After two days, &c.— In the style of Scripture, captivity, oppression, servitude, are frequently represented under the name of death; and a deliverance from these evils is called a resurrection,—a return to light,—to life,—new life, &c. We have examples of this in Ezekiel, Daniel, and many other parts of Scripture. The captives in Assyria and Babylon, burdened with the weight of their evils, encourage each other, and say, "Come, let us return to the Lord: he it is who hath brought us into this estate under which we groan: he is able, if he think fit, to deliver us from it in two or three days: nothing is difficult to him. Full of mercy as he is, he will not permit us to continue long in captivity and oppression, wherein we are buried like the dead in the tomb." The number of two or three days denotes the readiness and facility wherewith they flattered themselves that the Lord would save them. It is easy to remark, that these words of the prophet have a farther and more noble respect than to the return of the people from captivity; and they have been generally understood, as referring to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ; most of the ancient interpreters supposing that St. Paul alludes to them, 1 Corinthians 15:4. See Calmet, and Pococke.
Live in his sight— Live in his presence. Jehovah, who had departed, will return, and again exhibit the signs of his presence among his people. So the converted and restored Jews will live in his presence. The two days and the third day, observes Bishop Horsley, seem to denote three distinct periods of the Jewish people. The first day is the captivity of the ten tribes by the Assyrians, and of the two under the Babylonians, considered as one judgment upon the nation; beginning with the captivity of the ten, and completed in that of the two. The second day is the whole period of the present condition of the Jews, beginning with the dispersion of the nation by the Romans. The third day is the period yet to come, beginning with their restoration at the second advent. R. Tanchum, as he is quoted by Dr. Pococke, was not far, I think, from the true meaning of the place. "The prophet," he says, "points out two times—and those are the first captivity, and a second. After which shall follow a third [time]; redemption: after which shall be no depression or servitude." And this I take to be the sense of the prophesy in immediate application to the Jews. Nevertheless, whoever is well acquainted with the allegorical style of prophesy, when he recollects, that our Lord's sufferings were instead of the sufferings and death of sinners; that true believers are baptized into his death; and by baptism into his death are buried with him; and that he, rising on the third day, raised us to the hope of life and immortality; will easily perceive no very obscure, though but an oblique, allusion to our Lord's resurrection on the third day: since every believer may speak of our Lord's death and resurrection, as a common death and resurrection of all the faithful saints of God.