Matt:12;14 three days and three nights

[JRKH]

If this has been covered before, I apologize. Please steer me to the right thread.

Ran across this in Matthew.

Mathew Chapter 12 verse 40
Just as Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of Man spend three days and three nights in the bowels of the earth.

If we take Jesus death on the cross from 3 pm on Friday to his resurection as being at dawn on Sunday (say about 6 am) This amounts to 2 nights (Friday and Saturday) and one+ day (Friday late afternoon and Saturday)

Near as I can figure that totals about 39 hours, not even close to 3 days and 3 nights (72 hours).

I find this somewhat troubling.

Please explain.

James

 

[thistle]

If this has been covered before, I apologize. Please steer me to the right thread.

Ran across this in Matthew.

Mathew Chapter 12 verse 40
Just as Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of Man spend three days and three nights in the bowels of the earth.

If we take Jesus death on the cross from 3 pm on Friday to his resurection as being at dawn on Sunday (say about 6 am) This amounts to 2 nights (Friday and Saturday) and one+ day (Friday late afternoon and Saturday)

Near as I can figure that totals about 39 hours, not even close to 3 days and 3 nights (72 hours).

I find this somewhat troubling.

Please explain.

James

The number of hours is totally irrelevant. Friday, Saturday and Sunday are counted as 3 days no matter what time of the day you count from. In those days 3pm Friday to 3pm Saturday was not one day but 2.

 

[Verbum]

HI JKRH,

Yes, the ancients (including Romans and Greeks) counted all the days in a duration. Friday, Saturday and Sunday makes three.

Verbum

 

[JRKH]

I can accept the three days part but how do you explain -

“Three days and THREE NIGHTS”

I only count Friday night and Saturday night.

James

 

[Athanasius]

Mike Licona covers this topic in his book Paul Meets Muhammad: A Christian-Muslim Debate on the Resurrection on pages 88-89, in the following way

“…the phrase ‘three days and three nights’ is a Jewish idiom meaning a short period of time and does not necessarily have to include three days and three nights. Today we might speak of a long task taking ‘forever.’ We mean that it will take a long time. We do not mean that it will take an infinite amount of time and is incapable of being completed. Likewise, someone may say that something will take ‘only a minute’ This means a very short time, not sixty seconds. These are simply English idioms. Idioms exist in all langauges.”

He then goes on to give an example from the book of Esther where this idiom is also used, when Esther states the following:

“Go, assmeble all the Jews who are found in Susa, and fast for me; do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maidens also will fast in the same way.. And thus I will go in to the king, which is not according to the law; and if I perish, I perish.” (Esther 4:16 NASB)

Two verses later, however, we read:

“Now it came about on the third day that Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the king’s palace in front of the king’s rooms, and the king was sitting on his royal throne in the throne room, opposite the entrance to the palace.” (Esther 5:1 NASB)

Licona comments: “Esther did not wait a full three days and three nights. She went to the king on the third day. So that would be two days plus a number of hours.”

Licona also points out that from the Gospel of Matthew itself, the same place where we read the prophecy of “three days and three nights”, we see that three days and three nights is not meant to be taken literally. After Jesus’s crucifixion, the Jewish leaders went to Pilate and said:

“Sir, we remember that while living that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise.’ Theresefore, order the grave to be secured until the third day, lest his disciples come and steal him away and say to the people, ‘He was raised from the dead,’ and the last deceit will be worse than the first.” (Matthew 27:63-34).

Licona comments: "Notice that they say that Jesus predicted he would rise after three days. So what do they do? They request that the grave be secured by guards until the third day. If the term ‘after three days’ is a Jewish idiom that does not mean a full seventy-two hours, this passage has no conflict. But if by it Jesus meant he would be dead at least seventy-two hours, then the Jewish leaders are foolish to reqauest that the grave be secured ‘until the third day’ In other words, they intend to pull the guard just before Jesus said he would rise, which would leave nearly twenty-four hours for the disciples to steal his body. You see? Understanding ‘three days’ in a literal sense does not make sense. Therefore, when we consider two Jewish writings, one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament, the terms ‘after three days’ and ‘three days and three nights’ seem to be a Jewish idiom that is not in conflict with the earliest Christian claims that Jesus was raised ‘on the third day’.

