Twice, Jesus stops his critics and sends them back to the same prophet.

In Matthew 9:13, Jesus is eating with tax collectors and sinners, and the Pharisees complain. Jesus answers:

“Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’”

Then in Matthew 12:7, his disciples pick grain on the Sabbath, and the Pharisees complain again. Jesus answers:

“If you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.”

Both times Jesus is quoting Hosea 6:6.

Two disputes. One correction.

Go and learn Hosea 6.

So let us do exactly what Jesus said.

Hosea’s Third Day

Hosea 6 begins with a call:

“Come, let us return to the LORD.”
— Hosea 6:1

Then comes the promise:

“After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.”
— Hosea 6:2

Look carefully.

It does not say raise him.

It says:

revive us.
raise us.
we will live before Him.

On Hosea’s third day, a people is raised.

Then God answers them. In verses 4–6, God addresses Ephraim and Judah, ending with the very words Jesus quotes:

“For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.”
— Hosea 6:6

So when Jesus tells his critics to go and understand Hosea 6, he is sending them into a chapter that begins:

Return to God → third-day raising → live before God → mercy and knowledge of God.

And twice Jesus tells them:

You haven’t understood it.

What Kind of “Days”?

Are Hosea’s days necessarily ordinary twenty-four-hour days?

Jewish interpretation says no.

In Sanhedrin 97a, Abaye cites Hosea 6:2 to support a period lasting two thousand years. The same discussion explicitly employs the biblical principle that a divine “day” can correspond to a thousand years. It also preserves another division of world history into three successive two-thousand-year periods: an age of chaos, an age of Torah, and an age of Messiah.

So an epochal reading of “days” is not something we need to invent.

Then comes Rashi.

Commenting directly on Hosea 6:2, Rashi associates the two earlier periods with Israel’s punishments connected with the destruction of the two Temples.

He explains:

“After two days” — after the two times that have passed over us.

Then:

“On the third day” — in the third time.

And he associates that third time with the building of the Third Temple.

So for Rashi:

two days → two times

and:

third day → third time.

Not seventy-two hours.

A historical period.

The Third Day and the Temple

Now return to Jesus in Matthew 12.

Immediately before he quotes Hosea, Jesus says in Matthew 12:6:

“I tell you, something greater than the temple is here.”

Then, in the very next verse:

“If you had known what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice…’”

First:

something greater than the Temple.

Then:

go understand Hosea 6.

Rashi lived many centuries after Jesus, so Rashi cannot tell us what Jesus himself intended.

But Rashi does prove something narrower and important: within Jewish interpretation, Hosea’s third day could be understood as a third historical period associated with a new Temple.

Calvin: “The Third Resurrection”

Then comes an unexpected witness: John Calvin.

Calvin reports a Jewish interpretation of Hosea 6:2 that he himself rejects.

According to the interpretation he records:

The first life was God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt.

The second life was Israel’s restoration from Babylon.

The third life would be the future gathering of the dispersed people through the Messiah.

Calvin calls this final restoration:

“the third resurrection.”

Calvin rejects that particular scheme.

He also reports the Christian interpretation that applies Hosea’s resurrection to Christ together with his people—Christ, in that reading, “did not rise privately for himself”—before criticizing that interpretation as overly refined and advancing his own reading of Israel’s restoration after prolonged affliction.

The important point is not that Rashi, Calvin, and the Talmud all teach exactly the same scheme. They do not.

The important point is narrower:

Hosea’s “days” have repeatedly been understood as periods of sacred history, and Hosea’s resurrection is corporate.

“That We May Live Before Him”

Now hold onto the final words of Hosea 6:2:

“that we may live before him.”

Go back to Abraham.

God has just promised Abraham a son through Sarah. Abraham immediately pleads for the son he already has.

Genesis 17:18:

“Oh that Ishmael might live before you!”

The Hebrew correspondence is striking.

