Was Jesus crucified on a Friday? If so, how did He spend three days in the tomb if He was resurrected on Sunday?

All four Evangelists fix the day of the Crucifixion as a Friday, with which agrees the tradition recorded in the Talmud. Wellhausen at Mark 15:42 renders παρασκεύη as "Friday," in accordance with old Syriac, and also modern Greek. This leads us to inquire what the "preparation" was for. Westcott and others have replied, for the Passover in the narrow sense of the word, but Purves ("Hastings' Dictionary," under "Preparation") holds that it was for the Sabbath and so "preparation of the Passover" would stand for "the preparation in Passover week." Whilst the technical word "preparation" seems to have been in standing use for a weekly function (with Mark 15:42 cf. Josephus, "Antiquities," xvi. 6, 2, referred to in Grimm's "Lexicon," s.v.), some preparation would be needed for various festivals, and the preliminaries for the Passover in that year would blend with those for the Paschal Sabbath, called "high day" in John 19:31.

The three days and three nights have troubled a good many expositors. Not a few teach that in order to bring together the three days and three nights during which our Lord was in the grave, He must have died either on Wednesday or Thursday. The three days and three nights must be interpreted according to Hebrew usage. In Luke 24:21 we read that the two who met the risen Lord said, "And beside all this, today is the third day since these things were done." That was on the first day of the week. Reckoning back, Saturday would be the second day and Friday the first day, the day on which Christ died.

Three Days and Three Nights

It has been said, that because our Lord died on Friday at the ninth hour, was buried that day, and rose again from the dead on Sunday, the first day of the week, that, therefore, it is not true to say He was "three days and three nights in the heart of the earth," as our Lord declared that the Son of man would be. (Matt. 12:40.) But let it be observed, that according to the Jewish mode of calculating time, there is no inaccuracy in this statement. In our day man has changed the scriptural order of almost everything possible, and instead of speaking of an evening and morning being a day, modern Gentiles say that a day consists of a morning and evening, and so calculate accordingly. And if the Jews reckoned any part of a day, as part of a night and a day (for the evening and the morning in Genesis 1 made a day), the alleged inaccuracy wholly disappears. For Friday, up to six o'clock, would be spoken of as one night and day, Friday evening and Saturday morning another night and day, and thus the difficulty is removed.

I will mention here another of these objections of blind unbelief, which presumes to discover discrepancies and incongruities in that divine book, where faith perceives perfect harmony. These enlightened "friends of light" ("Lichtfreunde"), as they call themselves on the Continent, say, "It is written in the Bible that the Son of man shall be three days and three nights in the belly of the earth, even as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish. But Jesus was in the grave from Friday evening until Sunday morning, that is scarcely more than one day and two nights. How are we to reconcile such an evident incongruity?

Here, as usually, when attempting to contest the truth of Holy Writ, the "friend of light" only betrays his dark ignorance, not only in divine things, but even in matters of simple history. For it is a well-known fact, that according to the Jewish way of reckoning, any part of the day — the beginning or its close — counted for twenty-four hours. The body of our Lord was laid in the grave on Friday afternoon before six o'clock (the beginning of the sabbath); which according to the Jewish recording counted for one day and one night. During the whole of the following night and day (the sabbath) His body rested in the grave, which was the second day and the second night. And on the third (Sunday) early in the morning He arose, which makes the third day and the third night. None of the Jewish Rabbis, the inveterate enemies of the second part of Holy Writ, and its constant assailants, have ever dared to raise that objection to its troth, as in doing so they would have betrayed their ignorance. It was reserved for modern sceptics (i.e., "seers"), rationalists and "divines," thus to expose their ignorance in divine matters and the irrationalism of their infidelity.

The last verse of Jonah 1 tells us that the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and that Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. It is in this fact that we find the key of the interpretation of chap. 2; for our Lord expressly connects this circumstance with His own death. He says, "As Jonah 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." (Matt. 12:40.)* And it is exceedingly interesting to trace the way in which Jonah, under the judgment of God, becomes a type of Christ in His rejection and death.

*Rationalism has sought to discover an inconsistency in this statement, alleging that our Lord was actually only two nights in the grave; but this is merely playing with the common ignorance of Jewish modes of reckoning. With them a part of a day always included the whole, so that our Lord simply adopted the usual manner of speech. Nothing is more sad than the petty criticism of human reason, ever on the outlook to discover a ground of exaltation against the wisdom of God. But "the foolishness of God is wiser than men."

The last verse of Jonah 1 tells us that the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and that Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. It is in this fact that we find the key of the interpretation of chap. 2; for our Lord expressly connects this circumstance with His own death. He says, "As Jonah 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." (Matt. 12:40.)* And it is exceedingly interesting to trace the way in which Jonah, under the judgment of God, becomes a type of Christ in His rejection and death.

*Rationalism has sought to discover an inconsistency in this statement, alleging that our Lord was actually only two nights in the grave; but this is merely playing with the common ignorance of Jewish modes of reckoning. With them a part of a day always included the whole, so that our Lord simply adopted the usual manner of speech. Nothing is more sad than the petty criticism of human reason, ever on the outlook to discover a ground of exaltation against the wisdom of God. But "the foolishness of God is wiser than men."

1918 150 The Lord Jesus was the very shortest part of three days in the grave. We should remember that the Jewish way of reckoning was to count a part of a day or year, as a whole one. Throughout the O.T., a part of a year is reckoned as a whole one, but there is a difference between the way the ten tribes reckoned the reigns of their kings, and the way Judah reckoned.

It is a principle with God that "in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established." This I do not doubt to be at least one reason for the three days, whether one looks at the case of Jonah, or of Christ, or of any other. It means a fully adequate testimony, as in our Lord's case, to the reality of His death when He had been rejected to the uttermost; so with Jonah. Two would have been enough; three were more than sufficient, an ample and irrefragable witness. So our Lord Jesus, though by Jewish reckoning three days and three nights in the grave, literally lay there but the whole of Saturday — the Sabbath, with a part of Friday not yet closed, and before the dawn of Sunday. For we must always remember in these questions the Jews' method of reckoning. Part of a day regularly counted for the four-and-twenty hours. The evening and the morning, or any part, counted as a whole day. But the Lord, as we know, was crucified in the afternoon of Friday; His body lay all the next or Sabbath day in the grave; and He rose early the Sunday morning. That space was counted three days and three nights according to sanctioned Biblical reckoning which no man who bowed to scripture would contest. This was asserted among the Jews, who, fertile as they have been in excuses for unbelief, have never, as far as I am aware made difficulties on this score. The ignorance of Gentiles has exposed some of them when unfriendly to cavil at the phrase. The Jews found not a few stumbling-blocks, but this is not one of them: they may know little of what is infinitely more momentous; but they know their own Bible too well to press an objection which would tell against the Hebrew scriptures quite as much as the Greek.

In the gospel of Matthew three days and three nights are predicated of the Lord's burial. This style of speech was according to Jewish reckoning, which counted even a small fraction of a day before sunset, or another after it, as a night and day respectively. The principle involved was that of a full witness to His death. In the Revelation it was no longer a question of this, but of such a computation as suits and is intelligible to men at large.

It does not mean three periods of twenty-four hours, but involving this time. The time when our Lord died was already inclusive of a day and a night; then the Sabbath in which He lay in the grave was a day and a night; and on the first day He rose we have the third day and night, inclusive. At any time in twenty-four hours it is the same day and night whether early in the morning or late at night.

Would the three days and three nights carry the thought of competent testimony?