6) Three Days and Three Nights (1:17)
1: 17 Now the Lord had prepared a great fish
to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three
nights.
There is no detail about Jonah more familiar and
more certain, than the simple fact that he was buried inside the whale for three
days and nights. Nor is there any detail of greater importance, for did not
Jesus make it so?
“As Jonas was three days and three nights
in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three
nights in the heart of the earth” (Mt. 12: 40).
A simple fact, a very simple fact — in need
of interpretation!
On the strength of the words just quoted it is
very dogmatically asserted by some that there is a great error in the long
received idea that the Lord Jesus was crucified on a Friday and rose from the
dead on the Sunday morning.
Not possibly! For where is the room between
Friday afternoon and Sunday sunrise for ” three days and three
nights”?
Accordingly, it is decided that the crucifixion
was on a Wednesday, followed by a Passover Sabbath on the Thursday and then an
ordinary Sabbath on the Saturday. Thus, reckoning from Wednesday sunset to
Saturday sunset, the body of the crucified Lord lay in the tomb for exactly
seventy-two hours.
Leaving on one side the strange incongruity that
the Sun of righteousness should rise just as darkness fell; there is a large
accumulation of unexplained difficulties before the theory can be fully
accepted:
- Whilst the New Testament mentions this “three days and
three nights” only once, it also uses the expression “after three
days” and no less than ten times it says “the third day” when
speaking of Christ’s resurrection.
- The words of
the two disciples talking to Jesus on the road to Emmaus on the day of his
resurrection: “Today is the third day since these things (the crucifixion)
were done” (Lk. 24: 21). But if Christ had lain in the tomb for
seventy-two hours, ought they not to have said “the fourth, or even the
fifth, day since these things were done”? This point is surely
decisive.
- The Lord’s enemies, the chief priests,
give the same kind of witness. They came to Pilate: “That deceiver
said...After three days I will rise again. Command therefore that the sepulchre
be made sure until the third day” (Mt. 27: 63,64). “After three
days” would require, would it not, a guard at the tomb until the fourth
day? But they were content to have the guard until the third
day.
- If the theory is correct, why should the women
leave their visit to the tomb, to anoint the body (Mk.16: 1,2), until the
Sunday, when Friday would have been the most obvious time? The problem of
corruption of the body would decide this, wouldn’t it? (Jn.11:
39).
It seems strange that there has not long ago been
clear recognition that “three days and three nights” is a familiar
Bible idiom for “the third day”. Considering that the phrase is not
of common occurrence, it is surprising how many times this idiom crops
up—with the explanation in the context:
- Queen Esther, faced with a great threat against her own
people, bade them fast with her “three days, night and day” (Esth.
4: 16). Yet before this seventy-two hours fast was concluded, she went in
“on the third day” to intercede with the king. Thus “three
days and three nights” was interpreted as meaning “on the third
day”.
- “They continued three years without
war between Syria and Israel”. Yet “in the third year” war
broke out again (1 Kgs. 22: 1,2). Here the same idiomatic usage is applied to
years.
- In the fourth year of Hezekiah, the king
of Assyria took Samaria “at the end of three years” in the sixth
year of Hezekiah (2 Kgs.18: 9,10).
- King Rehoboam
told the deputation, who came appealing to him, that they should “come
again unto me after three days.” They returned “on the third
day” (2 Chr.10: 5,12).
- Similarly, Mk. 8: 31 has
the phrase “after three days”, and what is certainly the parallel
record in Mt.16: 21 has “on the third
day”.
There are other examples of the same sort, but
these should suffice to establish that the solitary use of “three days and
three nights” (Mt.12: 40) about the Lord’s entombment is to be
understood as meaning “the third day”. The eight occurrences of this
latter phrase (Mt.17: 23; 20: 19; Mk.9: 31; 10: 34; Lk.9: 22; 18: 33; Acts 10:
40; 1 Cor.15: 4) besides those already quoted should surely settle the
question.
There is also the very striking double type of
the wave sheaf of barley and also the Jamb of the first year (the Passover lamb
reconsecrated to God), which were both offered on the day after the Passover
Sabbath (Lev. 23: 11,12). Thus the death and resurrection of Jesus correspond
exactly with the slaying of the Passover lambs on the 14th, and the
reconsecration of a Passover lamb on the morning of the 16th.
Now the question needs to be asked afresh and
answered afresh. How long was Jonah in the whale?