 

[JRKH]

Thanks - That helps a lot. Still somewhat confusing :whacky: but doable.

Appreciate the help

James

 

[SonofGrace]

Jesus said He would rise on the 3rd.
If He spent the 3rd night in the grave, He would have rose on the 4th day.

 

[mercytruth]

One possible explanation is Passover at around midnight, Thursday evening (while in the garden of Gethsemane) until sunrise Sunday morning.

 

[Huiou_Theou]

Thanks - That helps a lot. Still somewhat confusing :whacky: but doable.

Appreciate the help

James

In some places, the scriptures report he rose ON the third day, other’s report he rose AFTER. The ambiguity is found in the expression for Jonah as well.
Jonas, if he were in the coils of the fish for three days and three nights, would have been in there for more than even 72 hours. In Jewish understanding, a day began at around 5:00P.M.; Putting a “day” before a “night” indicates a partial day.

In all the above mentioned scripture passages, I would suggest an alternate explanation.
The number three is the number of judgment. It takes two agreeing witnesses to pass sentence, or three if the two witnesses do not agree.

In the story of Jonas, Esther, and Jesus; the activity is associated with a judgment.
In the story of Jonas, notice that there are parallel passages. Nineveh is a city of “three” days walk; But the short lived repentance of the Ninevites occurred when he was barely one days journey in. He never completed the journey to judgment of them.

The one thing in common with these passages is that when we are allowed to compare; All the merciful outcomes are shorter than the full length of three which are prescribed. It might be instructive for you to use a concordance and look up many/all instances that the number three is used – and look at the context of them with respect to a plea/or judgment. From the three angels appearing to Abraham (Leaving upon Sarah’s attempted fib…) through many other examples; the tribunal nature of three is apparent.

 

[itullian]

sorry, doesn’t set right with me. 3 days and 3 nights means 3 days and 3 nights.
there’s no vagueness there.

there are things in the Bible that don’t mesh. sad to say.

 

[Huiou_Theou]

sorry, doesn’t set right with me. 3 days and 3 nights means 3 days and 3 nights.
there’s no vagueness there.

there are things in the Bible that don’t mesh. sad to say.

They don’t mesh for people who refuse to study carefully, yes.
What do you mean by “sorry” ?

 

[COPLAND_3]

Here is the comments from the great Cornelius a Lapide

You will ask, how Christ was three days and nights in the sepulchre and Limbus: for He was there only on Friday and Saturday nights, and rose at day-break on Sunday? 1. Alcuin (L. de. Divinis 0ff. sec. de. Cœna. Dom.) gathers from this place that Christ lay in the tomb three whole days and nights, or 72 hours, and consequently rose again at the end of Easter Monday. But this is certainly a mistake. The constant tradition of the church is that Christ rose on the Lord’s day.

1. Greg. Nyssen (Orat. 1 &. 2 de Resurrec.) computes these three days to begin on Thursday. He is of opinion, that when on the evening of that day Christ instituted the Eucharist, He offered Himself to God under the species of bread and wine by means of the unbloody sacrifice. The soul of Christ was separated from the body, but that this was done in a secret and invisible manner, and that then the soul of Christ went down to Hades, and that thus He pre-accomplished His death, which the Jews were visibly to bring about on the following day upon the cross. But this, too, is an error. For there is really in the Eucharist the soul of the Living Christ, that is to say, in His body and blood contained under the species of bread and wine. It is there, I say, not indeed by virtue of the words of consecration, but by natural concomitance. For in the Eucharist there is Living Christ, with His Soul, even as He is outside the Eucharist. Thus the Council of Trent defines (Sess. 13, sec. 2). It would have been otherwise if any of the Apostles had consecrated the Eucharist during the triduum of the Passion. For then the Body and Blood of Christ would have been in it separated from His Soul, for in this manner they were in Christ Himself now buried. For Christ was then dead, not alive.

