3 Days And 3 Nights!!! You Do The Math!!

Matthew 12

We are walking in today: 3 Days And 3 Nights!!! You Do The Math!!

Witness three throughout the Bible: H7969 shalowsh--three, triad, third

Exodus 3:18 And they shall hearken to thy voice: and thou shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, The LORD God of the Hebrews hath met with us: and now let us go, we beseech thee, three H7969 days' journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.

The Torah testifies...............
 Exodus 10:22 And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven; and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three H7969 days:

The prophets proclaim..................
 Jonas 1:17 Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three H7969 days and three H7969 nights

The writings bear witness...........................
 Esther 4:16 Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three H7969 days, night or day: I also and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish.

Matthew 12:40 (KJV) For as Jonas 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.

Many of us have been brought up in the church to believe that Yahuwshuwa (whom many call Jesus) died on “Good Friday” and he resurrected on “Easter Sunday.”

Well today, I am going to dismantle these lies, and show how these deceptions actually prove to discredit him as the authentic Messiah.

In Matthew 12:38, the religious leaders of his day asked him for a “sign” to prove that he was their awaited Savior that was prophesied about by Moses and the prophets.

His response to their asking for a sign is in Mattithyahuw (Matthew) 12:39-40: 39 But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Yownah (Jonas).​ 40 For as Yownah (Jonas) 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.

If he had not resurrected EXACTLY THREE DAYS & THREE NIGHTS after he was killed on the evening of Passover, then his prophecy would have failed, and this would have rendered him a false prophet, and not the true and genuine Messiah.

When the Christian Church teaches that he died on “Good Friday,” and then resurrected on Sunday morning, the devil dances with glee, because he knows that this makes him out to be a false prophet!

We all know that you cannot get three days and three nights out of 36 hours. The devil wants to discredit Yahuwshuwa as the Messiah, so that our faith in him will be destroyed. This would mean that his victory over death, Hell, and the grave was not won, and therefore, we are all doomed to eternal damnation. At least, this is what the devil wants you to believe!

That is why proving that he was in the heart of the earth for EXACTLY three days and three nights is crucial to our salvation!

Before I get into the meat of this study, we must first ask ourselves, “Why have we been conditioned to believe that Messiah was crucified on the 6th day of the week on Friday?”

The answer to this question is simple. The gospel accounts tell us that after Messiah was crucified, and his body taken down from the ​stake, the women were in a hurry to anoint his body with spices, because at sundown began a High Sabbath.

Those who are uneducated in the Mosaic Law (Towrah) see the word “Sabbath,” and they naturally assume that he was buried just before the weekly Sabbath, (what we today call Saturday). In John 19:31, it specifically tells us that this was not a regular weekly Sabbath, but an annual Sabbath:

Yahuwchanon (John) 19:31 The Yahuwdiym (Jews) therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.

What is a High Sabbath Day? The Greek word in John 19:31 used for “high day,” is “megas,” which means “great, mighty, large, high.”

Shemoth (Exodus) 12:42 It is a night to be much observed unto The Most High for bringing them out from the land of Egypt: this is that night of The Most High to be observed of all the children of Yisrael in their generations.

Our Messiah was killed on the 14th day of the first Hebrew Month known as “Abib” (Exodus 12:2 & 13:4). The Towrah commands that we kill the lamb on the 14th day of the first month in the evening. The Hebrew word for evening is “ereb,” which means “dusk.”

He was nailed the cross at 9:00 a.m. and he died at 3:00 p.m. It was getting close to darkness at 3:00 p.m., for they did not have daylight savings time in 1st Century Jerusalem. This means that at 3:00 p.m. in the month of April, it was already growing dark by this time.

Shemoth (Exodus) 12:6 And you shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Yisra’el shall kill it in the evening.

After the sun went down on the 14th of Abib, it then became the 15th of Abib, The Feast of Unleavened Bread. Remember, on the Creator's reckoning of time (Genesis 1:5), a calendar date changes at sundown, not at midnight. It was Pope Gregory who caused the date to change at midnight in the year 1582.

Right after our Messiah died on the 14th (Passover), he was taken down from the cross, and then buried before the High Sabbath, known as The Feast of Unleavened Bread:

Wayyiqra (Leviticus) 23:​ 5 In the fourteenth day of the first month at evening is The Most High's Passover.  6 And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread unto The Most High: seven days you must eat unleavened bread. ​ 7 In the first day you shall have an holy convocation: you shall do no servile work therein.

