Verse 1: The Sabbath ended at sundown on Saturday night, but because night travel was unsafe Mary (and anyone else) would have waited till morning arrived or at least was approaching.
Most Judean tombs were private family tombs, many of them around Jerusalem. In many cases this was a cave with a disk-shaped stone to roll in a groove across its entrance. A wealthy tomb could have a stone roughly a yard or meter in diameter, requiring more than one person to move it.
2: Romans saw to it that those crucified were dead; on the rare occasion where a crucifixion was stopped and a person taken down and given medical help, they usually died anyway. Apart from a resurrection, which no one expected, Mary could only imagine that the body had been stolen, that the authorities had confiscated it (to put it temporarily in a criminals’ common grave), or that owners of the site had moved it.
4: Comparison could often elevate one person without denigrating the other, especially if they were friends. Athletic prowess was one ancient basis for comparison, especially concerning young men.
5: The stooping suggests a tomb with a low entrance leading to a lower pit; the lighting or the positioning of Jesus’ body (for example, on shelves to either side) would explain why the head veil was not visible before entering.
7: The scene is not the disarray one would expect from hasty grave robbers. Nor would robbers have removed the wrappings to take the body.
12: Among the many associations of white, angels were normally thought to be arrayed in white.
14: Jewish people believed that angels could appear in various forms and sometimes disguises, and sometimes that God could disguise individual humans.
15: A “gardener” fits the garden (19:41); these often were very poor.
16: “Rabboni” (my teacher) is more personal than “Rabbi.”
17: People applied sibling language figuratively to members of one’s people, fellow disciples, friends, and others. It may be relevant (depending on one’s interpretation of 20:17) that ancient texts sometimes included predictions of events fulfilled only after the close of the narrative. On ascensions, see comment on Acts 1:9-11.
18: Ancient Mediterranean culture esteemed the testimony of women far less than that of men (and in some circles did not normally accept it).
(Adapted from Dr. Keener’s personal research. Used with permission from InterVarsity Press, which published similar research by Dr. Keener in The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. Buy the book here.)
