John 19:14

It was the preparation of the Passover, and the sixth hour.

John marks the exact time when this remarkable judgment was rendered. It was about six o'clock in the morning, on Friday, the day of preparation for the Passover. Mark says that the crucifixion began at the third hour, nine o'clock, as the Hebrews began to count at six. John wrote many years later, after Jerusalem had fallen, among people who began to count at midnight, as did all the Roman world, and he therefore used their language and called six o'clock the sixth hour, as we do, rather than the first hour as the Hebrews did.

Another difficulty occurs in the preparation for the Passover.

Christ and his apostles had eaten the Passover already. How then could it be that that was the preparation day? Amid conflicting views. can only give what seems to me the best solution: 1. It is certain that Christ ate. meal the evening before in the Upper Room which was called. Passover. 2. It is certain from John 18:28, that the Jews had not eaten the Passover at that time. 3. It seems clear to me that Christ, anxious to eat this Passover (see Luke 22:15), ate it in advance of the usual time, in order that he, the true Paschal Lamb, "Our Passover," might be offered on the same day that the Passover was eaten. The priests hurried the trial and execution of Jesus so that they might proceed to the preparation for the Passover that evening. As the Lord's supper was anticipatory of the suffering on the cross, so was the Lord's last Passover.