The Sign of Jonah

In Matthew chapter 12, verses 39 & 40, we read of “the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in thein the belly of the great fish, so shall  the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth”. This statement has perplexed Christians over the years. If the Lord Jesus was crucified on Good Friday and rose from the dead the following Sunday, then He could not have been buried for three whole days.

Dean Alford in The Greek New Testament, volume 1, page 133, gives the solution. He says, “If it be necessary to make good three days and three nights during which our Lord was in the heart of the earth, it must be done by having recourse to the Jewish method of computing time. In the Jerusalem Talmud (cited by Bishop Lightfoot) it is said “that a day and night together make up one day, and that any part of such a period is counted as the whole”.

He gives the following references for confirmation. I shall quote the first few.

Genesis 40. 12, 13 & 20. Joseph said to Pharaoh’s chief butler, “”This is the interpretation of it: the three branches are three days. Now within three days Pharaoh will light up your head and restore you to your place …Now it came to pass on the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, that he made a feast for all his servants; and he lifted up the head of the chief butler” .

The other references are: 1 Samuel 30.12 & 13; 2 Chronicles 10. 5 & 12; Hosea 6.2.

“Behold, a great than Jonah is here!”, Matthew 12, verse 41.