MATTHEW 12:40 "Three Days and Three Nights" Someone asked the following question: "In Mt. 12:40 Jesus says, 'For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.' According to my calculations and Jewish time, I can't get three nights out of the time Jesus was in the grave. Can you explain?" In answering the question, I will begin with some things we know for facts. Whatever conclusion we draw and explanations we offer must conform to those known facts. The first thing we know for certain is that Jesus was raised from the dead on "the first day of the week." That can be demonstrated plainly from Luke 24:1, 7, 13, 21 and 46. Notice carefully the wording of these verses. V. 1 says that the woman came to the grave "upon the first day of the week..." The two men in shining garments at the tomb reminded the women that Jesus had told them that he would "be crucified, and the third day rise again," (v.7). Two disciples were walking to Emmaus "that same day" (i.e., "the first day of the week) (v. 13). As these two disciples walked along the way, Jesus joined them but they did not know who he was. In the course of their conversation with Jesus, they observed, "...and beside all this, today is the third since these things were done" (v. 21). By putting all the available information in this context together we understand that the third day, on which Jesus predicted that he would be raised, was the same day that the women came to the tomb and that day was the first day of the week. Conclusively, Jesus was raised on the first day of the week. The next thing we know for certain is that Jesus was crucified the day before the sabbath (Luke 23:54-56; Mark 16:42). Was this sabbath the regular seventh day of the week or was it a special sabbath? Some feast days are referred to as "sabbaths" (cf. Leviticus 16:31; 23:31-32, 39). However, the "sabbath" mentioned in the gospels as "approaching" was called a "high sabbath." This was a way of describing a seventh day sabbath which occurred during one of their annual feasts. Vine says, "3. MEGAS (megas), great, is translated 'high' in John 19:31, of the Sabbath Day at the Passover season..." (p. 559). The crucifixion, then, had to have occurred on the Friday before the seventh day Sabbath. There are three different expressions which cover the amount of time that Jesus was in the grave -- "three days and nights" (Matthew 12:38-42); "the third day" (Matthew 16:21; 17:23; 20:19; Luke 9:22; 18:33; 24:7, 21; Acts 10:40; and "after three days" (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34). Remember that time was always counted by the Jews with the night proceeding the day. What we are now faced with is how to fit the expressions covering the time that Jesus was in the grave into the framework of time between Friday and the First Day of the week. Any effort to make this span of time an absolute 72 hour period of time will always result in a contradiction of the expression "on the third day." Try to figure it out that way and you will see. In figuring a full three days and nights (72 hours), it matters not what time you have Jesus put in the grave, when you project 72 hours in the future, his resurrection would have to be ON THE FOURTH DAY. How do we explain "three days and three nights" so that there is no contradiction in the accounts? "Three days and three nights" is actually an idiom that covers any part of three days and nights. Compare 1 Samuel 30:11-13; and Esther 4:16-5:1 -- if these were literally "three days and three nights," then, in both accounts, it would have to have been the "fourth day" and not the "third day." Bullinger says, "From this it is perfectly clear that nothing is to be gained by forcing the one passage (Matt. xii. 40) to have a literal meaning, in the face of all these other passages which distinctly state that the Lord died and was buried the day before the Sabbath and rose the day after it, viz., on the first day of the week. These many statements are literal and are history: but the one passage is an idiom which means any part of 'three days and nights.' The one complete day and night (24 hours) and the parts of two nights (36 hours in all) fully satisfy both the idiom and the history," (Figures of Speech Used in the Bible, pp. 846-847).

	Created on 14-Mar-00	Page last updated