In order to make plain all the various questions that arise out of this, more space must be given to it than we can possibly spare in this department. We would like to refer our correspondent to the book entitled “Questions and Answers,” which has been given as a premium with the SIGNS OF THE TIMES at $2.00 a year. If he himself does not have one, his neighbors may. Pages 28-34 of that book give a very full, detailed explanation of Matt. 12:40. It takes up in detail these questions: On what day was Christ crucified? How are we to understand the three days and three nights? Do they mean absolutely seventy-two hours? When do these days begin? On what day did Christ arise? What bearing has this time upon the Sabbath question? We believe that in the study of the question, it will be seen that the expression “three days and three nights” was simply a common Jewish term, shown by other scriptures to have reference to parts of three days. “Day and night” was merely a common term for a day; and “three days and three nights” would be parts of three days—that is, the whole of the middle day, and part, perhaps, of the first and the last. The text does not say that it is absolutely seventy-two hours, or the whole of three days; but, AS Jonah was in the whale, SO the Son of man will be in the heart of the earth. But how do we know that Jonah was in the whale that length of time? The Old Testament gives repeated illustrations of the use of the term “day” for simply part of a day. Again: How do we know that “the heart of the earth” means the grave? Why may not “the heart of the earth” refer to the very power that controlled the earth—the Roman power, and Satan through that Roman power? When our Lord was delivered into the hands of those who came to arrest Him, He declared, “This is your hour, and the power of darkness.” That time began when God suffered Him to be taken by those who came to arrest Him. See Luke 22:53. That was on Thursday night, or what would be the beginning of Friday, according to the Bible method of reckoning time, making the three days practically the whole of Friday, the whole of Sabbath, and a part of the first day. See also Luke 24:21, in which the two disciples said to Jesus, in the very close of that first day, “Yea and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things came to pass,” which would seem unmistakably to fix the closing day as the first day of the week. The day on which Christ arose was the first day. Mark 16:9 very clearly shows this: “Now when He was risen early on the first day of the week,” etc. Rotherham’s Emphatic Translation reads, “And rising early on the first of the week.” Murdock’s Syriac reads, “And in the morning of the first day of the week He arose.” Jesus arose, then, on the first day of the week. It seems to us that Matt. 27:66 ought to connect directly with the first verse of the twenty-eighth chapter. Of course in the Greek there is no paragraph and no chapter there. It is one connected narrative. Read it in that way. “So they went, and made the sepulcher sure, sealing the stone, the guard being with them late on the Sabbath day. Now as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher.” Greenfield suggests this, in his Greek New Testament. This would make perfect harmony. Notwithstanding their regard for the Sabbath, the Pharisees felt so anxious, they were even willing to break the Sabbath in order to see that the tomb was made secure. They did this on the Sabbath day. And the thing that came late on the Sabbath was the sealing of the stone by the Jews, the guard being with them. When it began to dawn toward the first of the week, the others came to the sepulcher. And this is in perfect harmony with both Mark and Luke.