Note 1496 — Chapter XXXIV

Matt. xii. 40—For as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights—is not repeated in Luke xi. 29, 30, which confines the sign to the preaching of repentance, and is suspected as an intrusion both for this and other reasons, e.g. that ver. 40 is superfluous and does not fit in with ver. 41, which gives the proper explanation of the sign; that Jonah, who came by his burial in the fish through neglect of his duty and not by martyrdom, could not therefore in this respect be a type of our Lord. On the other hand, ver. 40 is not unlike another reference of our Lord to His resurrection, John ii. 19 ff. Yet, even if ver. 40 be genuine, the vagueness of the parallel drawn in it between Jonah and our Lord surely makes for the opinion that in quoting Jonah our Lord was not concerned about quoting facts, but simply gave an illustration from a well-known tale. Matt. xvi. 4, where the sign of Jonah is again mentioned, does not explain the sign.