I say then, that the expression three days and three nights is here only a periphrasis and description of a natural day. The two integral parts of such a day are day and night, or light and darkness. Christ makes use of this periphrasis because Jonah, His antetype, did the same. (Jonah i. 17.) We must not understand that these days are three artificial days as opposed to nights, as if during three days, in which the sun is above the horizon, Christ lay in the tomb; for this was not the case. You must consider these three natural days to be not whole days but parts of days, namely, the latter part of Friday; when Christ being taken down from the Cross, was laid in the sepulchre, the whole of Saturday, and part of the Lord’s day. For although the Hebrews reckoned their civil days from one sun-rise to another, like the Chaldeans and the Persians (Beda de ration. temp.), yet they computed their sacred days, such as the Passover, from evening to evening. Thus S. Jerome, Theophyl., Euthym., and S. Aug. and commentators, passim, explain the meaning of these three days. Hence Christ is constantly spoken of as rising on the third day, or after three days, without any mention of nights.

But in this place, according to this computation, there were but two nights in which Christ lay in the tomb, viz. Friday and Saturday nights, and yet three nights are expressly mentioned. Others therefore answer more fully and plainly; that these three days and nights are reckoned according to the Roman computation. For the Romans were at that time, masters of Judea, and had introduced their own methods of computing time in civil affairs. The Romans reckoned from midnight to midnight, as Christians do in their fasts and festivals. (See Macrob. L. 1. Saturni c. Gell. L. 3. c. 2. Pliny. L. 2. c. 77. and others). According to this reckoning it is clear Christ remained in the tomb during a part of three days and three nights. He was buried on Friday before sunset; and was in the tomb until the midnight of that day. After that He was in the tomb during the entire day and night of the Sabbath; and from the midnight of Sunday for about six hours until that dawning of the Lord’s Day on which He arose. For the Passover was at that time about the equinox, when the days and nights are equal, each being about twelve hours long. But the Soul of Christ, immediately when He expired upon the Cross at the ninth hour, i.e., at three o’clock in the afternoon, descended into Limbus, and there remained with the Fathers until the dawn of Easter Day. Now that the Jews made use of the Roman method of computing time may be learnt as well from other things, as because they borrowed the four watches of the night from the practice in use among the Roman armies. (See Matt. xiv. 25 and elsewhere.) Different nations had different methods of reckoning the beginning of the day. The Persians and Babylonians reckoned from sunrise to sunrise. The Athenians and Italians, from sunset to sunset. Astronomers from midday to midday. But the Egyptians and Roman priests reckoned from midnight to midnight: and this method has continued in the Roman Church. The Hebrews then in the time of Christ followed the method of the Romans, to whom they were subject. Franc. Lucas teaches that the Jews did not compute their Festivals from midnight as Christians do. The explanation given above is that of S. Anselm, in Loco. Isidore of Pelusium (L. 1. Epist 114 and 212), D. Thom., (3. p. q. 46. art. 9), Suarez (3. p. q. 53. disp. 46. sect. 3. in fine.), and Baronius. (A. C. 34.).

 

[jochoa]

If this has been covered before, I apologize. Please steer me to the right thread.

Ran across this in Matthew.

Mathew Chapter 12 verse 40
Just as Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of Man spend three days and three nights in the bowels of the earth.

If we take Jesus death on the cross from 3 pm on Friday to his resurection as being at dawn on Sunday (say about 6 am) This amounts to 2 nights (Friday and Saturday) and one+ day (Friday late afternoon and Saturday)

Near as I can figure that totals about 39 hours, not even close to 3 days and 3 nights (72 hours).

I find this somewhat troubling.

Please explain.

James

Here is a concept to consider:
If there was Friday night, then Saturday day, then Saturday night, then He rose over in Jerusalem. Then at the same time in America, there must have been Friday day, then Friday night, then Saturday day, then He rose. Therefore, there were 3 days and 3 nights.

 

[The_Scott]

sorry, doesn’t set right with me. 3 days and 3 nights means 3 days and 3 nights.
there’s no vagueness there.

there are things in the Bible that don’t mesh. sad to say.

It’s the ancient Jewish equivalent to when we say we’ll do something “in a sec” or “in a minute.” Doesn’t mean it’ll be exactly a minute or a second, but a short period of time.

