Eh, splitting hairs a bit, semantics maybe. If something has been "set apart" for a sacred purpose, it is "qodesh".
"I. That the first day of each of the three feasts. Passover, Pentecost, and
Tabernacles, was " a holy convocation", a "sabbath" on which no servile
work was to be done. See Leviticus 23:7, 24, 35. Compare Exodus 12:16.
"That sabbath" and the "high day" of John 19:31, was the "holy
convocation", the first day of the feast, which quite overshadowed the
ordinary weekly sabbath.
It was called by the Jews Yom tov = (Good day), and this is the greeting on
that day throughout Jewry down to the present time.
This great sabbath, having been mistaken from the earliest times for the
weekly sabbath, has led to all the confusion.
II. This has naturally caused the futher difficulty as to the Lord's statement that "even as Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights, so shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth three days and three
nights" (Matthew 12:40). Now, while it is quite correct to speak according to Hebrew idiom of "three days" or "three years", while they are only parts of three days or three years, yet that idiom does not apply in a case like this, where "three nights" are mentioned in addition to "three days". It will be
noted that the Lord not only definitely states this, but repeats the full phraseology, so that we may not mistake it. See the subject fully discussed in Appendix 144."
III. We have therefore the following facts furnished for our sure guidance:
1. The "high day" of John 19:31 was the first day of the feast.
2. The "first day of the feast" was on the 15th day of Nisan.
3. The 15th day of Nisan, commenced at sunset on what we should call
the 14th.
4. "Six days before the passover" (John 12:1) takes us back to the 9th
day of Nisan.
5. "After two days is the passover" (Matthew 26:2. Mark 14:1) takes us
to the 13th day of Nisan.
6. "The first day of the week", the day of the resurrection (Matthew
28:1, etc.), was from our Saturday sunset to our Sunday sunset. This
fixes the days of the week, just as the above fix the days of the
month, for:
7. Reckoning back from this, "three days and three nights" (Matthew
12:40), we arrive at the day of the burial, which must have been before
sunset, on the 14th of Nisan; that is to say, before our Wednesday
sunset.
8. This makes the sixth day before the passover (the 9th day of Nisan) to
be our Thursday sunset to Friday sunset. Therefore Wednesday, Nisan 14th (commencing on the Tuesday at sunset), was "the preparation day", on which the crucifixion took place: for all four Gospels difinitely say that this was the day on which the Lord was buried (before our Wednesday sunset), "because it was the preparation [day]" the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, "for that sabbath day was a high day", and, therefore, not the ordinary seventh day, or weekly sabbath.