Matt 12:40 and its "three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" is tricky only for this who decide to make it tricky. However, the passage is unique in all the NT:
- "heart of the earth" occurs nowhere else in all the Bible. The closest we get is Eze 38:12 but that is "center of the earth", and not, "heart".
- "three days and three nights" occurs nowhere else in all the NT and only occurs in Jonah 1:17, Est 4:16 and 1 Sam 30:12 in the OT, only the first of which is germane here.
[Even BDAG creates a special category for the meaning of "kardia" (= heart) in this verse.]
Thus, Matt 12:40 has been interpreted in several main ways:
- "Heart of the earth" means "in the tomb"
This then creates two sub-categories of interpreters who either believe that
- "three days and three nights" means a literal 72 hours and thus Jesus was crucified either on Wednesday afternoon or Thursday
- "Three days and three nights" is the usual inclusive reckoning of Jews and thus Jesus was crucified on Friday afternoon [This is by far the most common and dominant understanding.]
However, there is no explicit scriptural support for interpretation #1; despite it being probably the most natural. Note the comments of Barnes, which are typical of many:
In the heart of the earth - The Jews used the word "heart" to denote
the "interior" of a thing, or to speak of being in a thing. It means,
here, to be in the grave or sepulchre.
- "heart of the earth" can be quite reasonably translated "heart/center of the land" and thus, means "in Jerusalem".
The big problem with this understanding is that Jesus was in Jerusalem from at least Sunday. To overcome this obvious difficulty, these exegetes say that it is the time from the arrest of Jesus on Thursday night. While this is exegetically "neat" it is imaginative and without explicit scriptural support.
- "heart of the earth" means "subject to powers of darkness", ie, the time when Jesus was arrested and under temple/Roman control.
This is almost/essentially the same as #2 above and has even less Scriptural support than #2 above.
An even bigger problem is that Satan's kingdom is never referred to as the "center/heart of the earth" but is referred to and the "power of the air" (Eph 2:2) or "the prince of this world" (John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11), or, "the evil spirits in heavenly places" (Eph 6:12), etc.
CONCLUSION
So, what are we to make of Matt 12:40? The simplest is to understand the most common way which resolves most of the difficulties. Jesus was crucified on Friday and rose on Sunday morning thus making Him lie in the tomb for three days (by inclusive reckoning). This was the uniform understanding of the all the writers from the first century onwards until some started trying to understand differently.
APPENDIX - Three Days and Three Nights
How long was Jesus in the tomb? When was He crucified? Was it Friday or Wednesday? The debate around these questions centres on just one verse, Matt 12:40, “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Specifically, what is meant by three days and three nights?
Various Phrases
The phrase, “three days and three nights” occurs only in Matt 12:40 in all the New Testament. “In three days”, or “after three days” or the “third day” occurs in Matt 16:21, 17:23, 26:61, 27:40, 64, Mark 8:31, 14:58, Luke 9:22, 24:21, 46, John 2:19-21, which all clearly refer to the same time period that Jesus occupied the tomb.
In Bible times, time periods were invariably counted using the inclusive reckoning method. This means that a time period counted part of the first day and part of the last day as full days, or weeks or years as the time period required. Similarly, this three-day period is also reckoned by the inclusive method, which means that if Jesus died on Friday and rose on Sunday morning, this is entirely consistent with three days (and nights). Such time periods should not be understood in the modern sense, but in the sense in which the Bible writers commonly used and intended. An excellent example of this occurs in 2 Kings 18:9, 10 where three years is actually two years by modern reckoning but is correctly three years by inclusive reckoning.
Thus, it is not necessary to find 72 hours for the time Jesus was in the grave, because of the way the Jews commonly counted time, which is different from our modern methods. To assert otherwise is to read a modern sense into the ancient text, which was never intended!
The timing of the crucifixion is clearly demonstrated by the following Gospel references:
Matthew:
- Death on Friday (Παρασκευή preparation day): Matt 27:57, 62
- Sabbath rest: Matt 27:62-65 (Guard)
- Resurrection on Sunday (first of the week): Matt 28:1, 4 (Notice here that the guard was undisturbed until Sunday morning. Further, the KJV in Matt 28:1 has an awkward translation that incorrectly implies that the tomb was found empty late on the Sabbath. Every modern version has it more correctly.)
Mark:
- Death on Friday (preparation day): Mark 15:42
- Sabbath rest: -
- Resurrection on Sunday (first of the week): Mark 16:1, 9 (This latter text states unequivocally that Jesus rose on the first day of the week. The Greek is even clearer!)
Luke:
- Death on Friday (preparation day): Luke 23:54
- Sabbath rest: Luke 23:56
- Resurrection on Sunday (first of the week): Luke 24:1-7
John:
- Death on Friday (preparation day): John 19:14, 31, 42
- Sabbath rest: -
- Resurrection on Sunday (first of the week): John 20:1, 17
Notice that in all these cases, the day of Jesus’ death is described as the preparation day (Παρασκευή paraskeue) – an invariant designator of what we now call Friday, the sixth day of the week. There is not a single exception to this rule in any literature; in neither the New Testament nor any of the Apostolic Fathers. This practice is so wide-spread that the same word for Friday was also adopted into Latin, Parascue.
Annual Sabbath?
It has sometimes been asserted that the Sabbath referred to above was not the weekly Sabbath but one of the annual Sabbaths, namely the Passover, which occurred on Thursday, thus making the day of crucifixion, Wednesday, about sunset [Passove could not occur on Friday.]. Jesus would then have risen about sunset on Saturday.
This theory has a number of problems including:
- Why did the women wait until Sunday morning to embalm Jesus? Why not embalm on Friday which was neither a weekly nor an annual Sabbath?
- Matthew clearly records that Jesus died about 3:00pm, the time of the evening sacrifice (Matt 27:45-50); while Mark 15:25 records that the impaling occurred at about 9:00am.
- The time of death must have been several hours before sunset otherwise Joseph could not have had time to observe Jesus’ death, then go to Pilate, who then sent a centurion to ascertain and confirm Jesus’ death, and then Joseph removed the body, wrapped it and placed it in his tomb, all before sunset! (Recall that the place of execution was outside the city.)
- The uniform testimony of the early church was that Jesus was crucified on what we now call Friday and rose early on Sunday morning. It is only in modern times when the idea of inclusive time reckoning was superseded, thus creating the need to have exactly 72 hours between death and resurrection.
- Further, how does one reconcile the reference in Luke 24:22 where Cleopas and his friend said, on Sunday evening, it was the third day since Jesus’ trial and crucifixion? If Jesus had been crucified on Wednesday, Sunday would be the fifth day!
- There is not a scintilla of evidence that Jesus rose on the (weekly) Sabbath day – merely that it was before the women arrived early on Sunday morning. (Recall that when He met Mary on Sunday morning, He had not yet ascended to His Father, John 20:17. If He rose on Sabbath – where did He spend the night and doing what?)
Thus, all Gospel writers affirm that Jesus died on Friday (the preparation day), rested in the grave on Sabbath and rose on Sunday morning.