The day in which Yahuwshuwa’s crucifixion took place was called the “preparation day.” On the 14th day of Abib (Passover) we are commanded to prepare the Passover Lamb, and clean out all the leaven from our homes. Our Messiah was buried just before the sun went down on the 14th, and then it became the 15th of Abib, the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

Since The Most High introduced his divine calendar to us at creation in Genesis 1:5, a new calendar date was to begin at sunset. However, as I already mentioined Pope Gregory XIII caused the new date to change at midnight during his reign in 1582.

In Daniel 7:23-25, the angel told Daniel that the “fourth beast” (Rome) “shall think to change times and laws,” and since Rome has been instrumental in altering the calendar of our creator, the result has been the distorting of many prophetic events.

At the time of Yahuwshuwa’s crucifixion, Yisra’el and the entire world still acknowledged Yah’s standard of measuring time. Therefore, Yahuwshuwa was crucified and died on the 4th day of the week (what we today call Wednesday) at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, and then he was buried at sunset, around 6 p.m. After sundown, the date changed, and it then became the 5th day of the week, (what we today call Thursday).

Since the day was almost over when he died, we don’t start counting “Three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” until he was buried, and the sun went down that Wednesday evening. The count of 72 hours (three days and three nights) begins on Wednesday Night after sundown once he was in the grave.

Explanation about the word “day” in the King James Version:
It is important to note that whenever we see a word in italics in the King James Version, it means that the word was not there in the original text. It means that the English translators added that particular word into the text to help the sentence structure flow better.

In order to help you see where the words are italicized in the King James Version, I will highlight in red the italicized words for “day.” This will bring clarity to many of the translation anomalies in the gospels which seem to confuse people about the timing of these events.

At creation, The Most High “divided” (separated) the 12-hour period called “day” from the 12-hour period called “night,” and he treated them as two separate periods.

In Genesis 1:4-5 we read: “And Elohiym saw the light, that it was good: and Elohiym divided the light from the darkness. And Elohiym called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.”

As you can see, the “day” has a different name than “night.” He also did not include the “night” in with the period called “day.” He divided the 12 hours of day from the 12 hours of darkness and called them two different things.

In Genesis 1:5 people are often confused by the phrase “And the evening and the morning were the first day.” They assume that the word “evening” means the same thing as “night” and that Elohiym was combining these two periods of “day and night” and calling the combination of the two periods “day.”

However, this does not make sense, because he had just finished dividing the two periods in the previous verse, yet why would he combine day and night again and call it “day?” The Hebrew word for “evening” is “ereb” which means “dusk, mixture of light and darkness,” and it is still considered part of the twelve-hour period called “day.” However, it becomes “night” when all the light is completely gone. The Hebrew word for “night” is “layil” which means “opposed to the day.”

Thus, we see that there were actually six 12-hour periods being spoken of in the prophecy of Jonah wherein our Messiah said that he would be “Three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” If he was speaking of three 24-hour periods, he would have only said “Three days in the heart of the earth.”

You may be asking yourself “Why is this important?” It is important because some people would try to argue that he was in the heart of the earth approximately three days or “inside of three days.”

Many people rationalize that if one counts the day of his crucifixion (allegedly on Friday at 3:00 p.m.), the entire day counts as day # 1. The next logical conclusion is that day # 2 was Saturday, and day # 3 was Sunday.

They claim that even a fraction of the day counts as the same thing as a 24-hour period when reckoning the three days and three nights prophecy. The only problem with this logic is that The Most High, our Creator always uses precise measurements when it comes to prophecy. He is perfectly accurate in all of his ways.

From Friday evening at 3:00 p.m. until Sunday morning (when he allegedly resurrected) would mean that he was rendering a 36-hour period as “Three days & three nights.” However, we know that he purposely spoke of “Three days & three nights” because it is exactly 72 hours.

Hence, the reason why it is important to distinguish that a day is only 12 hours--not 24 hours! The period called “night” is also a 12-hour period.

Yahuwchanon (John) 11:9 Yahuwshuwa answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walks in the day, he stumbles not, because he sees the light of this world.

See my other article entitled “How Does the Sabbath Day Point to the Resurrection? I will Raise Him Up at the Last Day.”

Yahuwshuwa rose again as the Sabbath was ending “After three days.” This is why he said that he is “Lord of the Sabbath.” The Catholic Church changed the Sabbath to Sunday because they rationalize “Jesus resurrected on Sunday morning.” However, a careful study in the original language of the New Testament (Aramaic & Greek), will clear up this false notion of a Sunday resurrection.

What follows is a detailed and exhaustive study on the timing of the resurrection dissecting all four gospels and laying it out for us to see, that our Messiah resurrected on what we today call Saturday (the seventh day of the week), just as the Sabbath was ending!

3 DAYS AND 3 NIGHTS IN THE HEART OF THE EARTH

One of the most common questions asked by new Christians is, this:

“How could Jesus have been in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights if He died on a Friday afternoon and rose before sunrise on a Sunday?”

