57 When the evening was come - That is, after three o'clock;
the time from three to six they termed the evening. Mark 15:42; Luke 23:50;
John 19:38.
62 On the morrow, the day that followed the day of the preparation -
The day of preparation was the day before the Sabbath, whereon they were
to prepare for the celebration of it. The next day then was the Sabbath
according to the Jews. But the evangelist seems to express it by this circumlocution,
to show the Jewish Sabbath was then abolished.
63 That impostor said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will
rise again - We do not find that he had ever said this to them, unless
when he spoke of the temple of his body, John 2:19,21. And if they here
refer to what he then said, how perverse and iniquitous was their construction
on these words, when he was on his trial before the council? Mt 26:61.
Then they seemed not to understand them!
65 Ye have a guard - Of your own, in the tower of Antonia, which was
stationed there for the service of the temple.
66 They went and secured the sepulchre, sealing the stone, and setting
a guard - They set Pilate's signet, or the public seal of the sanhedrim
upon a fastening which they had put on the stone. And all this uncommon
caution was overruled by the providence of God, to give the strongest proofs
of Christ's ensuing resurrection; since there could be no room for the
least suspicion of deceit, when it should be found, that his body was raised
out of a new tomb, where there was no other corpse, and this tomb hewn
out of a rock, the mouth of which was secured by a great stone, under a
seal, and a guard of soldiers.
