Matthew 12:40

Three days and three nights] The difficulty is that our Lord only lay in the grave two nights. The expression resembles the Jewish inclusive way of reckoning ('on the third day,' etc.), but goes beyond it. The most plausible explanation is that of J. Lightfoot. He supposes that Jesus, speaking in Aramaic, said, 'The son of man shall be three 'onahs in the heart of the earth.' 'Onak meant a day and a night, and a part of an 'onah was reckoned as a whole, so that the Gk. translator not quite accurately rendered the expression, 'three days and three nights.' The heart (i.e. 'centre') of the earth] Not the grave, which is on the surface, but Hades, which popular imagination placed in the centre of the earth.

Our Lord's use of the story of Jonah and the whale, to illustrate His Resurrection, need not imply that He regarded it as literal history. The book of Jonah is probably a symbolical or allegorical narrative (see Intro. to Jonah).