Most Christians duck the question, since at most they can only come up with one day and two nights (Friday nighttime, Saturday daytime, and Saturday nighttime in our measure of days). If they add in the Friday daytime they get two periods of daytime, even though Yahuwshuwa would have died in the late afternoon. This late afternoon death is consistent with the Passover lamb being killed between the two evenings according to the Mosaic Law.

The lamb was killed between 3:00 and 6:00 p.m. on the afternoon of the 14th of Abib/Nisan and prepared, because the 15th was the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which was an annual Sabbath observance (the first and last days of Unleavened Bread were annual Sabbaths in addition to the normal weekly Sabbaths). This search of the Word is important, not because it affects salvation, but because it answers the questions posed on whether Yahuwshuwa kept His Word, and whether the Bible is true in this matter. A legitimate concern and question for all followers of Messiah!

Wayyiqra (Leviticus) 23:5-8 In the fourteenth [day] of the first month at evening is The Most High’s Passover. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto The Most High: seven days You must eat unleavened bread. In the first day You shall have an holy convocation: You shall do no servile work therein. But You shall offer an offering made by fire unto The Most High seven days: in the seventh day is an holy convocation: You shall do no servile work therein.

The above text confirms that the first and last days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread are annual Sabbaths, to be observed as a day of rest in addition to the weekly Sabbaths. These days would occur on the 15th and 21st of Abib/Nisan.

The Passover meal was an important religious observance in which to remember that the blood of the lamb on the doorposts of their houses kept them alive when the angel of death passed by, and that The Most High had delivered them from slavery in Egypt.

The Passover is a perpetual observance to celebrate passing from death to life. These ancient events foretold the blood of Yahuwshuwa being spilled for our sins, and our passage from death to eternal life, by the everlasting covenant of the blood of Yahuwshuwa. They also foretold that Yahuwshuwa would die exactly on the 14th of Abib/Nisan and that the day following was an annual Sabbath.

What follows is a close examination of the biblical record, in which Yahuwshuwa was killed on the 14th of Abib/Nisan in the afternoon, and the next day was the annual Sabbath, the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. We shall also see from the biblical record that this annual Sabbath did not fall on the weekly Sabbath, in the year that Yahuwshuwa died.

Mattithyahuw (Matthew) 12:38-40 Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from you. But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Yonah (Jonah): For as Yonah (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.

Mattithyahuw (Matthew) 27:62-66 Now the next day that followed the day of the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate, Saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again. Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first. Pilate said unto them, You have a watch: go your way, make it as sure as You can. So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch.

The above verses show that Yahuwshuwa had openly taught that the major sign that He was the Messiah was that He would die and three days later rise again. Even more clearly, He said that He would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. This promise meant that 72 hours would pass from His death to His resurrection and that this would be the sign for the Jews that He was who He said He was (the Messiah). The Friday crucifixion with a resurrection before sunrise on Sunday morning totals approximately 36 hours.

If we understood Yahuwshuwa to mean that “within” three days and three nights He would rise again, then any period short of that would suffice. But He taught that “after” three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, then He would rise again. This logically would necessitate the crucifixion on a Wednesday, then the daylight and nighttime periods of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday would be three days and three nights. We count from either His actual death shortly after 3:00 p.m. or from the time His body was laid in the tomb, shortly before the annual Sabbath began, although I believe we should count the 72 hours from the time the body was laid in the tomb.

You’ll notice that the above text from Matthew 27, recorded that the chief priests met with Pilate the morning after the crucifixion to get permission to post a guard and seal the tomb. The Bible records that this was the day after the day of preparation. This day of preparation is the 14th of Abib (Nisan), when the homes were scoured for any leavened bread within the house and a preparation of food was readied for the Passover meal, and the Feast of Unleavened Bread [Mark 15:42, Luke 23:54, John 19:14, 31, 42].

Therefore, the grave of Yahuwshuwa was not sealed until the morning of the 15th of Abib (Nisan), on the annual Sabbath. In the text from John 19, we learn that the body of Yahuwshuwa needed to be removed from the cross because the Sabbath was about to begin and that Sabbath was a high day or annual Sabbath. This is consistent with the other verses which teach that the day of preparation was the day that Yahuwshuwa died. Now we only need to determine whether the annual Sabbath and weekly Sabbath fell on the same day, which would lead us to the conclusion that Yahuwshuwa died on a Friday afternoon, shortly after 3:00 p.m. as commonly taught. If not, then He died on another day of the week.

Yahuwchanon (John) 19:31 The Yahuwdiy (Jews) therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.

Shema Israeal Selah!!  We must count as the Most High has taught us to count!!!