Three Days and Three Nights

By Sharon Amari

But the Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights. Jonah 1:17

Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, “ Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” But He answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign; but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Matthew 12:40

Jesus used the example of Jonah to refer to His death and resurrection. If Christ was crucified Friday afternoon, and was risen Sunday morning, then there is a problem with the phrase “three days and three nights.” A Friday crucifixion and a Sunday resurrection do not cover a “three days and three nights” period. There are several questions that arise from this phrase. What did Jesus mean when He said this phrase? Did He mean to describe a 72-hour period and therefore we should take this phrase literally? If we should take it literally, could it be that the traditional Friday crucifixion is incorrect and that Christ died on a different day other than Friday?

What is the best method to tackle the stated problem? I believe to interpret Matthew 12:40 adequately, we need not rely on our own understanding but rather, we need to carefully analyze and compare the biblical data and come up with an interpretation that is consistent with the biblical texts. The questions that came to my mind were: Do we find a similar accounts in the bible where a proposed time period seemed to occur in a flexible way rather than literally? If yes, could it be that our understanding of time expressions is different than the ancients’ method of expressing time? This paper will attempt to answer all the above questions. I will present three possible explanations or interpretations to Matthew 12:40 and then I will conclude with my judgment.

Explanation I: Christ was crucified on Wednesday:

One explanation to Matthew 12:40 is proposed by Wolfgang Schneider in his article “ Was Jesus 3 days and 3 nights in the grave?” Schneider takes the phrase “three days and three nights” to literally mean a full period of 3 days x 24 hours, he then affirms that Christ was not crucified on Friday but rather, on Wednesday. Schneider cites John 19:31 that reads: “Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath.” He explains that this Sabbath, which was the day after the Preparation day, was not the regular weekly Sabbath, but it was a high Sabbath because it was the first day of the 7 day long Feast of Unleavend Bread. According to Leviticus 23:6-8, the beginning of this feast was always on the 15^th of Nissan regardless which day of the week it might be. Thus Schneider asserts that Jesus died in the afternoon of the 14th Nisan and was buried the same day shortly before sunset, just before the beginning of this high Sabbath day. Schneider continues by saying that all four Gospels mention that the grave was already empty at the beginning of the 1st day of the week, Sunday, which means that Christ had already been risen by that time. (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1.) Schneider counts a literal 72 hours period and affirms that Christ was risen from the dead late afternoon on Saturday. So counting backwards, he arrives at the conclusion that Christ died on Wednesday.

The contradiction exists only if one takes the mentioned "sabbath" to be the regular weekly sabbath by not taking into account what John 19:31 so clearly states with its additional information about this sabbath being a high sabbath. Such assumption puts the crucifixion and death and burial of Jesus on a Friday, which causes all the problems and makes Jesus to look like a liar. As soon as one recognizes that the sabbath was a high sabbath, the first day of the 7 day Feast of Unleavened Bread, the 15th Nisan, which could be on any day of the week according to the calendar, the problem and contradiction disappears.[1]

We can clearly see that Schneider’s theory relies on the phrase “ for that Sabbath day was an high day” mentioned in John 19:31(KJV.) The NIV version states: “the next day was to be a special Sabbath”. John Calvin comments on this verse by saying:

Another reading which more generally approved says, “and that Sabbath day was great.” But the reading which I have adopted is supported by many manuscripts that are ancient and of great authority. Let the reader choose for himself. If “that” is in the genitive, the word Sabbath will mean “the week.” It is as if the evangelist had said that the festival of that week was very solemn, on account of the Passover. Now, the evangelist speaks of the following day, which began at sunset, and they were the more scrupulous about leaving the bodies still hanging. But if we take the nominative reading, “and that Sabbath day was a high day, “ the meaning is similar, with very little variation of words. It means that the impending Passover would make the Sabbath more holy.[2]

F.F. Bruce writes:

In verse 14, paraskeue (preparation) was translated ‘Passover Eve’ because it is linked with the noun pascha. Here it stand alone, and therefore more probably means ‘Sabbath Eve’ or Friday. It makes no practical difference, because in that year the Passover coincided with the weekly Sabbath: that is why John says ‘that Sabbath day was a great day’. Such a conjunction of weekly Sabbath and annual Passover still occurs from time to time in the Jewish calendar[3].

From the above comments, it seems that the year Christ was crucified, the first day of the feast of the unleavened bread fell on the weekly Sabbath and that’s why, John in his gospel labels that particular Sabbath as a “special Sabbath.” Without doubt, Schneider’s theory is worth investigating with further research and studying of the original text, but if Calvin and F.F. Bruce’s comments are correct, which in my judgment they are, then that theory fails.

