Luke 23:54

παρασκευῆς, אBL, Vulg[394] Copt. Sah[395] La[396] Ti[397]

[394] Vulg. Vulgate.
[395] Sah. Sahidic Version.
[396] La. Lachmann.
[397] Ti. Tischendorf.

54. παρασκευῆς. This word παρασκευὴ became the ordinary Greek word for Friday, because on Friday the Jews diligently prepared for the Sabbath, which began at sunset. The afternoon is called προσάββατον in Mark 15:42. Jos. Antt. XVI. 6. We are told that Shammai, the almost contemporary founder of the most rigid school of legalists, used to spend the whole week in meditating how he could best observe the Sabbath. Caspari rightly observes that if the day of the Crucifixion had been Nisan 15 the actual day of the Passover Feast, and not Nisan 14 the day before the Feast, it is inconceivable that St Luke should merely have used the ordinary Jewish word for Friday, and spoken of the day, not as the Great Passover Day, but only as the Preparation for the Sabbath.

ἐπέφωσκεν. Literally, “began to dawn.” This expression is used, although the Sabbath began at sunset (Mark 15:42), because the whole period of darkness was regarded as anticipatory of the dawn. Hence the Rabbis sometimes called the evening of Friday ‘the daybreak.’ When St John (John 19:31) calls the coming Sabbath “a high day,” the expression seems clearly to imply that it was both the Sabbath and the day of the Passover.