St. John has omitted all that passed in the house of Caiaphas-the accusations brought against Christ-the false witnesses-the insults which he received in the house of the high priest-and the assembling of the grand council, or Sanhedrin. These he found amply detailed by the other three evangelists; and for this reason it appears that he omitted them. John's is properly a supplementary Gospel.

Lest they should be defiled] The Jews considered even the touch of a Gentile as a legal defilement; and therefore would not venture into the praetorium, for fear of contracting some impurity, which would have obliged them to separate themselves from all religious ordinances till the evening, Lev. xv. 10, 11, 19, 20.

That they might eat the passover.] Some maintain that to pasca here does not mean the paschal lamb, but the other sacrifices which were offered during the paschal solemnity- for this had been eaten the evening before; and that our Lord was crucified the day after the passover. Others have maintained that the paschal lamb is here meant; that this was the proper day for sacrificing it; that it was on the very hour in which it was offered that Christ expired on the cross; and that therefore our Lord did not eat the Paschal lamb this year, or that he ate it some hours before the common time. Bishop Pearce supposes that it was lawful for the Jews to eat the paschal lamb any time between the evening of Thursday and that of Friday. He conjectures too that this permission was necessary on account of the immense number of lambs which were to be killed for that purpose.

When Cestius desired to know the number of the Jews, he asked the priests how he might accomplish his wish? They informed him that this might be known by the number of the lambs slain at the passover, as never less than ten partook of one lamb, though twenty might feast on it. On this mode of computation he found the lambs to be 256,500; eikosi pente muriadav hriqmhsan, prov de exakiscilia kai pentakosia. See Josephus, War, b. vi. c. 9. s. 3.

That Jesus ate a passover this last year of his life is sufficiently evident from Matt. xxvi. 17-19; Mark xiv. 12-18; Luke xxii. 8-15; and that he ate this passover some hours before the ordinary time, and was himself slain at that hour in which the paschal lamb was ordered by the law to be sacrificed, is highly probable, if not absolutely certain. See the note on Matthew xxvi. 20, and at the conclusion of the chapter, where the subject, and the different opinions on it, are largely considered.

John Gill's Bible Commentary

They did not think it lawful to rent out a house in Judea to an Heathen f675 , or to assist in building a Basilica for them; which they explain to be a palace, in which judges sit to judge men f676 : hence the reason of their caution, and which they were the more observant of, that they might eat the passover ; pure and undefiled; not the passover lamb, for that they had eaten the night before; but the �Chagigah�, or feast on the fifteenth day of the month. Many Christian writers, both ancient and modern, have concluded from hence, that Christ did not keep his last passover, at the same time the Jews did; and many things are said to illustrate this matter, and justify our Lord in it: some observe the distinction of a sacrificial, and commemorative passover; the sacrificial passover is that, in which the lamb was slain, and was fixed to a certain time and place, and there was no altering it; the commemorative passover is that, in which no lamb is slain and eaten, only a commemoration made of the deliverance of the people of Israel out of Egypt; such as is now kept by the Jews, being out of their own land, where sacrifice with them is not lawful; and this it is supposed our Lord kept, and not the former: but it does not appear that there was such a commemorative passover kept by the Jews, in our Lord�s time, and whilst the temple stood: and supposing there was such an one allowed, and appointed for those that were at a distance from Jerusalem, and could not come up thither, (which was not the case of Christ and his disciples,) it is reasonable to conclude, that it was to be kept, and was kept at the time the sacrificial passover was, in the room of which it was substituted, as it is by the Jews to this day; so that this will by no means clear the matter, nor solve the difficulty; besides it is very manifest, that the passover our Lord kept was sacrificial; and such an one the disciples proposed to get ready for him, and did, of which he and they are said to eat: �and the first day of unleavened bread, when they KILLED the passover, his disciples said to him, where wilt thou that we go and prepare, that thou mayest EAT the passover?� ( Mark 14:12) and again, �then came the day of unleavened bread, when the passover MUST be KILLED�, ( Luke 22:7). �They made ready the passover�, ( Luke 22:13) �and he sat down, and the twelve apostles with him�, ( Luke 22:14) �and he said unto them, with desire I have desired to eat this passover�, ( Luke 22:15). Others suggest, that this difference of observing the passover by Christ and the Jews arose from fixing the beginning of the month, and so accordingly the feasts in it, by the fasiv , or appearance of the moon; and that our Lord went according to the true appearance of it, and the Jews according to a false account: but of this, as a fact, there is no proof; besides, though the feasts were regulated and fixed according to the appearance of the moon, yet this was not left to the arbitrary will, pleasure, and judgment of particular persons, to determine as they should think proper; but the sanhedrim, or chief council of the nation sat, at a proper time, to hear and examine witnesses about the appearance of the moon; and accordingly determined, and none might fix but them f677 ; and as this was doubtless the case at this time, it is not very reasonable to think, that Christ would differ from them: besides, it was either a clear case, or a doubtful one; if the former, then there would be no room nor reason to keep another day; and if it was the latter, then two days were observed, that they might be sure they were right f678 ; but then both were kept by all the Jews: and that the time of this passover was well known, is clear from various circumstances; such and such facts were done, so many days before it; six days before it, Jesus came to Bethany, ( John 12:1) and two days before it, he was in the same place, ( Matthew 26:2,6) and says to his disciples, �ye know that after two days is the feast of the passover�, etc. Others taking it for granted, that Christ kept the passover a day before the usual and precise time, defend it, by observing the despotic and legislative power of Christ, who had a right to dispense with the time of this feast, and could at his pleasure anticipate it, because the betraying of him and his death were so near at hand: that he had such a power will not be disputed; but that he should use it in this way, does not seem necessary, on account of his death, seeing none but the living were obliged to it; nor so consistent with his wisdom, since hereby the mouths of his enemies would be opened against him, for acting not agreeably to the law of God: moreover, when it is considered that the passover, according to the Jews, was always kept wd[wmb , �in its set time� f679 , and was not put off on the account of the sabbath, or anything else, to another day; and that though when it was put off for particular persons, on account of uncleanness, to another month, yet still it was to be kept on the fourteenth day at even, in that month, ( Numbers 9:10,11) it will not easily be received that Christ observed it a day before the time: besides, the passover lamb was not killed in a private house, but in the temple, in the court of it, and that always on the fourteenth of Nisan, after noon: so says Maimonides f680 , �it is an affirmative command to slay the passover on the fourteenth of the month Nisan, after the middle of the day. The passover is not slain but in the court, as the rest of the holy things; even in the time that altars were lawful, they did not offer the passover on a private altar; and whoever offers the passover on a private altar, is to be beaten; as it is said, �thou mayest not sacrifice the passover within any of thy gates, which the Lord thy God giveth thee�, ( Deuteronomy 16:5).�

