‘And it was the day of the Preparation, and the sabbath drew on (or ‘shone forth').'
‘The day of the Preparation.' This would normally be seen as indicating the Friday of Passover week (or more strictly Thursday sunset to Friday sunset), which was always called ‘preparation day' (in modern Greek paraskeue refers to Friday). (An alternative would be for it to refer to the day of preparation (paraskeue) for the special sabbath which opened the week of Unleavened Bread). However, what the women wanted to do would not be seen as the ‘necessary' tasks that had to be done in order to bury the dead, for the dead was already buried, and thus the sabbath had to be fully observed.
‘And the sabbath shone forth.' Some see this ‘shining forth' as referring to the lighting of the lamps after sunset, or the shining forth of the evening star. Others relate it to sunrise on the following morning. Either way it had to be observed by no activity other than that required for the feast, as seen in Exodus 20:10. And the women probably did not feel like feasting.