The " pavement " means tlie marble, or Mosaic levelled space on wLicli the judge's chair was placed. Parkhurst says that Roman Governors used sometimes to carry with them tlie mate- rials to form such a pavement.
The word "Gabbatha," according to Hammond, is more Syriac than Hebrew ; " According to the custom of the New Testa- ment, which calls Syriac, at that time the vulgar language of the Jews, Hebrew." Parkhurst says that the word means lit- erally a raised place ; and remarks that John does not mean in this verse that Gabbatha means pavement, — but that the same place which in Greek was called " pavement," was called in Hebrew " the raised place."
[And it was. ..preparation of the passover.] This remarkable expression cannot mean that " this was the hour for preparing the passover meal," for it was not. It means, " this was the day before the great sabbath of the passover week, a day well known among the Jews as the preparation, or day of preparing for the passover sabbath, which was peculiarly a high day." St. Mark expressly says this in his account of the passion. (Mark xv. 42.) That all the Jewish feasts had their " eves," or preparation days, is quite clear from Rabbinical writers.
We should observe how accurately and precisely John marka the day of the crucifixion.
[And about the sixth hour.] This expression raises a grave difficulty, and one which in every age has perplexed the minds of Bible readers. The difficulty lies in the fact that Mark in his Gospel expressly says, " it was the third hour, and they crucified Him " (Mark xv. 25) ; while John in this place says our Lord was only condemned at the sixth hour ! Yet both Evangelists wrote by inspiration, and both were incapable of making a mistake. How then are we to reconcile and harmo- nize these two conflicting statements. The solutions of the difficulty suggested are many and various.
{a) Some say, as the rationalistic writers, that one of the two Evangelists made a blunder, and that one of the accounts there- fore is false. This is a solution which will satisfy no reverent- minded Christian. If Bible writers could make blunders like this, there is no such thing as inspiration, and there is an end of all confidence in Scripture as an infallible guide.
(&) Some say, as Theophylact, Beza, Nonnus (in his poetical paraphrase), Tittman, Leigh, Usher (vol. vii. 176), Kuinoel, Bengel, Pearce, Alford, Scott, and Bloomfield, that the discrep- ancy has probably been caused by an error of the manuscript writers, and that the true reading in St. John should be ** third," and not " sixth hour." This, however, is a very short- cut road out of the difficulty, and the immense proportion of old manuscripts are flatly against it.