16:1 And when the Sabbath¹ was past, Miriam Magdalene, and Miriam the mother of James, and Salome, bought² spices, that they might come and anoint him.

(MISB, Mat. 16:1): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/mark.html#16:1a

(Link to MISB: http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/bibleframe.html)

 1. Which Sabbath? This Sabbath was the 15th of Nisan, which fell between Wednesday sunset and Thursday sunset that year. What don’t Christians recognize it? Because they do not keep Passover, and do not realize that there are annual Rest Days also. This Sabbath is mentioned in Lev. 23:7, 11, 15, and Exodus 12:15, where it says leaven shall “take a Sabbath” in the Hebrew text. But it is also called “the Sabbath” הַשַּׁבָּת in Lev. 23:11 and 15. Also in Luke 23:54, 56, and John 19:31. It is after this Sabbath that Seven Sabbaths are counted to Shavuot, and then in the “day after”, which means “time period after” (cf. Gen. 2:4 use of “day”), a fiftieth day is counted.

 2. This could not have been done on a Sabbath or a feast day. See Nehemiah 10:31. The spices had to be bought between the feastival Sabbath (Nisan 15) and the weekly Sabbath (Nisan 17), which that year was a Friday.

2 And very early on the first of the sabbaths¹, they came² to the tomb as rises the sun.

(MISB, Mat. 16:2): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/mark.html#16:2

(Link to MISB: http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/bibleframe.html)

 o. The timing here can only be in the morning. Matthew says, “as it began to dawn”. Luke says, “at deep dawn”, and John “while still dark”. It was not just that the women went to the tomb in the morning. The resurrection was also at dawn according to Hosea 6:3-2, “Let us press on to know Yahweh. His going forth is fixed at dawn”. The word for “dawn” here is כְּשַׁחַר, which means the earliest dawn when there is only some reddish light piercing the blackness in the east. This means that it is still night when the resurrection occurs, and counts the 3rd night, at the end of the third day. The Sabbath, of course is counted with the night before the day, so the resurrection was on the Sabbath too.

 1. See notes on Mt. 28:1; John 20:1. The mistranslation, “first day of the week” is the source of the mixed up chronology of Passion week. The original Hebrew was אַחַת־הַשַּׁבָּתוֹת, and is confirmed by the Greek texts “τῇ μιᾷ τῶν σαββάτων”. The word is the ordinary word for “Sabbaths”, and does not mean “week”. The counting of seven sabbaths is explained in Lev. 23:15. So “the first of the Sabbaths” is the first one after Passover. This year it was the weekly Sabbath, Nisan 17. And Yeshua rose from the dead at dawn.

 2. It is sometimes objected that the women would not anoint Yeshua on the Sabbath. It seems Jewish tradition disagrees: Mishnah: 23:5 They may make ready [on the Sabbath] all that is needful for the dead, and anoint and wash it, provided that they do not move any member of it. They may draw the mattress away from beneath it and let it lie on the sand that it may be the longer preserved; they may bind up the chin, not in order to raise it but that it may not sink lower. So, too, if a rafter is broken they may support it with a bench or with the side-pieces of a bed that the break may grow no greater, but not in order to prop it up. They may not close a corpse’s eyes on the Sabbath; nor may they do so on a weekday at the moment when the soul is departing; and he that closes the eyes [of the dying man] at the moment when the soul is departing, such a one is a shedder of blood. Danby, Mishnah 23:5