NOTES. 295 



day'^ of the week, was emphaticallj pn::t:' i^2^l; (shalbath sliah- 

 haihon), " a rest day forrest/'* a Sabbath of sabbaths, — enjoined 

 with peculiar solemnity, and enforced by the sternest sanctions.f 

 There is every probability that the calendar was in this respect 

 the same in apostolic times as at present, since the same neces- 

 sity for the arrangement had existence then. 



The second difficulty in these texts arises from the well-known 

 occurrence of the crueifixion on Friday. It was almost as 

 impossible for the Jews to have tolerated an execution upcn 

 '' the first day of unleavened bread" (see Exod. xii. 16; Levit. 

 xxiii. 7 ; also, Mark xiv. 2) as upon the weekly " Sabbath.^' 

 This forms a very serious additional obstacle, therefore, to that 

 festival having commenced on Friday. 



Looking merely at the letter of these texts, they all seem 

 to say that Thitrsday was the first of unleavened bread : but 

 'while this construction avoids the foregoing objections, it in- 

 volves the new one, that the passover could not have been 

 killed upon it (as intimated in Mark xiv. 12) ; since this must 

 always be prepared on the preceding afternoon (2 Chron. 

 XXXV. 1; Levit. xxiii. 5, 6); whence the passover must have 

 been eaten, and the Eucharist instituted on Wednesday even- 

 ing, and not on Thursday evening, as is generally supposed. 

 Whatever solution of these difficulties may be suggested, it is 

 almost certain that the Pentecost did not occur on Sunday. 



* In our version not very forcibly rendered, "a Sabbath of rest." 

 Agreeably to the well-known Hebrew idiom, intensity was always ex- 

 pressed either by a repetition, or by the use of some tavitologous phrase. 

 The double expression peculiar to these two, of all the Jewish sabbaths, 

 was undoubtedly employed with the intention of impressing the pre- 

 eminent sanctity of these two holy days, and the necessity of their 

 strictest observance. The slightest infraction of either was punishable 

 with death ! An attention to these circumstances will serve to elucidate 

 niuch in the New Testament which Sabbatarians find it convenient to 

 gloss over as ''Pharisaic construction I" 



f Compare Levit. xxiii. 24 — 32, with Exod. xxxi. 14 — 17. 