 

[Truth_Lover]

I think, all this time-trouble because the predicting that Jesus is punished on Friday.

Fact, no verse in New Testament give name of that day (Friday). There is one verse can describe that day: John 19:14 “And it was the preparation of the Passover,”.

The celebration of the Jews’ Passover, had never fall on Saturday. They always move it although Passover fall in Saturday.

So, based on John 19:14, Jesus hasn’t crucified on Friday, but the other day. For example: on Wednesday. After 3 days and 3 nights (because in Jews’ system: day is start from sun down): Jesus start His Risen at Saturday evening around 6 pm (in Jews, the day was Sunday).

 

[QNDNNDQDCE]

I think, all this time-trouble because the predicting that Jesus is punished on Friday.

Fact, no verse in New Testament give name of that day (Friday). There is one verse can describe that day: John 19:14 “And it was the preparation of the Passover,”.

The celebration of the Jews’ Passover, had never fall on Saturday. They always move it although Passover fall in Saturday.

So, based on John 19:14, Jesus hasn’t crucified on Friday, but the other day. For example: on Wednesday. After 3 days and 3 nights (because in Jews’ system: day is start from sun down): Jesus start His Risen at Saturday evening around 6 pm (in Jews, the day was Sunday).

For one thing, it is clear from the Synoptic gospels that the day Jesus’ crucifixion was the First Day of Unleavened Bread, as they ate the Passover meal that evening (Mt 26:17). If Jesus was Crucified on Friday then Friday was Nisan 15. Now preparation (παρασκευή) means day of preparation. In this context, it is the day of preparation (Friday) for the sabbath of the week-long Festival of Unleavened Bread, which is broadly referred to as the Passover. The Passover meal occurred Thursday evening and Crucifixion on Friday.

Now, Jesus rose on the first day of the week, which is Sunday (Mark 16:9). Since he was buried on the same day that he died (Lk 23:54-56), it means that if the Crucifixion was before Friday, he would not have risen on the third day as Christ said he did (Lk 24:46). If he died on Thursday, he would have risen on the Fourth day, because the Jews would have reckoned Thursday to be the first day and thus Sunday to be the fourth day. This principle is proven from Leviticus 23:15-16.

“You shall count seven full weeks from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering. You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath.”

Fifty days from a Monday is to the Hebrews another Monday, even though it would be a Tuesday by our reckoning. This is because the day beginning the period is never to the Jews a “day zero.” If the Gospel accounts are treated according to the Jewish manner of reckoning, then a Crucifixion prior to Friday results in a contradiction since Sunday would not be the third day. The only satisfactory explanation is the traditional explanation that Jesus did in fact die on Friday and rise on the third day, Sunday (at least certainly by the Jewish manner of dating even if he may have risen before midnight).

Now, if you hold, contrary to the Scriptures, that Jesus rose on Saturday, you have some explaining to do. If he rose from the dead at 6 PM, just what exactly was he doing that whole time between then and his first appearance? Secondly, it is not fitting that Jesus would rise on the sabbath because “on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done” (Gen 2:2).

 

[QNDNNDQDCE]

The example given from Esther proves that Jesus did not lay in the tomb for a full seventy-two hours. If the contraposition of “on the third day” and “three days and three nights” were present only in the Gospels, it would be understandable to account it as a contradictory mistake. However, the presence of the same expressions for an identical sort of situation elsewhere in the Bible demand that “three days and three nights” be taken as a non-literal idiom.

 

[Huiou_Theou]

I think, all this time-trouble because the predicting that Jesus is punished on Friday.

Fact, no verse in New Testament give name of that day (Friday). There is one verse can describe that day: John 19:14 “And it was the preparation of the Passover,”.

The celebration of the Jews’ Passover, had never fall on Saturday. They always move it although Passover fall in Saturday.

So, based on John 19:14, Jesus hasn’t crucified on Friday, but the other day. For example: on Wednesday. After 3 days and 3 nights (because in Jews’ system: day is start from sun down): Jesus start His Risen at Saturday evening around 6 pm (in Jews, the day was Sunday).

Curious, the saying is “three days; and three nights” not three nights and three days. The order is preserved although it reverses the Jewish sequence of creation.