And seeing therefore a passover lamb was not to be killed at home, but in the court of the priests, in the temple, it does not seem probable, that a single lamb should be suffered to be killed there, for Christ and his disciples, on a day not observed by the Jews, contrary to the sense of the sanhedrim, and of the whole nation: add to this, that the sacred text is express for it, that it was at the exact time of this feast, when it was come according to general computation, that the disciples moved to Christ to prepare the passover for him, and did, and they with him kept it: the account Matthew gives is very full; �now the first day of the feast of unleavened bread�; that is, when that was come in its proper time and course, �the disciples came to Jesus�; saying unto him, where wilt �thou that we prepare for thee to eat the passover?� He bids them go to the city to such a man, and say, �I will keep the passover at thy house with my disciples, and the disciples did as Jesus had appointed, and they made ready the passover; now when the even was come�, the time of eating the passover, according to the law of God, �he sat down with the twelve, and as they did eat�, etc. ( Matthew 26:17-20) and Mark is still more particular, who says, �and the first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the passover�; that is, when the Jews killed the passover, on the very day the lamb was slain, and eaten by them; and then follows much the same account as before, ( Mark 14:12-18) and Luke yet more clearly expresses it, �then came the day of unleavened bread, when the passover must be killed�; according to the law of God, and the common usage of the people of the Jews; yea, he not only observes, that Christ kept the usual day, but the very hour, the precise time of eating it; for he says, �and when the hour was come, he sat down, and the twelve apostles with him�, ( Luke 22:7-14). Nor is there anything in this text, that is an objection to Christ and the Jews keeping the passover at the same time; since by the passover here is meant, the �Chagigah�, or feast kept on the fifteenth day of the month, as it is sometimes called: in ( Deuteronomy 16:2) it is said, �thou shalt therefore sacrifice the passover unto the Lord thy God, of the flock and the herd�: now the passover of the herd, can never mean the passover lamb, but the passover �Chagigah�; and so the Jewish commentators explain it; �of the herd�, says Jarchi, thou shalt sacrifice for the �Chagigah�; and says Aben Ezra, for the peace offerings; so Josiah the king is said to give for the passovers three thousand bullocks, and the priests three hundred oxen, and the Levites five hundred oxen, ( Chronicles 35:7-9) which Jarchi interprets of the peace offerings of the �Chagigah�, there called passovers; and so in 1 Esdres 1:7-9 mention is made of three thousand calves, besides lambs, that Josias gave for the passover; and three hundred by some other persons, and seven hundred by others: the passage in Deuteronomy, is explained of the �Chagigah�, in both Talmuds f681 , and in other writings f682 ; so besides the passover lamb, we read of sacrifices slain, jsp �w�l , �in the name of� the passover, or on account of it f683 ; and particularly of the calf and the young bullock, slain for the sake of the passover f684 : and now this is the passover which these men were to eat that day, and therefore were careful not to defile themselves, that so they might not be unfit for it; otherwise had it been the passover lamb in the evening, they might have washed themselves in the evening, according to the rules of �wy lwbj , or �the daily washing�, and been clean enough to have eat it: besides, it may be observed, that all the seven days were called the passover; and he that ate the unleavened bread, is said by eating that, to eat the passover; and thus they invite their guests daily to eat the bread, saying f685 , �everyone that is hungry, let him come and eat all that he needs, jspyw , �and keep the passover�.�

It is easy to observe the consciences of these men, who were always wont to strain at a gnat and swallow a camel; they scruple going into the judgment hall, which belonged to an Heathen governor, and where was a large number of Heathen soldiers; but they could go along with these into the garden to apprehend Christ, and spend a whole night in consulting to shed innocent blood: no wonder that God should be weary of their sacrifices and ceremonious performances, when, trusting to these, they had no regard to moral precepts: however, this may be teaching to us, in what manner we should keep the feast, and eat of the true passover, Christ; not with malice and wickedness, as these Jews ate theirs, but with sincerity and truth: besides, a sanhedrim, when they had condemned anyone to death, were forbidden to eat anything all that day f686 ; and so whilst scrupling one thing, they broke through another.

Matthew Henry Commentary

Greek Textus Receptus