Hosea says:

וְנִחְיֶה לְפָנָיו
we shall live before him.

Abraham says:

יִחְיֶה לְפָנֶיךָ
[Ishmael] might live before you.

The same Hebrew root for living, followed by the same preposition for living before/in the presence of God.

Then, only two verses later, God answers Abraham.

Genesis 17:20:

“As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I have blessed him…”

Put those lines beside each other:

HOSEA:

“On the third day He will raise us up,
that we may live before Him.”

ABRAHAM:

“Oh that Ishmael might live before You!”

GOD:

“As for Ishmael, I have heard you.”

Now the phrase “live before Him” becomes difficult to pass over.

Kedar and the New Song

Return once more to Matthew 12.

A few verses after Jesus quotes Hosea, Matthew quotes another prophet: Isaiah 42.

Matthew 12:18 begins:

“Behold, my servant whom I have chosen…”

and Matthew’s quotation concludes:

“And in his name the Gentiles will hope.”

But Matthew stops before Isaiah does.

Keep reading Isaiah 42.

Isaiah 42:10:

“Sing to the LORD a new song,
his praise from the end of the earth.”

Then verse 11:

“Let the desert and its cities lift up their voice,
the villages that Kedar inhabits…”

Who is Kedar?

Genesis 25:13 identifies Kedar as a son of Ishmael.

So Ishmael’s line stands inside Isaiah’s vision of the new song and the praise of God going outward.

Again, Isaiah does not say “Islam.”

But the textual chain now contains:

Ishmael → Kedar → new praise of God.

Now Listen to Jesus’ Own “Third Day”

In Luke 18:31–33, Jesus tells the Twelve:

“Everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished.”

And the prediction ends:

“On the third day he will rise.”

Jesus has just placed the saying within the world of what the prophets had written.

So compare the Greek.

The Hebrew of Hosea says that God will “raise us up.” But the ancient Greek translation renders the result:

Hosea 6:2:
ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ ἀναστησόμεθα
“On the third day WE WILL RISE.”

Luke says:

Luke 18:33:
τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ ἀναστήσεται
“On the third day HE WILL RISE.”

The forms differ for person and number, as they must:

ἀναστησόμεθα — we will rise

ἀναστήσεται — he will rise

But they are forms of the same verb, ἀνίστημι, attached to essentially the same “third day” expression.

Hosea:

WE will rise.

Luke:

HE will rise.

And Jesus has just said:

“Everything that is written…by the prophets…”

That does not prove Luke is quoting Hosea.

But Hosea is unquestionably part of the prophetic vocabulary available for “third day” + rising.

And Jesus himself had twice told his hearers:

Go understand Hosea 6.

The Last Workers

Now something else happens.

Matthew records Jesus’ third-day prediction in Matthew 20:17–19:

“On the third day he will be raised.”

But immediately before that prediction comes one of Jesus’ most memorable parables.

Matthew 20:1–16.

A landowner goes out to hire workers for his vineyard.

Some begin at dawn.

More are hired as the day progresses.

Finally, at approximately the eleventh hour, with almost the entire working day gone, he hires the last workers.

At evening the owner pays them.

And something shocking happens.

The last workers are paid first.

Those who worked through the heat of the entire day complain:

“These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us…”

The owner answers:

“Friend, I am doing you no wrong.”

And then:

“Do you begrudge my generosity?”

Jesus concludes:

“So the last will be first, and the first last.”

And immediately afterward, as Matthew continues the narrative, Jesus speaks of the third day.

Hold onto that image:

one working day,
workers entering at different times,
the last workers receiving unexpected bounty,
the earlier workers complaining,
the master answering that he has wronged no one.

Because centuries later, another remarkably similar parable appears.

One Day — Three Periods

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ describes the religious communities through the image of workers hired over one day.

In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 3459, he begins by comparing the period of the Muslims with the periods of the nations before them.

Then comes the working day.

