Note 57 — Chapter I · RELATION OF JESUS TO THE IDEA OF A SUFFERING AND DYING MESSIAH; HIS DISCOURSES ON HIS DEATH, RESURRECTION, AND SECOND ADVENT.

Meanwhile, this expedient is not at all needful, so far as any insurmountable difficulty in the words ἐν τρισὶν ἡμέραις, is concerned. As the number 3 is used proverbially, not only in connexion with 2 or 4 (Prov. xxx. 15, 18, 21, 29; Wis. xxiii. 21, xxvi. 25), but also by itself (Wis. xxv. 1, 3); so the expression, in three days, if it were once, in combination with the second and first day, become common as an indefinite statement of time, might probably at length be applied in the same sense when standing alone. Whether the expression should signify a long or a short period would then depend on the connexion: here, in opposition to the construction of a great and elaborate building, to the real, natural erection of which, as the Jews directly remark, a long series of years was required, the expression can only be understood as denoting the shortest time.57 A prediction, or even a mere intimation of the resurrection, is therefore not contained in these words.