JOHN CALVIN

24
QUESTION 10
JEW: I ask you, how can you say that Jonah was in the fish for three days and three nights just
as Jesus was in the earth three days and three nights 16 ? This is not true. For even according to
your words Jesus was in the earth for only three days and two nights.
CALVIN: In return I ask you, how do the prophets often reproach the entire population, without
any exception, for faithlessness and impious rebellion? For if this is true, where is the remnant?
How is the entire population said to have demanded Jeremiah's death, when nevertheless it was
certain that there would be at least a few who wished for him to be saved?
To the question I give a brief and pithy response. It is enough to note that even in the law
and the prophets it is common to find synecdoche, where the part is used for the whole, or the
whole for the part. Not even the Jews themselves dare to raise a dispute with us about the
number of days. They think that this calumny is more plausible when reckoning the number of
nights, because Christ rose again before the beginning of the third night. But since the night is
as it were an addition to the day, Christ did not hesitate to say three days and just as many nights
when referring to the three day period, making the example of Jonah more applicable to the
present occasion. Moreover there is no ambiguity in this matter, so it is futile to quibble about
words. If they should state expressly that the similitude does not fit because Jonah spent about
half a day more inside the fish than Christ did in the tomb, once again the response is simple: in
examples it is not necessary to have absolute conformity, and it is not absurd if some
dissimilarities should be observed.
16 Matthew 12:40