PUT AN END TO SIN
IN THE BELLY OF THE EARTH

A day  was considered a “full”  day until sunset. If only an hour or two remained until the setting of the sun, it was still considered a day . It follows then that Yeshua was not in the tomb for a full 24-hour-day the first day nor the third day - only the second day was a complete 24-hour day.

The “fifth day/yom chamishi” (Thursday) was the day of preparation for the Shabbath HaGadol, when the Sabbath of the 7th day would follow immediately after the "sabbath" of Passover. The evening of the fifth day after sundown was the Supper of the Passover  Seder^115/m.

Yeshua was buried at least one or two hours before sundown on the fifth day  by two respected members of the Sanhedrin, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. The former, noted to have been a rich  man, furnished the linen and, according to Matthew, his own new, rock-hewn tomb, where no one had yet been laid; the latter donated one hundred pounds of ointment mixed of myrrh and aloes¹¹⁶. The tomb was in a garden near the place of crucifixion.

This act by two orthodox Jews is the more remarkable as the handling of a dead body rendered them ceremonially unclean^117/n. Consequently, they risked not being able to partake of the Passover Seder.  Perhaps they still had time to undergo the prescribed ritual cleansing, but I doubt it. This particular incident not only fulfilled Scripture¹¹⁸  but also reveals the state of heart and mind of those two righteous men: they could not save Yeshua from being condemned to death by crucifixion; at least they would save His body from being thrown into a common pit with executed criminals. 

Joseph of Arimathea would lay His body securely into his own new tomb, wrapped in linen and spices, as ought to be done for a righteous Jew. Being prevented from eating the Passover Seder  with family and friends, because of having become “unclean” from a dead body, was a true sacrifice for these two members of the Sanhedrin. Their grief over Yeshua must have been very great. 

What they couldn’t realize was, that they were not  being defiled by Yeshua’s body because He was, and is, the Lord of life over Whom death has no power. 
 
 

5th day (Thursday) until  sunset = 1st dayxxxxxxxxxx

        From Thursday sundown, now the 6th day, the night of the Seder,xxx 
        until  Friday sunset = 2nd day
 

        From  Friday sundown, now the 7th day, the beginning of Shabbat,xxxxx 
        until Saturday nightfall  = 3rd day x
xx

xxxzzxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
A  Festival in Israel: ROSH CHODESH/ Head of the Month. It is the Festival of the New Moon, the blowing of the trumpets. The ending, invisible, and new moon bears "witness" to Messiah's 3 days in the belly of the earth, and the blowing of the trumpets at the New Moon announces His Resurrection¹²⁰.

xxxx  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxand xxxxx

When all of Israel, both in the Land and in the diaspora, sat down to the Passover Seder in memory of  G-d’s deliverance of Israel from Egyptian bondage, the New Covenant, instated the night before, was already in force. G-d’s deliverance of Israel and the world from Satan’s bondage, from captivity to sin and death, and from slavery under the lordship of the Law, was accomplished by the blood and death of His Son, Yeshua HaMashiach, the Last “A-dam”^121/o . That Passover night this glorious deliverance was, for the first time, available to all who would believe.
 
 

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