Mt 12:40 “For just as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.”

See also Mt 16:21 (‘on the third day’); Mt 27:63 (‘after three days’); Acts 10:40; 1 Cor 15:4 (‘raised on the third day’).

There are two issues here.

The first is the question of whether Jesus’ words here are decisive in determining whether the Jonah incident should be considered fact or fiction.  This is discussed in a linked post.

The second issue concerns the meaning of the expression ‘three days and three nights’.  This is explored here.

If, as is usually thought, Jesus was crucified on Friday and raised on Sunday, then he was in the tomb for (part of) three days and two nights.

Various explanations have been offered.

1. A real discrepancy?

Some suppose that there is a real discrepancy here.  So Hagner (WBC), who thinks that the discrepancy is ‘minor’ and insignificant:

‘But this kind of minor discrepancy, the obsession of some modern interpreters, was of no concern to Matthew or to any of the evangelists, nor can it be allowed to affect the discussion of the chronology of the passion and resurrection of Jesus.’

Barclay (DSB) thinks that

‘Matthew understood wrongly the point of what Jesus said.’

Spong (Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, p154) opines that

‘counting seems to have been a problem for Matthew’s Jesus.’

In this latter case, we judge the author to be as guilty of literalistic thinking as the ‘fundamentalists’ he so despises.

2. Crucified a day (or two) earlier?

Some propose a revision to the received chronology of Holy Week accordingly, making the crucifixion on the Wednesday or Thursday.

Nick Cady (largely following Jack Kelley:

In Jewish thinking the day begins at sundown on (what we would call) the previous day.

The ‘Sabbath’ mentioned in Jn 19:31 was a special Sabbath, connected with the Feast of Unlelavened Bread, and occurring on (what we would call) the Friday.

According to Lev 24:4-14, Passover fell on 14th Nisan, the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread on 15th Nisan, and the Feast of Firstfruits on (what we would call) Sunday after Passover.

Cady proposes that Jesus actually died on a Thursday.  Friday was a special Sabbath, and Saturday the weekly Sabbath.  Thus, Jesus was in the grave for three days and three nights.

Such an explanation had been favoured by R.A. Torrey (Difficulties in the Bible):

‘Jesus died about sunset on Wednesday. Seventy-two hours later, exactly three days and three nights, at the beginning of the first day of the week (Saturday at sunset), He arose again from the grave. When the women visited the tomb just before dawn the next morning, they found the grave already empty.’

3. A different understanding of ‘in the heart of the earth’?

Kenneth L. Waters argues that the matter can be resolved, not by treating ‘one day and two nights’ as if this was equivalent to ‘three days and three nights’, but by reconsidering what is meant by the expression, ‘in the heart of the earth’.  Waters cites historical and lexical evidence in support of his view that ‘the heart of the earth’ does not mean, ‘the grave’, but Jerusalem and its environs (‘heart’ being understood as indicating ‘centre’).  The Gospels tell us that, during the last week of his earthly life, Jesus moved between Bethany and Jerusalem.  When he arrived in Jerusalem for the third time, he did not return to Bethany.  This period began on the Thursday and finished on the Sunday, and includes the Last Supper, Gethsemane, arrest, trial, crucifixion and burial.  This entire period may be thought of as Jesus’ time of suffering.

Moreover, observes Waters, it was Jesus’ suffering (and not his resurrection) that was witnessed by an ‘evil and adultrous generation’.  Therefore, concludes Waters,

‘it was not the resurrection of Jesus, but his suffering that constituted the sign of Jonah.’

Waters summarises:

‘Matthew’s reference to “three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” as an ordeal for the Son of Man is therefore not a stressed synecdoche, nor a cryptic chronology, nor a mismatched metaphor. It is a summation of events involving Jesus in Jerusalem from Thursday evening to Sunday morning. Although draped in biblical prose, it recalls a historical memory about the suffering of Jesus. As Jonah spent three days and three nights of suffering inside the great fish, so Jesus spent a final three days and three nights of suffering in Jerusalem, that place known in biblical and extrabiblical tradition as the “middle,” “center,” “navel,” or “heart” of the earth.’

4. An idiomatic expression?

Most commentators, however, agree that in Semitic idiom, this is a ’rounded-up’ expression which is consistent with the fact that Jesus rose ‘on the third day’, Mt 16:21; Lk 24:7,21; 1 Cor 15:4.

Cf. Gen 42:17–18; 1 Sam 30:12–13; 2 Chron 10:5, 12; Esth 4:16-5:1.

On 1 Sam 30:12f, Archer comments:

‘”he had not eaten bread or drunk water for three days and three nights” is equated in v.13 with hayyom se losah (“three days ago”)–which could only mean “day before yesterday.” But if the Egyptian slave fell ill on the day before yesterday (with relationship to the day on which David found him), then he could not have remained without food or water for three entire twenty-four-hour days.’

