Charles Spurgeon Commentary John 19:31

"The Jews therefore, because it was the Preparation, that the bodies should not remain on the cross upon the sabbath (for the day of that sabbath was a high [day]), asked of Pilate that their legs might be broken, and [that] they might be taken away." — John 19:31 (ASV)

The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath day (for that Sabbath day was an high day), besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.

The breaking of the legs was intended to hasten death, a very cruel method, but a very effective one. Passing by Christ hanging in the center, it was a strange thing for them to do, yet it had to be done, although they were quite unaware of the reason why they acted as they did.

The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day, (for that Sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.

To prevent a ceremonial error, they are willing to commit brutal cruelty; indeed, they had already committed the more brutal cruelty of putting Christ to death. How particular some people are about some merely human rubric, yet the divine precepts of the law they violate with impunity. God save us from a conscience which will scruple at a minute point of no consequence, but will allow us to commit great sin!

We have heard of a Spanish bandit who confessed to his priest, after having murdered a great many persons, not his robberies and his murders, but the fact that a drop of blood had spurted onto his lips on a Friday, and thus he had defiled the feast day by taking animal food! Ah me! Conscience is a strange thing, yet some call it "the vicegerent of God." I believe it is no such thing, but that it very soon becomes as depraved as any other power of the human mind: we have need of far more than conscience to keep us right.