This pericope is unique to the fourth Gospel.
19:31 The "day of preparation"was Friday, the day before the Sabbath (Saturday, cf. v. 14; Mark 15:42). The Jews considered sundown the beginning of a new day. In this case the new day was a Sabbath. This Sabbath was an extra special day because it fell during Passover week. The Jews wanted to get the bodies down off their crosses so they would not defile the land. The Mosaic Law instructed the Jews to allow no one to remain hanging on a gibbet overnight because this would defile the land. Such a person was under God's curse (cf. Deut. 21:22-23; Josh. 8:29). To allow someone to remain overnight on a Sabbath would be specially offensive.
Normally the Romans left victims of crucifixion hanging until they died, which sometimes took several days. Then they would leave their corpses on their crosses until the birds had picked the flesh off them. If they had to hasten their deaths for some reason, they would smash their legs with an iron mallet. This prevented the victims from using their legs to push themselves up to keep their chest cavities open allowing them to breathe. Death by asphyxiation, loss of blood, and shock would follow soon.600Archaeologists have found the remains of a victim of crucifixion with his legs smashed in Israel.601
19:32-33 The Roman soldiers therefore broke the legs of the two terrorists whom they had crucified with Jesus because they were still alive. They did not break Jesus' legs since He was already dead.
19:34 What led the soldier to pierce Jesus' side with his spear (Gr. longche) is unclear and unimportant. Perhaps it was just another senseless act of brutality, or he may have wanted to see if he could get some reaction from Jesus.
It is also unclear why the wound produced a sudden flow of blood and water (cf. 1 John 5:6). Probably the spear pierced Jesus' heart and its surrounding pericardial sac that contains water. The fluids could have drained out as John described if the spear had entered the body near the bottom of the chest cavity.602Apparently the soldier pierced Jesus' side before His blood congealed into a solid. This eyewitness testimony stresses the fact that Jesus really did die and that He was a genuine man (cf. 1:14).
By the end of the first century when John wrote this Gospel, docetism and gnosticism were on the rise. Both of these heresies denied that Jesus was a real man. Docetists claimed that Jesus only seemed (Gr. dokeo, "to seem,"therefore the name "docetist") to be fully human. Muslims take a similar view of Jesus.603
Some interpreters have suspected that John was alluding to the Lord's Supper and baptism when he mentioned this blood and water.604However, there are no clues in the text that this was John's intention. Others have seen the blood and water as symbolic of the life and cleansing that metaphorically flow from Jesus' death.605Again it would be hard to prove or disprove that this was in John's mind from what he wrote. Several hymn writers have, however, developed this symbolism.606Other non-literal interpretations see the water as an allusion to Exodus 17:6.607Still others view it as referring to the Holy Spirit. However these are at best interpretations that rest on similarities.
19:35 Lest the reader miss the point of verse 34, John explained that he had personally witnessed what he narrated and that he was not lying. Furthermore the purpose of his reliable eyewitness testimony was that his readers might believe what he wrote and what it meant, namely that Jesus was God's Son (cf. 20:30-31; 21:24).
Some commentators suggested that the eyewitness was someone different from John. Suggestions range from the soldier who pierced Jesus' side, to an unknown eyewitness whom John did not identify, to an unknown editor, to Jesus, and to God the Father. However the most reasonable solution is to identify John himself as the eyewitness in view of the context and the parallel statements that follow (20:30-31; 21:24; cf. 1:14; 12:23).
19:36-37 "These things"refer to the facts that the soldiers did not break Jesus' bones but did pierce His side. Here were two more fulfillments of Old Testament prophecy.
In verse 36, John could have had any of three passages in mind: Exodus 12:46; Numbers 9:12; and or Psalm 34:20. The first two specify that the Israelites were not to break the bones of their Passover lambs. Elsewhere Paul and Peter described Jesus as the Passover Lamb (1 Cor. 5:7; 1 Pet. 1:19), and this figure is prominent in John's Gospel as well (cf. 1:36; et al.). Psalm 34:20 describes the righteous man by saying that God would not allow anyone to break his bones (cf. Luke 23:47). The first passage seems best since its fulfillment was more literal, though admittedly it involves the Passover typology.
This quotation has spawned the theory that Jesus died at the same time the Jews were slaying their Passover lambs. This view seems untenable since all the evangelists presented the Last Supper as a Passover meal. There have been several attempts to harmonize these views and to explain how there could have been two Passovers on successive days.608None of these explanations is convincing to me. It seems better to view the Passover meal as happening on Thursday evening, Thursday being the 14th of Nisan, which was the normal day for the Passover. Even though Jesus' death fulfilled the Passover typology it apparently did not coincide exactly with the Jews' sacrifice of their lambs for their Passover meals. That happened the afternoon before Jesus died.
In verse 37, the prophecy in view is clearly the one in Zechariah 12:10 (cf. Rev. 1:7). Jesus quoted this verse in the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24:30). There He stressed a different part of it. The piercing of God's coming Shepherd happened when Jesus died on the cross (cf. 10:11). The Gentile nations will look on Him whom they have pierced when He returns at His second coming (cf. Rev. 1:7). Both Jews and Gentiles were responsible for Jesus' death.
