John 19:28 Commentary and Bible Study

this tremendous verse is pivotal in this half chapter. ‘After this,’ can mean sometime after this. In the Gospel of John, terms of that kind, can mean an event separated by a few minutes, or a by a few hours or even days, and here it is hours, of course. It was at least three hours after assigning the care of his mother to the disciple John, and I think probably nearly six hours. It is likely that that interaction with his mother and John was probably at the very front end of his six hours of suffering and dying on Calvary. Certainly it was before the three hours of darkness.Here is another Scripture prophecy which is fulfilled. But the thirst – it was a burning, scalding thirst from suffering on Calvary’s cross so long, hanging with nails through hands and feet in the hot sun, but more, taking that almost bearing eternal weight of punishment on behalf of those who would be saved. So it is a kind of sign of this that he says, ‘I thirst.’ But there is a practical reason too, because in Matthew’s Gospel we read that his final words were shouted out with a loud voice and the need for dealing with his thirst would probably have been necessary in order for him to do that. He had been offered a pain-dulling drink at the beginning of the six hours of Calvary. He refused that but now at the very end he asks for this sip, this touch of sour wine of vinegar that was to hand.