those who used this style of speaking, would insensibly acquire a habit of using if*
Alford considers that St. Luke employed "a natural word, used of the conventional day beginning at sunset."
I believe this last explanation to be the right one. We use several expressions ourselves, such as the sim "rising" and '* setting," which are not strictly accurate and scientifically correct. But they are the only expressions that the most would understand. If Luke had said, '' The Sabbath began to grow dusky or gloomy," no Gentile reader would have understood him.
55. — [Tfie women who, dc] This verse is meant to show us, that friends of our Lord who could not possibly be mistaken as to His identity, were witnesses to the fact of His burial, and actually saw His body laid in the grave. They saw the linen in which He was wrapped, and could therefore testify two days after, that the very same linen was found wrapped together in the empty tomb.
56. — [They prepared spices and ointment.] This shows that the women were fully satisfied that our Lord was dead, and had also no expectation that He would rise again.
[Rested the Sabbath Day.] Burgon remarks, "These pious women, eager as they were to perform the last offices of love to their Lord, yet would not transgress the commandment. How blessed was the result ! How unblessed would have been the impatient yielding to their own inclination ! Had they pre- sented themselves sooner at the grave, they would have been grieved by the presence or molested by the rudeness of the Boman soldiers; while their purpose could not possibly have been effected. By waiting till the Sabbath was past, they found the guard dispersed, and their Lord already risen. They un- bound those limbs alive, which they had come to weep over and anoint in death."