Now the next day, that followed the day of the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate,
Ver. 62. Now the next day that followed] That is, on that high day, that double sabbath, they that had so often quarrelled with Christ for curing on the sabbath request a servile work to be done, of securing and sealing up the sepulchre. It is a common proverb, Mortui non mordent, Dead men bite not. But here Christ, though dead and buried, bites and beats hard upon these evil men's consciences. They could not rest the whole night before, for fear he should get out of the grave some way, and so create them further trouble. Scipio appointed his sepulchre to be so placed, as his image standing upon it might look directly towards Africa, that being dead, he might still be a terror to the Carthaginians. And Cadwallo, an ancient king of this island, commanded his dead body to be embalmed, and put into a brazen image, and so set upon a brazen horse over Ludgate, for a terror to the Saxons. It is well known that Zisca, that brave Bohemian, charged his Taborites to flay his corpse, and cover a drum with his skin; the sound whereof as often as the enemies heard, they should be appalled and put to flight. And our Edward I adjured his son and nobles, that if he died in his journey into Scotland, they should carry his corpse about with them, and not suffer it to be interred till they had vanquished the usurper and subdued the country. Something like to this the prophet Isaiah foretelleth of our Saviour (and we see it here accomplished), when he saith, "In that day the root of Jesse shall stand up for an ensign to the people, and even his rest" (or, as some read it, his sepulchre) "shall be glorious," Isaiah 11:10. There are those who think that these words, "The day that followed the day of the preparation," are put ironically, or rather by way of a facetious jesting, asteismos, against the hypocritical sabbatism of the high priests, who would so workday-like, beg the body, seal the sepulchre, and set the watch on that sabbath, for the which they seemed to prepare so devoutly before it came.