Biblion Bible Commentary
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Blood and Water
John 19:31-37
31 Therefore the Jews, because it was the Preparation Day, so that the bodies wouldn’t remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a special one), asked of Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. · WEB
A soldier's spear and two Scriptures — and the writer steps forward to say he saw it himself.
Therefore the Jews, because it was the Preparation Day, so that the bodies wouldn't remain on the cross on the Sabbath... asked of Pilate that their legs might be broken John 19:31.
The request is a piece of scrupulousness at the end of a scrupulous day. The law required a body not to hang overnight Deuteronomy 21:22–23, so the men who have arranged this are anxious that it be tidied before sundown.
Breaking the legs hastened death by removing the ability to push up and breathe. It is described in one clause, as an administrative matter.
But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they didn't break his legs John 19:33.
The soldiers are professionals and could tell. Their judgment is the plainest evidence in the New Testament that he was dead, and it is offered by men with a duty to be certain and no interest in the outcome.
However, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out John 19:34.
The thrust is a routine confirmation, and what came out is recorded by a man who was standing there and did not know what he was looking at.
What it establishes is that he was dead — separated blood is not what comes from a living body. Readers have long found more in it, and the writer of this Gospel later pairs water and blood in a letter about the same person 1 John 5:6. The account itself makes no interpretation, and neither will this one: what the verse insists on is the fact.
He who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, that you may believe John 19:35.
The writer steps out from behind the narrative, and it is the only place before the epilogue where he does. He does not name himself. He says he was there, that he is telling it straight, and why he is telling it — which is the stated purpose of the whole book John 20:31.
The intervention is placed exactly here, at the one detail nobody could have invented and nobody would have thought to.
"A bone of him will not be broken" John 19:36.
The first Scripture is the Passover regulation: the lamb was to be eaten with no bone broken Exodus 12:46 Numbers 9:12. The soldiers skipped him because he was already dead — a decision made on operational grounds, at the hour the lambs were being killed, keeping a rule about lambs.
The book opened with a man pointing and saying behold, the Lamb of God John 1:29. It has taken nineteen chapters to arrive here, and the writer says nothing further about it.
"They will look on him whom they pierced" John 19:37 Zechariah 12:10.
The second Scripture is stranger and its context is a promise. In Zechariah the looking is followed by mourning and by a fountain opened for sin and uncleanness — the same order as here, a piercing and then something flowing.
And the verb is look on, which in this book is what people are invited to do: come and see John 1:39, look at the serpent lifted up John 3:14. The last Scripture quoted before the burial asks the reader to do the one thing the whole Gospel has been asking.
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