If day precedes night, the one can’t even guarantee it means “three” 24 hour time periods, it will suggest 4 (or more) days.

 

[Julia_Mae]

If we take Jesus death on the cross from 3 pm on Friday to his resurection as being at dawn on Sunday (say about 6 am) This amounts to 2 nights (Friday and Saturday) and one+ day (Friday late afternoon and Saturday)

Near as I can figure that totals about 39 hours, not even close to 3 days and 3 nights (72 hours).

I find this somewhat troubling.

Please explain.

James

My understanding of these sorts of things is that Jesus was true man, speaking to other people in their time and place. He speaks colloquially, in a way understandable to everyone of his time and place. The mustard seed isn’t the smallest seed, either. If you say, “I’ll be gone for three days,” you really don’t mean 72 hours. The word translated “night” is easily just a colloquialism as we would use “day.” Sometimes we mean “time when the sun is up,” but we also mean, “including all or part of the span of time we call Thursday.”

 

[Huiou_Theou]

My understanding of these sorts of things is that Jesus was true man, speaking to other people in their time and place. He speaks colloquially, in a way understandable to everyone of his time and place…

I agree, and there are ways to show the point from scripture; This particular expression is a prophecy, and one of very specific historical significance.
Matthew 12:40
usccb.org/bible/matthew/12

Many recordings of it, when interpreted by colloquial ears… reduce it to just “three days”: Mark 8:31, Matthew 26:61, Matthew 27:40

And many recordings of it are very clear, that the fullness of three days is the maximum period for the feat to be accomplished; not the minimum: Some people demonstrate that the event happening in mere hours would be sufficient as well; before ever he died.
Mark 14:58; Mark 15:29
usccb.org/bible/matthew/14

Many people misinterpreted the significance of the saying;
John 2:19, 2:20 and 21 – “But the temple he spoke of was his body.”

Ultimately, the precise meaning of the statement is based on the prophecy of Jonah – and an acting out of that prophecy in “likeness” (not exactness. Matthew 12:40)

Since we have less information on Jonah, than we do on Jesus – it’s difficult to assign a precise meaning to “three days and nights.”; as I noted above, given Jewish days start at evening – the expression introduces an ambiguity in its own right, if taken literally.

But – I can make a definite, generalized statement – about periods of three days; They are found throughout scripture as part of tests or tasks where an immediate judgment is required – and potent prayer is needed. The number three, is a number of sufficient witness and power. “Where two or three are gathered in my name there am I in there midsts”, “let a man be put to death on the word of two or three witnesses.”;

The number “three” is generally understood to be necessary only in order to break a “tie” or deadlock.

It is in this legal vein, that we often find the idea of two or three, where “two” is clearly “good enough” or even better – should things work out early.

Take Esther 4:16, where she asks for people to pray for her for three days; night and day (night listed first)…
If the endeavor were somehow to succeed before then, without her entering the room of Judgment – she would clearly be content; On the other hand, traditional rabbinical interpretation (from targums & Aben Ezra) is that her words (three days, night and day) meant prayer for “two” days, with the event itself happening during the third day.

Or again, in the book of Jonah; where the Exact wording and meaning of the event Jesus talks about is preserved; We are told that Jonas’ task is to preach (intense prayer) to Nineveh a city of “three days Journey”; Jonah 3:3
usccb.org/bible/jonah/3

And Jonah himself, had only gone ONE day’s journey before repentance Happened; and no more need existed for him to preach – at which point, Jonah leaves the city angry to watch what will happen, and God spends two days preaching to him through a worm and a plant.

Just so, Jonah’s sign is divided into two parts – one where he is a dead man praying in the dark, and one where he preaches but for a single day.

It’s the latter preaching aspect of Jonah’s sign, that St. Peter tells us Jesus went to do after his death; 1Peter 3:19

So, that it’s hardly surprising that Jesus stayed in the grave for a little over one chronological day/time period. The task was simply completed quickly in likeness to Jonah.

Again, in scripture, we are told “Jesus rose ON the third day” and other places say “he rose after three days”; which shows that people understood both sayings to have the same meaning in spite of an apparent ambiguity.