John Lightfoot on Luke 23:54

[And the sabbath drew on.] The vulgar reads, the sabbath began to dawn: not ill rendered. Beza reads, and the sabbath succeeded: not properly. One would have thought it would have been more congruously said, it began to be dark towards the sabbath: for the night before the sabbath was coming on: but,

I. The sabbatical candles that were lighted in honour of the sabbath were now set up. "There are three things which it is necessary a man should warn those of his own house of on the evening of the sabbath, when night is coming on: Have you paid your tenths? Have you begun your Erubhick society? Light up your candle." "Men and women are bound to light up a candle in their houses upon the sabbath day. If a man hath not bread to eat, yet he must beg from door to door to get a little oil to set up his light." These things being noted, the evangelist may not be improperly understood thus, "The sabbath began to shine with the lights set up"; respect being had to these sabbath candles. But I do not acquiesce here.

II. The evening of the sabbath was called amongst the Jews light. By the light of the fourteenth day they make a search for leaven by the light of a candle. By the light of the fourteenth day; that is, on the evening, or in the night that immediately precedes that day. So Rambam upon the place, "the search for leaven is in the night of the fourteenth day, although the eating of leavened bread is not forbidden before the noon of the fourteenth day. But they instituted this because it is most convenient searching in the night time by candlelight; and at that time also all persons are at home."

"The woman that miscarries on the light [i.e. the evening] of the eighty-first day, the Shammean school absolves her from any offering: but the school of Hillel doth not." The Gloss hath it, on the light of the eighty-fist day, i.e. in the night of the eighty-first day. The question disputed there is: "The woman that had been brought to bed of a girl was bound to the purification of eighty days"; when those days were at an end, then she was bound to offer, Leviticus 12:5,6. Now therefore seeing the oblation was to be brought on the eighty-first day, the question is, What if the woman should happen to miscarry within the very night that begins the eighty-first day, must she the next day offer one or two sacrifices? one for the girl, and one for that of which she hath miscarried? The Shammean school will have but one, but the school of Hillel saith two.

Pesikta speaking concerning a vowed sacrifice, from Leviticus 7:17, hath this passage: "Perhaps it may be eaten on the light [i.e. the evening] of the third day. The text saith upon the third day; it is eaten until the third day. It is not eaten on the light [i.e. the evening, or the night] of the third day": for then the third day was actually begun. But now in this phrase they restrain the word especially to the beginning of the night, though sometimes it is taken for the whole night, as in that tradition newly quoted concerning the woman that miscarried: and so the Gloss upon Pesachin. Maimonides discoursing about putting away the leaven which ought to be on the light of the fourteenth day, i.e. on the night that begins the fourteenth day, hath this passage; "By prescription of the scribes they search for, and cast out their leaven in the night; namely, the beginning of that night that ushers in the fourteenth day." Much to the same sense the Gemarist concerning the light: "How comes twilight to be called light? From thence, because it is written, In the twilight, in the evening, of the day," Proverbs 7:9. Rambam thinks it so called by a rule of contraries; for so he in Pesachin: "The night is called light, by the same rule that they call many other things by their contraries."

But the Gemarists upon the place affirm that the evening is not improperly called light, and prove it from that expression, Psalm 148:3: Praise him all ye stars of light. However unsuitably therefore it might sound in the ears of Greeks or Latins, when they hear the evening or the beginning of the night expressed by the light of the sabbath, yet with the Jews it was a way of expression very usual: and they could readily understand the evangelist speaking in their own vulgar way, when he would tell us the night of the sabbath drew on; but expresseth it by the light of the sabbath began to shine.