Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Matthew 28:1

ὀψὲ.… σαββάτων, a curious and puzzling note of time, inconsistent with itself if translated “late on Sabbath, towards daybreak on the first day of the week,” and on the assumption that the day is supposed to begin and end at sunset. That would give, as the time at which the events to be narrated happened, the afternoon of one day and the early morning of the next. Of course the two clauses are meant to coincide in meaning, and a way out of the difficulty must be sought. One is to take ὀψὲ as = post, after the Sabbath, or late in comparison with the Sabbath, σαββάτων in clause I being in effect a genitive of comparison. So Euthy. and Grotius, who take σαββ. as = the whole passover week, De Wette, Weizsäcker, etc. Another is to take ὀψὲ as = not later than, but late on, and to assume that the day is conceived to begin and end with sunrise according to the civil mode of reckoning. So Kypke, Meyer, Weiss, Morison. Authorities are divided as to Greek usage, Meyer and Weiss, e.g., contending that ὀψὲ always means lateness of the period specified, and still current. Holtzmann, H. C., remarks that only from the second clause do we learn that by the first is not meant the evening of the Sabbath, but the end of the night following, conceived as still belonging to the Sabbath. τῇ ἐπιφωσκούσῃ, supply ἡμέρᾳ or ὥρᾳ. εἰς μίαν. σ., towards day one of the week (Sabbath in first clause). ἦλθε, came, singular though more than one concerned, as in Matthew 27:56; Matthew 27:61. Mary of Magdala, evidently the heroine among the women. θεωρῆσαι τ. τ., to see the sepulchre; no word of anointing, that being excluded by the story of the watch.

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Matthew 28:1

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