Mat 12:38-42 | PNT | STEP | Master, we would see a sign from thee . Compare . They had just seen a miracle, but demand another. Jesus never worked miracles to gratify human curiosity, or to secure popular applause.

Matthew 12:38-42

Master, we would see a sign from thee. Compare Mt 16:1 Lu 11:16,29. They had just seen a miracle, but demand another. Jesus never worked miracles to gratify human curiosity, or to secure popular applause. An evil and adulterous generation. We must keep in mind that the Lord is speaking to his enemies. He compares them to a faithless wife. They were faithless to God. See Mt 16:4.

The sign of the prophet Jonah. See Mt 12:40. As Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly. See Jon 1:17. The great fish was probably not a whale (the Greek is "ketos", "sea monster"), but a white shark, which abounds in the Mediterranean, and is said to swallow a horse whole. The miracle was the preservation of the life of Jonah during his living burial. This was a type of the burial and resurrection of Christ.

So shall the Son of man be three days and three nights. Jesus says that he will "be raised again the third day" (Mt 16:21). Hence, in Jewish usage "the third day" must mean the same as "three days and three nights". It was and is customary with the Orientals to make any part of the day stand for the whole twenty-four hours. Compare Mt 16:21 Mr 8:31 2Ch 10:5 10:12 Es 4:16 Ge 7:4,12 Ex 24:18 34:28. A traveler in the East writes: ``At length the tenth morning arrived--the tenth morning because, though we performed nominally ten days quarantine, yet it was, really, only eight days. We landed at nine o'clock in the evening of the first day, and were liberated at six o'clock in the morning of the tenth day, but it was held to be ten days according to the custom of the East.'' Christ was buried Friday evening, lay in the grave Saturday, and rose Sunday, parts of three days, rose "on the third day", and was in the grave the space of time meant in eastern usage by three days and three nights.

In the heart of the earth. In the sepulcher. The men of Nineveh. The great capital of the Assyrian Empire, situated on the Tigris river, in its day the greatest city in the world, to which Jonah was sent to warn it of judgment for its sins. It has been for many hundred years a ruin.

Shall rise in judgment. They repented at the preaching of Jonah, but "this generation" of Jews remained impenitent under the preaching of "one greater than Jonah". The example of the Ninevites condemns the Jews. The queen of the south. Of Sheba (1Ki 10:1), supposed to be Sabaea in Southern Arabia.

From the uttermost parts of the earth. A great distance. On the extreme southern shores of Asia.

A greater than Solomon [is] here. A calm assertion of superhuman majesty and wisdom.