So older commentators, including Theodore of Heraclea (ACCS), Geneva Bible, Matthew Henry, Albert Barnes, Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, and among modern scholars, Blomberg (NAC), Morris (PNTC) France (TNTC), Frank Stagg (Broadman), Wilkins (HAC), Osborne (ZECNT), Keener (IVPBBC), Carson (EBC), Turner (CBC), and Gundry.

See also this, by Andreas Kostenberger.

Bruner agrees that this is the ‘usually recommended’ explanation, citing Jerome, Alford, Strack-Billerbeck and Davies and Allison.  The two last-named (by no means conservative evangelicals) are quoted: ‘can we not allow Matthew some poetic license?’

Carson says that

‘according to Jewish tradition, a day and a night make an onah, and a part of an onah is as the whole. Thus, “three days and three nights” need mean no more than “three days” or the combination of any part of three days.’

Esther 4:16-5:1 is relevant here.  The young Queen asks for a fast to be held on her behalf, which will last for three whole days.

‘Then we read that on the third day Esther put on her royal robes, signalling the end of the fast.  Only two nights had elapsed, but in Jewish thinking three days and three nights would have been crossed off the calendar.’ (Bewes, The Top 100 Questions, p258)

Albert Barnes observes that it this expression was intended to be taken literally, and not idiomatically,

‘the Jews would have understood it, and would have charged our Saviour as being a false prophet, for it was well known to them that he had spoken this prophecy, Mat. 27:63. Such a charge, however, was never made; and it is plain, therefore, that what was meant by the prediction was accomplished.’

France (NICNT) notes:

‘The same phrase, “three days and three nights” occurs in 1 Sam 30:12 to denote a period which began (literally) “today three days,” the day before yesterday (v. 13). Similarly in Esther a period described as “for three days, night and day” (4:16) is concluded “on the third day” (5:1). It is worth noting that the partially Pharisaic delegation which requests the guard at the tomb, and which may reasonably be assumed to be recalling this, the only public pronouncement by Jesus about his resurrection, nevertheless uses the terms μετὰ τρεῖς ἡμέρας and ἡ τρίτη ἡμέρα to specify the period Jesus had spoken of (27:63–64). Underlying this flexible usage is the Jewish tendency to speak of a period of 24 hours as a day and a night, so that Jesus’ time in the tomb can be said to embrace (parts of) three “day-nights.”’

Archer (Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties) sheds some further light:

‘The only way “day” in the sense of dawn-to-dusk sunlight could be distinguished from the full twenty-four-hour cycle sense of “day” was to speak of the latter as “a night and a day” (i.e., an interval between 6:00 P.M. and 6:00 P.M. of the day following). In other words Friday as a twenty-four-hour unit began on Thursday 6:00 P.M. and lasted until Friday 6:00 P.M. Correspondingly, Sunday began at 6:00 P.M. Saturday, according to Hebrew reckoning (but 12:00 P.M. Saturday according to Roman reckoning). According to ancient parlance, then, when you wished to refer to three separate twenty-four-hour days, you said, “Three days and three nights”–even though only a portion of the first and third days might be involved.’ (Emphasis added)

Gundry:

‘Jesus stayed in the realm of the dead only parts of three twenty-four hour periods (part of Good Friday, all Saturday, and part of Easter Sunday), not three whole days and nights. But the reference to three days and three nights comes out of Jonah 1:17 and causes no problem, because the Jews reckoned part of a twenty-four hour period for the whole (see Genesis 42:17–18; 1 Samuel 30:1, 12–13; 2 Chronicles 10:5, 12; Esther 4:16–5:1)’

The contributor to Hard Sayings of the Bible agrees that the expression ‘three days and three nights’ was not intended to be taken literally, but was employed in order to remind readers of the familiar Scripture concerning Jonah.

As a variation or refinement of the above interpretation, Jonathan Alan Hiehle (Lexham Bible Dictionary) suggests that the expression ‘three days and three nights’ alludes to a descent to the Underworld – a theme quite prevalent in ancient Near Eastern literature.  This theme has been utilised by the Christian tradition to present the resurrection of Jesus as a victory over the Underworld and over death itself.  Journeys into the Underworld utilised the ‘three days and three nights’ motif.  So, for example, in the Akkadian myth Inanna completed her journey to complete her descent into the Underworld.  So also (of course) the same time span applies to Jonah being returned from Sheol to dry land.

Hiehle comments:

‘This formulaic phrase “three days and three nights,” which multiple cultures use, creates a pattern in narrating a return from death to life.’

So also, concludes Hiehle, the Gospel of Matthew alludes to the same Underworld motive by using the same formula, ‘three days and three nights’.  This is therefore part of the NT’s witness to the descent of Jesus into the Underworld, conquering death and freeing those entrapped by it.

Conclusion

This is, of course, a minor problem anyway, except for some inerrantists and sceptics.  But we can, in the light of this idiomatic way of thinking, say with confidence that our Lord rose ‘on the third day’.

In addition to the works cited, see this by Andreas Kostenberger.