From the Upper Room to the Council

Part Three ended at the table. Now we follow the Messiah through the hours that came after it, as the Gospels tell them. This chapter covers the daytime of the twelfth and the night of the thirteenth. The next chapter carries us through the morning of the thirteenth. Then, before we stand at the cross, we stop to hear what the Torah says about the Passover lamb, and Chapter 31 follows the daytime of the thirteenth to the ninth hour.

Keep one thing in mind as you read. By the biblical reckoning, the night we are about to walk through and the day of the cross that follows it are not two days. They are one. The thirteenth began with evening, ran through the night and the morning, and ended when its daytime ended. Everything in this chapter, the next, and Chapter 31 belongs to that one day.

The Daytime of the Twelfth

The first scene takes place before the supper, while it is still the twelfth.

Matthew 26:17-19 Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Yeshua and asked: "Where do You want us to prepare for You to eat the Passover?" And He said: "Go into the city to a certain man and say to him: 'The Teacher says, My kairos καιρός kahee-ros'(appointed-time) is near — I am to keep the Passover at your house with My disciples.'" The disciples did as Yeshua had directed them and they prepared the Passover.

Luke tells the same scene in more detail.

Luke 22:8-13 And Yeshua sent Peter and John, saying, "Go and prepare the Passover for us, so that we may eat it." They said to Him, "Where do You want us to prepare it?" And He said to them, "When you have entered the city, a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water; follow him into the house that he enters. And you shall say to the owner of the house, 'The Teacher says to you, "Where is the guest room in which I may eat the Passover with My disciples?"' And he will show you a large, furnished upper room; prepare it there." And they left and found everything just as He had told them; and they prepared the Passover.

Matthew dates the scene by the name of the feast, and the disciples speak of preparing “the Passover.” In Chapter 22 we saw why that lived day, its daytime the twelfth and its evening the thirteenth, is called “the first day of Unleavened Bread,” and we set Matthew’s Greek word for the feast beside the word he used for the bread at the table. Here we simply follow what was done. In the daytime of the twelfth, March 30 in AD 33, Yeshua sent Peter and John into the city. They found the man carrying the pitcher of water, followed him to the house, and were shown “a large, furnished upper room.” There they made ready the meal, finding “everything just as He had told them.”

Matthew records the reason Yeshua gave. “My kairos(appointed-time) is near.” The word kairos speaks of a set time, an appointed season, not the passing of ordinary hours. Yeshua knew that His appointed time was near, and He arranged the place where He would keep that evening with His disciples.

The Thirteenth Begins

The preparation was finished in the daytime, and then that daytime of the twelfth came to its end. Opsia had come, the latter part of the day turning into evening, and with that evening the thirteenth began. Matthew writes, “When opsia(the latter part of the day, afternoon~early evening) came, He was reclining at table with the twelve disciples” (Matthew 26:20). Luke marks the same moment: “When the hora ὥρα ho'-rah(that-hour) had come, He reclined at the table” (Luke 22:14). This was the household’s last leavened meal before the unleavened bread of the fourteenth, the supper at which Yeshua took ordinary bread and said, “Take, eat — this is My body.” Paul names the time of that supper in a phrase that gives this chapter its title: “the Lord Yeshua in the night in which He was betrayed took bread” (1 Corinthians 11:23).

During the supper Judas went out. John records the hour in two words: “and it was nyx νύξ noox(night)” (John 13:30). The night of the thirteenth had already settled.

The Mount of Olives and Gethsemane

When the meal was over, they sang a hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives (Matthew 26:30). On the way Yeshua told Peter what would happen before the night was out.

Matthew 26:34 Yeshua said to him: "Truly I say to you that this very night, before a rooster crows, you will deny Me three times."

He said “this very night.” Yeshua placed the denials and the rooster’s crowing in the same night as the supper. Then they came to a garden.

Matthew 26:36-41 Then Yeshua came with them to a place called Gethsemane(oil press), and said to the disciples: "Sit here while I go over there and pray." And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed. Then Yeshua said to them: "My psyche ψυχή psoo-khay'(soul) is deeply grieved to the point of death — remain here and keep watch with Me." And He went a little beyond them and fell on His face and was praying, saying: "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me — yet not as I will, but as You will." And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping and said to Peter: "So you men could not keep watch with Me for one hora(hour)? Keep watching and praying so that you may not enter into temptation — the pneuma πνεῦμα pnyoo'-mah(spirit) is willing, but the sarx σάρξ sarx(flesh) is weak."

Three times He went away to pray, and three times He came back and found them sleeping. The prayer was long: “So you men could not keep watch with Me for one hora(hour)?” Then He woke them for the last time.

