Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 27:62

"Now on the morrow, which is [the day] after the Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees were gathered together unto Pilate," — Matthew 27:62 (ASV)

The next day, that followed the day of the preparation — The narrative that follows is unique to Matthew’s Gospel. Like the report of the tearing of the temple veil, this account can perhaps be traced to the converted priests mentioned in Acts 6:7.

As we find from what follows, this day was the Sabbath. The “preparation” (Paraskeuè) was a technical term. It did not refer to preparing for the Passover, as is sometimes claimed, but rather to preparing for the Sabbath, as seen in Mark 15:42. The historian Josephus is decisive on this point (Antiquities 16.6.2). The use of this term here leaves open the question of whether the Last Supper or the Crucifixion coincided with the Passover meal itself.

It should be noted that the Jewish use of this term passed into the Christian church. At least as early as Clement of Alexandria (Stromata 7.76), Paraskeuè was the accepted name for Friday (the Dies Veneris), with the anniversary of the Crucifixion being known as the “great” or “holy” Paraskeuè.

In either case, however, it is strange that Matthew describes the day as coming “after the preparation,” instead of simply calling it “the Sabbath.” A possible solution to this difficulty arises if we assume the Last Supper was a true Passover. In that case, the day of the Crucifixion, being the Passover festival, was itself technically a Sabbath (Leviticus 23:7, 24). Two Sabbaths would have therefore occurred consecutively. This may have led the Gospel writer to avoid the more common phrase and to describe the second Sabbath—the ordinary weekly one—as “the day that followed the preparation.”

The precise time the priests went to Pilate is not stated. It was probably early on the Sabbath morning, after they had heard from the Roman soldiers about the burial by Joseph of Arimathea. The fact that the body was in the care of a secret disciple aroused their suspicions. They would have naturally taken the first opportunity to guard against the fraud they suspected, even at the risk of violating the Sabbath rest.