Three Days and Three Nights

Messianic Bible Teacher

Zola Levitt

1938-2006

Three Days and Three Nights

By Zola Levitt

The question constantly arises:

If the Lord were really crucified on Friday and rose again

on Sunday, how could that have encompassed 

three days and three nights?

The Gospel accounts indicate that

 the Lord was crucified on Friday

at 9:00 a.m. and taken off the cross at 3:00 p.m.

His body was prepared for burial and interred at sundown 

the same day, which was the beginning of 

the Festival of Unleavened Bread.

The Lord then arose on Sunday morning after sunup.

According to the modern way of counting, 

this spans barely two days.

Yet that time period seems to disagree

 with Jesus' earlier prediction:

"For Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly;

so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights

in the heart of the earth."

(Matthew 12:40)

The prophecy can be understood when we examine the

Jewish way of counting days and nights.

We must recall that the Jewish day always starts at sunset,

so Friday really begins on Thursday evening,

a fact that is reflected in the language of Genesis,

"the evening and the morning" are the first day.

The second day then begins at sundown on Friday

and continues through the daytime on Saturday.

Finally, Sunday begins at sundown on Saturday

and stretches through Saturday night and the

daylight hours of Sunday, making the third day.

And since the Jews counted any portion

of daylight as a full day, then Friday

morning through Sunday morning would

have been seen as three complete days.

People have sometimes struggled to move Passover

the "Last Supper" back one day in order

to get three days and three nights the way we

would count them in the Western world, but,

that would be inaccurate.

Even in the Western world we begin each day on

the night before at midnight, so the 

concept is not strange to us.

And supporting this understanding of the

Lord's crucifixion on a Friday,

against those who claim it happened on

a different day, is the centuries-long history

of Christians celebrating Good Friday,

not "Good Thursday" or "Good Wednesday".

So this is more evidence that we can trust in

the accuracy of the Biblical account, as well as

further confirmation that knowledge of the

Jewish roots of Christianity can open a

deeper understanding of God's Word.