1. The Messiah said that three nights would be involved with His time in the "heart of the earth".
2. There are some who believe that the crucifixion took place on the 6th day of the week with the resurrection taking place on the 1st day of the week.
3. Of those, there are some who believe that the "heart of the earth" is referring to the tomb.
4. However, those two beliefs allow for only 2 nights to be involved.
5. To account for the discrepancy, some of the above say that the Messiah was using common figure of speech/colloquial language of the time, i.e., that it is was common to forecast or say that a day or a night would be involved with an event when no part of the day or no part of the night could occur.
6. In order for someone to legitimately say that it was common, they would have to know of more that 1 example to make that assertion.
I wonder if there is anyone here that knows of examples?
'Then Jesus six days before the Passover came to Bethany,
where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom He raised from the dead.'
(Joh 12:1)
Hello again,
@rstrats,
( This is the second of 2 responses by me to your OP)
Considering the six days before the Passover (John 12:1). We are furnished by Scripture with certain facts and fixed points which, taken together, enable us to :-
(1) to determine the events which filled up the days of '
the last week' of our Lord's life on earth'
(2) to fix the day of His crucifixion; and
(3) to ascertain the duration of the time He remained in the tomb.
The difficulties connected with these three have arisen,
(1) from not having noted these fixed points,
(2) from the fact of Gentiles' not having been conversant with the law concerning the three great feasts of the Lord; and,
(3) from not having reckoned the days as commencing (some six hours before our own) and running from sunset to sunset, instead of from midnight to midnight.
To remove these difficulties, we must note:-
(1) That the first day of each of the three feasts, Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles was '
a holy convocation', a '
sabbath' in which no servile work was to be done. See Leviticus 23:7; Leviticus 23:24 & Leviticus 23:35. Compare Exodus 12:16, '
That Sabbath' and the
'high day' of John 19:31, was
'the holy convocation' the first day of the feast, which quite overshadowed the ordinary weekly Sabbath.
It was called by the Jews 'yom tov' (or 'Good day') and this is the greeting on that day throughout Jewry down to the present day.
This Great Sabbath having been mistaken from the earliest times for the weekly sabbath, has led to all the confusion.
(2) This has naturally caused the further difficulty as to the Lord's statement that '
even as Jonah was in the belly fish three days and three nights, so shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights' (Matthew 12:40). Now, while it is quite correct to speak according to Hebrew idiom of 'three days' or 'three years' , while they are only parts of three days or three years, yet that idiom does not apply in a case like this, where 'three nights' are mentioned in addition to '
three days'. It will be noted that the Lord not only definitely states this, but repeats the full phraseology, so that we may not mistake it.
(3) We have therefore the following facts furnished for our sure guidance:-
(a) The 'high day' of John 19:31 was the first day of the week.
(b) The 'first day of the feast' was on the 15th day of Nisan.
(c) The 15th day of Nisan, commenced at sunset on what we would call the 14th.
(d)
'Six days before the passover' (John 12:1) takes us back to the 9th day of Nisan.
(e)
'After two days is the passover' (Matthew 26:2; Mark 14:1) takes us to the 13th day of Nisan.
(f)
'The first day of the week', the day of the resurrection (Matthew 28:1 & ch.), was from our Saturday sunset to our Sunday sunset. This fixes the days of the seek, just as the above fixes the days of the month, for :-
(g) 'Reckoning back from this,
'three days and three nights' (Matthew 12:40), we arrive at the day of the burial, which must have been before sunset, on the fourteenth day of Nisan; ie., before our Wednesday sunset.
(h) This makes the sixth day before the passover (the 9th day of Nissan) to be our Thursday sunset to Friday sunset.
Therefore Wednesday , Nisan 14th, (commencing on the Tuesday at sunset), was
'the preparation day', on which the crucifixion took place; for all four gospels definitely say that this was the day on which the Lord was buried (before our Wednesday sunset),
"because it was the preparation (day)" the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day,
'for that the day was a high day', and therefore, not the ordinary seventh day, or weekly Sabbath. (See John 19:31)
(4) It follows, therefore, that the Lord being crucified on
'the preparation day' could not have eaten of the Passover lamb, which was not slain until the evening of the 14th of Nisan (ie., afternoon). On that day the daily sacrifice was killed at the 6th hour (noon) and offered at about the 7th hour (1 pm). The killing of the Passover lambs began directly afterwards. Thus it is clear. that if the killing of the Passover lambs did not commence until about four hours after our Lord had been hanged upon the Cross, and would not have been concluded at the ninth hour (3pm) when '
He gave up the ghost'; - no ' could have been eaten at this 'last supper' on the previous evening.
(5) With these facts before us, we are now in a position to fill in the several days of the Lords's last week with the events recorded in the Gospels. By noting that the Lord returned to Bethany (or to the Mount of Olives) each night of that week, we are able to determine both the several days and the events that took place in them. (The Companion Bible Appendix 156)
* Following this are tables of the days laying out clearly the passage of events and the days and times on which they occurred.
- (App. 156)
http://www.markfoster.net/rn/companion_bible_appendices.pdf - (App. 144)
I hope this is helpful to you. Though complex.
In Christ Jesus
Chris
