How to read this page

An Intertextuality Pair — one connection between two passages, shown as linked verse cards: the Later text and the Earlier text it quotes, alludes to or echoes. The Significance essay explains why the link matters and where it points in Christ.

Reference Type— how explicit the link is: Quotation, Allusion, or Echo
Connection Method(s)— how it carries meaning: e.g. Typology, Promise-Fulfillment, Analogy, Longitudinal Theme
Found via— where the connection was identified, e.g. the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge or an Anchor-Text Network

Graph View — tap the constellation icon in the top bar to see this page's connections as a web of light: gold points are passages, and the coloured threads are the connection types. Click any type in the graph's own legend to filter it in or out, and use the expand control for the full-screen night sky.

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Intertextuality Pair

Matthew 12:40 → Jonah 1:17

Allusion

Later text

Matthew 12:40BSB

For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Earlier text

Jonah 1:17BSB

Now the LORD had appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of the fish.

Walk the Square · a single-voice walk of this pair around the Clowney square8:53

Significance

Jesus establishes Jonah as a type of his death and resurrection - the prophet's three days in the fish prefigures Christ's three days in the tomb. "Three days and three nights" is a Jewish idiom meaning any part of three consecutive days, not necessarily 72 full hours. The sign is not the crucifixion itself but the resurrection - God's vindication of Jesus just as Jonah's rescue vindicated his prophetic ministry. This comparison also highlights that even pagan Ninevites repented under Jonah's preaching, making the Jewish leaders' unbelief more inexcusable.

Found via: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): Typology

Linked Mentions 1

Trajectory Tables 1

Jonah (Death, Resurrection, and Mission to Gentiles) Trajectory Table