Matthew 26:45-46 Then He came to the disciples and said to them: "Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hora(hour) has drawn near and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going — behold, the one who betrays Me has drawn near!"

“Behold, the hora(hour) has drawn near.” The hour had drawn near, and the betrayer with it.

The Arrest

Matthew 26:47-50 And while He was still speaking, behold, Judas — one of the twelve — came, and with him a large crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and elders of the people. Now he who was betraying Him gave them a sign, saying: "Whoever I kiss, He is the one — seize Him." Immediately Judas went to Yeshua and said: "Hail, Rabbi!" and kissed Him. And Yeshua said to him: "Friend, do what you have come for." Then they came and laid hands on Yeshua and seized Him.

John adds that the crowd came “with lanterns and torches and weapons” (John 18:3). No one carries torches in daylight. The arrest took place in the dark, in the night of the thirteenth. One of the disciples drew a sword, and Yeshua told him to put it back. “How then will the graphai(written-scriptures) be fulfilled that it must happen this way?” (Matthew 26:54). Then, Matthew says, “all the disciples left Him and fled” (Matthew 26:56).

Annas, Caiaphas, and the Council

John tells us where Yeshua was taken first.

John 18:12-13 So the Roman cohort and the commander and the officers of the Jews arrested Yeshua and bound Him, and led Him to Annas first; for he was father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year.

From Annas He was sent bound to Caiaphas (John 18:24), where the scribes and the elders had gathered.

Matthew 26:57-59 Those who had seized Yeshua led Him away to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were gathered together. But Peter was following Him at a distance as far as the courtyard of the high priest, and entered in and sat down with the officers to see the outcome. Now the chief priests and the elders and the whole council kept trying to obtain false testimony against Yeshua so that they might put Him to death.

The council looked for false testimony and, as Matthew says, did not find any, even though many false witnesses came forward (Matthew 26:60). At last the high priest put Him under oath.

Matthew 26:63-66 But Yeshua kept silent. And the high priest said to Him: "I adjure You by the living God that You tell us whether You are the Messiah, the Son of God." Yeshua said to him: "You have said it yourself; nevertheless I tell you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Dynamis(Power) and coming on the clouds of heaven." Then the high priest tore his robes and said: "He has blasphemed! What further need do we have of witnesses? Behold, you have now heard the blasphemy! What do you think?" They answered and said: "He deserves death!"

“He deserves death!” The sentence of the council was pronounced in the night, before any Roman had heard the case. What remained was to bring Him to the governor in the morning, and that is where the next chapter begins.

Peter and the Rooster

Meanwhile Peter, who had followed at a distance, was sitting in the courtyard of the high priest.

Matthew 26:69-75 Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard, and a servant-girl came to him and said: "You too were with Yeshua the Galilean." But he denied it before them all, saying: "I do not know what you are talking about." When he had gone out to the gateway, another servant-girl saw him and said to those there: "This man was with Yeshua of Nazareth." And again he denied it with an oath: "I do not know the man." A little later the bystanders came up and said to Peter: "Surely you too are one of them — for even the way you talk gives you away." Then he began to curse and swear: "I do not know the man!" And immediately a rooster crowed. And Peter remembered the rhema ῥήμα hray'-mah(spoken-word) of Yeshua who had said: "Before a rooster crows, you will deny Me three times." And he went out and wept bitterly.

Peter remembered the word. Hours earlier, on the way to the Mount of Olives, Yeshua had said, “this very night, before a rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.” Now the rooster had crowed, and it was still the same night. Mark’s Gospel records the same words with one more detail, “before a rooster crows twice” (Mark 14:30), and tells us that it crowed “a second time” (Mark 14:72). Luke adds what happened at that moment: “The Lord turned and looked at Peter” (Luke 22:61).

One Night, One Day

Here is that night in order.

Every event after the supper in this chapter happened in the night of the thirteenth. The supper itself opened that day. The prayer in Gethsemane, the arrest by torchlight, the questioning before Annas and then Caiaphas, the council’s verdict, Peter’s three denials and the crowing of the rooster: all of these lie within the same biblical day as the cross.

This matters for the sign of Jonah. When we count the three daytimes and three nights in Chapter 43, the night of the thirteenth will not be among them. It is the night of His suffering, not a night in the heart of the earth. The count begins with the daytime of the thirteenth, the day He died.

The night was ending now. The council had given its verdict, but as John records, the leaders would tell Pilate, “We are not permitted to put anyone to death” (John 18:31). The next chapter follows Yeshua as the morning of the thirteenth came, to Pilate, to Herod, back to Pilate, and out along the road to Golgotha.