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NASB | Matthew 12:40 for just as JONAH WAS THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS IN THE BELLY OF THE SEA MONSTER, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Matthew 12:40 for just as JONAH WAS THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS IN THE BELLY OF THE SEA MONSTER, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. [Jon 1:17] |
Bible Question: Jonah is referred to as a sign to the Pharisees and the Lawyers in the Gospels, the sign, three days and three nights in the belly of the earth as the picture of Jonah being three days in the belly of the great fish. The question, can one advance the idea that Jonah actually died, and was made alive again? The references to the grave seem to point to death, then Jonah after this is going through the city saying repent. What say? |
Bible Answer: Dear Ursus57, No, the Scripture does not tell us that Jonah died. Certainly he was as good as dead in that awful predicament (Jonah 2:7). He had to have been a very stubborn man to have waited three days before calling out to the Lord! When Christ references this story He uses it as an analogy of what is going to happen to Him. Analogies like this one may reveal what is called a type, but they don't give us the Biblical authority to impose facts from the one to the other. That's pressing the analogy too far. There are other analogies that Christ uses regarding His death (the temple in John 2:19, for example). That doesn't mean that we can construe things about the destruction of the temple by such an analogy. In Him, Doc |