Mark 14:12

Preparations for the Last Supper

12. the first day of unleavened bread Wednesday in Passion week would seem to have been spent by our Lord in deep seclusion at Bethany preparing Himself for the awfulness of the coming struggle, and is hidden by a veil of holy silence. That night He slept at Bethany for the last time on earth. "On the Thursday morning He awoke never to sleep again." Farrar, Life, ii. p. 275.

when they killed the passover i. e. the Paschal victim. Comp. Luke 22:7, "when the Passovermust be killed;" 1 Corinthians 5:7, "Christ our Passover(Paschal Lamb) is sacrificed for us." The name of the Passover, in Hebrew Pesach, and in Aramæan and Greek Pascha, is derived from a root which means to "step over," or to "overleap," and thus points back to the historical origin of the Festival. "And when I see the blood, I will pass overyou, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt" (Exodus 12:13).

Where wilt thou On this Thursday morning the disciples came to our Lord for instructions as to the Passover. They may have expected, considering the complete seclusion of Wednesday, that He would eat it at Bethany, for "the village was reckoned as regards religious purposes part of Jerusalem by the Rabbis, and the Lamb might be eaten there, though it must be killed at the Temple." Lightfoot, Hor. Heb.

that we go and prepare The lamb had, we may believe, already been bought on the tenth of Nisan, according to the rule of the Law (Exodus 12:3), the very day on which He, the true Paschal Lamb, entered Jerusalem in meek triumph.