It is now, Tuesday, the 13th of the month. The day before the Passover.
This day might get a little confusing because of the timing of the day. We are conditioned to think of a day beginning at midnight. But the Jewish calendar begins the day at the setting sun when it is evening. We’re going to be looking at the second half of the 13th, the daytime, but most of this post will actually be what happens on the 14th, in the evening, which would be the beginning of Day #7.
The first thing we notice about this day is Yeshua sending two of His disciples to prepare the room (Matt 26:17-18, Mark 14:12-15, Luke 22:7-12). John does not record this. It makes sense for this to be in the daytime of the 13th as it says they had to go into the city. On the previous day, we learned that Yeshua taught in the Temple during the day and retired in the evening to the Mount of Olives. Most likely they were on the Mount when they were sent to prepare the room. Only two disciples went, that being Peter and John as told by Luke (22:8). It does not say that Yeshua went to the Temple on this day with the remaining ten disciples or just waited at the Mount. But, it wasn’t until the evening that they came to the upper room.
And that is it for the 13th day of the month. Nothing about the day is recorded except the two Disciples going to prepare for the Passover. The next thing recorded in the three synoptic gospels is that they reclined at the table when the evening came. That would make it the beginning of the 14th, the day of the Passover.
There are some things to note about these two dates. The Mishnah records that the cleaning of the leaven from the house was to be done on the 14th in the evening or the morning or at the appointed time (before noon). Certainly, it had to be done before the sacrifice of the lamb. The 14th was known as Preparation Day for this reason. Though the Mishnah records this as the standard practice, it is not a commandment of YHWH. So, when the disciples asked where to prepare for the Passover, it could be that they prepared the room on the 13th, which is the only possible solution if they were to eat the meal that evening when it became the 14th. The only other possibility would be that nothing was recorded about the 13th day of the month and we just skip from the 12th to the 14th to see the Disciples preparing for the Passover on the 14th and slaughtering a lamb at the same time as the lambs being slaughtered at the Temple, and then having the meal that evening when it had become the 15th day of the month. This is the ONLY explanation if we are to believe that the Last Supper was a Passover meal. But there are some problems with this interpretation.
Was the Last Supper a Passover Meal?
I know this is messing with people’s traditions and what you may have been told your whole life, but the timing of the Last Supper being the Passover meal doesn’t work. If Jesus and His Disciples ate the Passover meal, then 1) Jesus would not have been crucified on the Passover while the Passover lambs were being slaughtered, and 2) He would have been arrested, tried, and crucified on the 15th, the first day of the Feast, which was a High Sabbath when no work was to be done (cf Lev. 23:7). I know some people who have changed their minds to this perspective because they believe the text says that they eat the Passover meal. But there are other problems with this perspective, and we’ll go over that next.
Judas left the meal after Yeshua told him to go do what he was about to do (John 13:26-28). He left the house before morning. According to the first Passover, they were to eat the meal and stay in the house until morning. Morning begins at the fourth watch of the night, or 3 am. Whether that command was carried over to future Passovers or was just for the first Passover is uncertain. But John also records that the other disciple didn’t hear the words spoken to Judas and just thought that Judas was going to buy food for the Passover meal (John 13:29). Why would Judas go in the middle of the night to buy food for a meal they were currently eating? After Judas had left, Yeshua instructed His disciples more and prayed for them (John 13:31-17:26), and then they all left the house and went to the garden (John 18:1) where Yeshua was arrested. None of this fits the timeline for the day of Passover and the First day of Unleavened Bread. Furthermore, it gets more perplexing when Mark says it was the Preparation Day when Joseph of Arimathea took the body down from the cross (Mark 15:42-43). Preparation Day was the Passover. Passover is the Preparation Day before the High Sabbath on the 15th. Yeshua couldn’t have eaten the Passover meal on the 15th if He was buried on the 14th. The meal had to be prepared on the 13th, eaten on the evening of the 14th with the arrest and trial happening on the mornig of the 14th. The crucifixion and burial would have to happen on the afternoon of the 14th before the evening when the sabbath of the 15th was to begin.
While Matthew, Mark, and Luke all say that it was the first day of Unleavened Bread when the Passover lamb was to be slaughtered, John says it was before the Passover that Yeshua had this meal with His Disciples. Is John at odds with the other accounts? John’s Gospel was the last one written, some say it was 30 years later than the synoptic gospels. Is John trying to change the narrative, correct the narrative, or are we just misunderstanding what the synoptic gospels are saying? Over the years, the Passover has come to mean the day of the Passover, the 14th, and the whole week of Unleavened Bread, the 15th through the 22nd. But the synoptic gospels all say it was the first day of Unleaved Bread, not the first day of Passover. The first day of Unleavened Bread would be the 15th day of the month, and the 15th is not the day the lambs were slaughtered.
I don’t have answer for why the synoptics all say that it was the day the lambs were slaughtered that two disciples prepared the room for the Passover. The timing is impossible for the preparation to be the Passover day and the next day to be the trial, death, and burial all before that same day was to begin. There are three mentioned, and there is no way to fit that into two days.
Here’s another thing to consider. Mark 14:1 says that it is two days before the Passover when the chief priests were seeking to kill Him. Then Mark records the annointing at Simon the Leper’s house and Judas going to the chief priests to plot against Yeshua. Then, Mark records that it is the first day of Unleavened Bread. What happened to the day in between? The text went from two days before to the day of. And Luke appears to suggest the same thing (Luke 22:1-7). And Matthew and Mark record something else that doesn’t fit with the Last Supper being a Passover meal.
Matthew and Mark both record that the cheif priests’ plot to kill Yeshua was to be done before the feast (Matt 26:5, Mark 14:2). If Yeshua and His Disciples had a Passover meal on the evening of the 15th and the arrest, trial, and crucifixion happened later that day, then the Feast of Unleavened Bread had already begun. But, we pointed out on day #5 that Judas left Simon the Leper’s house to plot with the chief priests. They had less than two days to carry out their plan before the feast began. I believe it was this day, the 13th, that Yeshua sent two disciples to prepare the room for them, and it was this day that Judas thought about how he would betray the Messiah. Little did Judas know that later in the evening, Yeshua would release him from the evening meal to go and do what he had been thinking all day about doing.
We’ll talk more about the evening of the 14th tomorrow, when it is the 14th, the Passover.
Tomorrow, His passion is lost on His Disciples.