John 19:34

But one of the soldiers λόγχῃ αὐτοῦ τὴν πλευρὰν ἔνυξε, “pierced His side with a spear”. But Field prefers “pricked His side” to keep up the distinction between ἔνυξε (the milder word) and ἐξεκέντησε (John 19:37). He favours the idea of Loesner that the soldier's intention was to ascertain whether Jesus was really dead, and he cites a very apt parallel from Plutarch's Cleomenes, 37. But ἔγχεϊ νύξε occurs in Homer (Il., John v. 579), where death followed, and as the wound inflicted by this spear thrust seems to have been a hand-breadth wide (John 20:25) it may be presumed the soldier meant to make sure that Jesus was dead by giving Him a thrust which itself would have been fatal. The weapon with which the blow was inflicted was a λόγχη, the ordinary Roman hasta, which had an iron head, egg-shaped, and about a hand-breadth at the broadest part. Following upon the blow εὐθὺς ἐξῆλθεν αἷμα καὶ ὕδωρ. Dr. Stroud (Physical Cause of the Death of Christ) advocates the view that our Lord died from rupture of the heart, and thus accounts both for the speedy cessation of life and for the effusion of blood and water. Previous literature on the subject will be found in the Critici Sacri and select passages in Burton's Bampton Lec., 468 9. Without physiological knowledge John records simply what he saw, and if he had an eye to the Docetae, as Waterland (John v. 190) supposes, yet his main purpose was to certify the real death of Jesus. The symbolic significance of the blood and water so abundantly insisted on by the Fathers (see Burton, B. L., 167 72, and Westcott's additional note) is not within John's horizon.