Explanation II: Jesus was Simply quoting Jonah.

Another explanation is that Christ was simply quoting Jonah. He used the same phrase just to remind the people of the sign of Jonah. The sign of Jonah was that he was buried in the belly of the whale, and then rose again. So in quoting Jonah, Jesus’ focus was not the length of time Jonah was buried, but like Jonah, he would be buried then raised. The phrase used by Jesus was to remind his listeners of a familiar Scripture. When Jesus was not quoting Jonah, he used a more accurate phrase, “on the third day” in Mark 9:31 to describe how long he would be buried [4]

The problem I personally have with this explanation is that it does not satisfy the reader. Jesus said in Matthew 12:40 “so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” We cannot just ignore the final part of this verse.

III Explanation: The Jewish reckoning of time

A third explanation deals with the way Jews reckoned time in the first century. According to the Jewish custom, any part of a day, however small, is included as part of a full day. Eric Lyons in his article “Three Days and three Nights” writes:

In the first century, any part of a day could be computed for the whole day and the night following it (John , A Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker,1979, pp. 210-211). The Jerusalem Talmud quotes rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah, who lived around A.D. 100, as saying: “A day and night are an Onah [‘a portion of time’] and the portion of an Onah is as the whole of it” (from Jerusalem Talmud: Shabbath ix. 3, as quoted in Hoehner, 1974, pp. 248-249, bracketed comment in orig.). Azariah indicated that a portion of a twenty-four hour period could be considered the same “as the whole of it.” Thus, in Jesus’ time He would have been correct in teaching that His burial would last “three days and three nights,” even though it was not three complete 24-hour days.[5]

We can find examples in the Bible that show that a part of a day is sometimes equivalent to the whole day. Here are some examples:

According to Genesis 7:12, the flood was upon the earth “forty days and forty nights.” Verse 17 says that it was on the earth for “forty days.”
When Queen Esther was about to appear before the king uninvited, she instructed her fellow Jews to fast for her by not eating “for three days, night or day” (Esther 4:16). The text goes on to tell us that Esther went to meet the king “on the third day” (Esther 5:1).
In 1 Samuel 30:12,13, the phrases “three days and three nights” and “three days” are used interchangeably.
In 2Chronicles 10:5, King Rehoboam instructed Jeroboam and the people of Israel to return to him “after three days”. In verse 12 of the same chapter Jeroboam and the people of Israel came to Rehoboam “on the third day, as the king had directed, saying, ‘Come back to me the third day’”[6]

Matthew, Mark, and Luke and Luke all record Jesus as prophesying that He would rise from the grave “on the third day” (Matthew 17:23, Mark 9:31, Luke 9:22.) By studying the above examples from the Old Testament, the Bible, when using expressions like “three days and three nights,” “three days,” “the third day,” “on the third day,” and “after three days,” signifies the same time period. From what we understood of the Jewish reckoning of time, it appears that the expression “three days and three nights” is another way of stating “on the third day” or “in three days.”

One thing to note is that Matthew did not see a conflict between “three days and three nights” expression and the other expressions mentioned above. He understood that they all mean the same time period.

A further evidence proving that Jesus’ statement in Matthew 12:40 was not a contradictory to what happened centers on the fact that His enemies, did not accuse Him of contradicting Himself since they themselves were familiar with their custom of stating time in a flexible way. Lyons writes:

The chief priests and Pharisees even said to Pilate the day after Jesus was crucified: “Sir, we remember, while He was still alive, how that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise.’ Therefore command that the tomb be made secure until the third day” (Matthew 27:63-64.) The phrase “after three days” must have been equivalent to “the third day,” else surely the Pharisees would have asked for a guard of soldiers until the fourth day. Why is it that skeptics charge Jesus with contradicting Himself, but not the hypocritical Pharisees? [7]

Given the biblical data presented in this theory, certainly this explanation is worth considering.

Conclusion

In my judgment, if we carefully study the bible and compare and analyze different accounts of Scripture we can arrive to the conclusion that when Jesus used the expression “three days and three nights,” he did not mean a literal 72 hours period. When attempting to interpret Matthew 12:40, we need to take into account the culture of the 1^st century and take into consideration the language and methods Hebrews used to describe time. This ancient method of reckoning time is very apparent from the biblical data. This might be confusing for us who live in 21^st century, but similar expressions are used today. When I say that I worked on this paper day and night for 1 week, I obviously don’t mean a 24 hour x 7 days. It could be that I worked at it 3 P.M. to 8 P.M for one week but certainly not 168 sleepless hours. Jesus knew his hearers very well and therefore when communicating with them, He used their language and method of reckoning time.