of that kind. For there are various sorts of whales, and in these days, the bodies of men are found in their stomachs ; and even if such were not the case, we must suppose that fish espe cially made for the occasion ; see Jon. ii. 1. — sarai, shall be) A sign for the future, as in John ii. 19, vi. 62, 39. — 7%, of the eartli) From thence shall they have a sign, and not one from heaven before that, although they sought it thence ; cf. Luke xi. 16. No signs, except such as were exhibited from the earth, and performed for the good of men, were suitable to the Mes siah's state of humiliation. They did not know that the sign of that time was suitable to that time ; see ch. xvi. 3. After wards signs were shown, and shall be shown from heaven : see Acts ii. 19; Matt. xxiv. 30. — rf^ic, y^ipac /ca/ rpiT; tbxntCf three days and three nights) No one doubts that Jesus was in the heart of the earth three days. — He remained there however only two nights, as far as night signifies the darkness interposed be tween day and day (cf. Mark xiv. 30); and yet the calculation of three days, and the same number of nights, holds good if you do not interpret it with astronomical exactness, but resolve it by synecdoche. For three days and three nights are the peri phrasis of a single idea, and have the force of a single word and term, if such existed, by which the remaining of Jesus in the sepulchre is expressed, as if you should say a-space-of-three-days- and-nights (triduinoctium), or three-nights-and-days (tria noctiduci). Three days might have been simply expressed, but this is the idiom of the sacred style, that in indicating continuous time the intervening nights are added ; see ch. iv. 2 ; Gen. vii. 4 ; 1 Sam. xxx. 12, 13 ; Job ii. 13. And then it sounds better to say1 three days and three nights, than three days and two nights, al though the Lord was buried on the actual day of the prepara tion, not on the night preceding and joined to it, and the space of twenty-four hours is regarded simply as a natural day with out the change of darkness and light ; and in fact the first night- and-day, used synecdochically,2 was from about the tenth hour of the Friday up to the night exclusively;3 the second and
1 In the original, " concinnius dicitur," i.e. it sounds more systematic, it sounds more uniform, to say. — (I. B.)
2 See Appendix on the figure Synecdoche (I. B.)
3 The night not being included. — ED.