Paraskeue, the Day Named

There is a moment in John’s account of the trial when the story pauses. Pilate has heard the charges, has questioned Yeshua, and has sat down on the judgment seat. Before he speaks the words that will hand Yeshua over, John stops to tell us what day it was.

John 19:14 Now it was the preparation day for the Passover; it was about the sixth hora ὥρα ho'-rah(that-hour); and he said to the Jews, "Behold, your King!"

“Now it was the preparation day for the Passover.” In Greek, en de paraskeue παρασκευή par-ask-yoo-ay' tou pascha πάσχα pas'-khah. Of all John’s markers of time, this is the plainest, because it does not merely tell us that the Passover had not yet come. It gives the day a name.

Paraskeue

The word paraskeue (παρασκευή) comes from a verb that means to prepare, to make ready, to get something in order before it is needed. A paraskeue is a day of making ready. It looks forward to something that has not yet arrived. The preparation day comes before the day it prepares for.

John does not say only “the preparation.” He says whose preparation it was: tou pascha, “of the Passover.” This was the day of making ready for the Passover. The Passover had not yet begun; this was the day on which it was being prepared.

What Was Being Made Ready

The earlier chapters of this part have already shown what such a day held. By the Torah’s command, no leaven could be eaten or found in the house from the evening that began the fourteenth. The thirteenth, the day before, carried no command of its own, but it was filled by that deadline. Whatever leavened food remained after the household’s last leavened supper was eaten up or burned in its daytime, and the house was made ready for the feast.

That is exactly the day John names. The supper had been eaten as the thirteenth began. The night of the arrest and the early morning before Pilate belonged to the same thirteenth day. And now, in the daytime of that same day, John calls it by its proper name: the preparation day for the Passover. The day on which every house in Jerusalem was being made ready was the day on which Yeshua stood before Pilate and was handed over to be crucified.

The Same Day in Mark

John is not alone in giving the day this name. Mark, telling how Joseph of Arimathea came for the body, explains why there was such haste.

Mark 15:42 When it was already opsia(the latter part of the day, afternoon~early evening), because it was the preparation day — that is, the day before the sabbaton σάββατον sab'-bat-on(sabbath) —

Mark calls it “the preparation day — that is, the day before the sabbaton(sabbath).” The day of the cross was a day of making ready, and the day after it was a sabbaton, a day of rest. Which day of rest that was, and why John calls that sabbaton a high day (John 19:31), belongs to Part Five, where Chapters 34 and 35 examine the Greek word sabbaton. Here it is enough to see that Mark and John agree: the day of the cross was a preparation day, and a day of rest followed it.

John comes back to the same word twice more before he finishes the story of that day. The leaders asked for the bodies to be taken down “because it was the day of preparation” (John 19:31), and Yeshua was laid in the nearby tomb “because of the Jewish day of preparation” (John 19:42). From the judgment seat to the tomb, the whole day carries one name in John’s account. It was the day of making ready, and everything John tells of it, from the sentence to the burial, came before the Passover. Yeshua was laid in the tomb that afternoon, and the burial was finished by late afternoon, before the evening that opened the fourteenth.

What John’s Markers Add Up To

Now gather all of John’s markers together, from the supper to the cross.

Taken together, they make clear that the whole sequence of the passion, from the supper to the cross, was completed before the Passover, which began with the evening of the fourteenth. The supper was before the feast. The trial was before the Passover meal. The judgment was on the preparation day. And Yeshua died at the ninth hour of the daytime of that same thirteenth day, while the Passover offerings were being made ready. When evening came on and the fourteenth, the Passover, began, His body already lay in the tomb.

That last point, the hour of His death and its place beside the Passover offering, is opened in full in Part Four, where Chapters 28 to 30 read Exodus 12:6 and the phrase “between the evenings” word by word. For now, notice how the three threads of this part have come together. The Torah set no command for the thirteenth, so a leavened supper as the thirteenth began was lawful and natural. The Gospel writers all called the bread of that supper artos ἄρτος ar'-tos, ordinary bread. And John, with his markers of time, placed the supper, the trial, and the cross before the Passover, on the day he named the preparation day for the Passover.

Three Threads, One Picture

None of this requires setting any of the Gospels aside. Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell of the bread with one word, and John tells of the days with his markers. The first three Gospels show the ordinary bread; the fourth shows the day of preparation. Each supplies something the others do not say outright, and together they make one consistent picture.

One question is left for this part, and it is the most important of all. If the Last Supper was the household’s last leavened meal, eaten at the threshold of the feast, then what did Yeshua mean when He took that ordinary bread, broke it, and said, “this is My body”? The next chapter closes Part Three with that question.