What Luke, John, and Mark Wrote

Every Gospel writer tells us when the women came to the tomb, and every one of them names the time with the same Greek noun, sabbaton σάββατον sab'-bat-on, in the plural. Most English Bibles turn their words into a phrase we have known since childhood: “the first day of the week.” In this chapter we set that phrase aside for a moment, not to throw it away but to read what the Greek itself says, word by word.

Luke and John

Here is Luke:

Luke 24:1 But yet one of the Sabbatons(referring to every Moed of Leviticus 23), at early dawn, they came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared, and some others with them.

And here is John:

John 20:1 But yet one of the Sabbatons(referring to every Moed of Leviticus 23), Mariam Magdalene came early to the tomb, while it was still dark, and saw the stone already taken away from the tomb.

Luke and John write the time with exactly the same words: te de mia ton sabbaton (τῇ δὲ μιᾷ τῶν σαββάτων). The YLV renders them exactly as they stand: “But yet one of the Sabbatons.”

Take the phrase apart. Mia means one, and ton means of the. Sabbaton here is in the genitive plural, “of the sabbatons.” Put together, the words say “one of the sabbatons.” Mia is feminine, and so is the Greek word for day, hemera, which is why the phrase is understood to mean one day of the sabbatons. But the word first is not in it, and neither is the word week. Greek has a word for a week, hebdomas ἑβδομάς heb'-dom-os, and as we saw in Book 1, the New Testament never uses it.

Each writer also marks the hour in his own way. Luke says the women came “at early dawn.” John says Mariam Magdalene came “early to the tomb, while it was still dark.” Both point to the very beginning of the morning, and both set that morning on one of the sabbatons.

Mark

Mark records the same morning:

Mark 16:2 Very early on one of the Sabbatons(referring to every Moed of Leviticus 23) they came to the tomb when the sun had risen.

Mark writes tes mias sabbaton (τῆς μιᾶς σαββάτων), without the article ton that Luke and John carry. The article differs, but the noun does not. It is the same sabbaton, and it stands in the same case, the genitive plural. The YLV again renders it “one of the Sabbatons.”

A few verses later Mark speaks of the same morning once more, this time with sabbaton in the singular: “Now after He had risen, proi-prote(at the earliest-first part) of the sabbaton(referring to every Moed of Leviticus 23), He appeared first to Mary Magdalene” (Mark 16:9). As we saw in Book 1, the two words proi prote belong together and mark the earliest, front edge of the light. Mark does not number the days of a week there either. He tells us that Yeshua had risen at the first light of the sabbaton.

Matthew, too, writes sabbaton in the plural, and he writes it twice in a single verse. His wording is different enough to need a chapter of its own, Chapter 39.

The Same Words in Acts

Luke uses the very same phrase once more, in the book of Acts:

Acts 20:7 In yet the one of the sabbatons(referring to every Moed of Leviticus 23), when the disciples were gathered together to break bread, Paul began talking to them, intending to leave the next day, and he prolonged his logos λόγος log'-os(word) until midnight.

The wording is identical to the letter: mia ton sabbaton. The verse just before it dates the voyage by the feasts: “We sailed from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread” (Acts 20:6). Having dated the voyage by the appointed times, Luke used the phrase we are reading in the very next verse. As we saw in Book 1, the disciples at Troas gathered on a sabbaton. Luke did not use one phrase for the resurrection morning and another for Troas. He used the same words in both places, and in both places they say “one of the sabbatons.”

Read Against the Chart

Now we can ask what the plural implies. If the Gospel writers say “one of the sabbatons,” then there must have been more than one sabbaton in view. Which ones were they?

Chapter 36 has answered that already. In the Passover week of the crucifixion, three sabbatons stood in a row: hap-Pesach on the fourteenth, ham-Matzot on the fifteenth, and Omer Reshit on the sixteenth. Yeshua lay in the tomb through the first two of them, and very early on the third, at first light, He rose.

Set the Gospel phrase on that chart and it reads naturally. The women came at first light on one of the sabbatons, the third of the three, the day of the first sheaf. The plural itself tells us that more than one sabbaton stood in view that week.

The YLV places the same note beside each of these words: “referring to every Moed of Leviticus 23.” The note does not add anything to the Greek. It only reminds the reader of what the word sabbaton carried, as we saw in Chapter 35: the seventh day, and every appointed day of holy convocation besides.

The Familiar Phrase

What, then, of “the first day of the week”? That phrase came out of resurrection faith, and Chapter 44 gives it the honor it deserves.

Here we only note what the Greek does and does not say. It says one. It says of the sabbatons, in the plural. It does not say first, and it does not say week. To read the phrase as “one of the sabbatons” takes nothing away from the resurrection. It sets the morning inside the appointed times of the LORD, where the writers placed it.

Four Writers, One Noun

Four writers, five verses, one noun, and the same plural in every line. The Gospels that record the resurrection do not disagree about the word. They all set the morning among the sabbatons.

One question remains before we turn to Matthew. Does mia ton with a plural noun really mean “one of many”? Could it be a special idiom that means something else when the noun is sabbaton? The only way to answer is to look at how the New Testament uses the same construction everywhere else, and the next chapter does exactly that.