The first group works from morning until midday.

They are identified with the Jews.

The second works from midday until ʿAṣr.

They are identified with the Christians.

Then comes the last group.

They work from ʿAṣr until sunset.

And Muhammad ﷺ identifies that final group with his own community:

“It is you.”

The fuller laborers tradition in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2268 gives the complaint.

The earlier workers effectively protest:

Why did we work longer and receive less?

The employer asks whether he has withheld anything that rightfully belonged to them.

They answer:

No.

He responds that the additional reward belongs to his bounty, which he gives as he wishes.

The resemblance to Jesus’ laborers parable is striking.

In both:

There is one working day.

Some workers come earlier.

Others arrive later.

The later workers receive extraordinary generosity.

The earlier workers complain.

And the master answers:

I have not wronged you. The bounty is mine to give.

But Muhammad’s ﷺ version adds something crucial for our question.

It explicitly identifies three successive communities occupying three successive portions of the symbolic day:

FIRST PERIOD — Jews

morning → midday

SECOND PERIOD — Christians

midday → ʿAṣr

THIRD PERIOD — Muslims

ʿAṣr → sunset

Now we finally have an Islamic text that explicitly places Islam in a third religious period.

“The Bounty Is in God’s Hand”

The Qur’an itself ends Sūrat al-Ḥadīd 57:29 with remarkably similar language:

“…that the People of the Scripture may know that they have no power whatsoever over the bounty of Allah, and that the bounty is in the hand of Allah; He gives it to whom He wills.”

Again:

the People of the Book,
God’s bounty,
God giving it according to His will.

That does not prove that Qur’an 57:29 is commenting on Matthew 20.

But the conceptual correspondence with the laborers traditions is unmistakable:

Have I wronged you?

The bounty belongs to God.

He gives it as He wills.

Now Put It Together

Jesus says:

“Go and learn” Hosea 6.

Hosea says:

“After two days…
on the THIRD DAY He will raise US up,
that WE may LIVE BEFORE HIM.”

The Talmud demonstrates that Hosea’s days could be read as enormous historical periods.

Rashi says:

two days = two times.

third day = third time.

Jewish interpreters recorded by Calvin speak of a final historical restoration as:

“the third resurrection.”

Jesus says:

“Something greater than the temple is here.”

Rashi’s third time culminates in another Temple.

Abraham prays:

“Oh that Ishmael might LIVE BEFORE YOU!”

God answers:

“As for Ishmael, I HAVE HEARD YOU.”

Isaiah announces:

“Sing to the LORD a NEW SONG…”

and specifically calls:

“the villages that KEDAR inhabits”

to raise their voice.

Kedar is Ishmael’s son.

Jesus tells a story about last workers entering near the end of one working day, receiving extraordinary generosity, and provoking the complaint of those who came earlier.

Then Muhammad ﷺ gives another laborers parable.

But this time the workers are explicitly identified:

Jews first.

Christians second.

Muslims third.

One symbolic day.

Three religious periods.

And Islam occupies the last.

So What Is Hosea’s Third Day?

Hosea never says:

“The third people will be Muslims.”

That would go beyond the text.

But Hosea does give us the pattern:

two periods pass.

Then comes:

“the third day.”

And what happens on that third day?

Not merely:

HE rises.

Hosea actually says:

“He will raise US up,
that WE may live before Him.”

Rashi calls it:

“the third time.”

Jewish interpreters preserved by Calvin called the final restoration:

“the third resurrection.”

Muhammad ﷺ later describes Jews, Christians, and Muslims as three successive communities occupying three successive periods of one symbolic day.

And the community occupying the final period traces itself through Abraham’s Ishmaelite inheritance—the very Ishmael for whom Abraham prayed:

“Oh that Ishmael might live before You!”

God answered:

“As for Ishmael, I have heard you.”

So perhaps we have been asking the wrong question.

Perhaps the question is not simply:

“Which three days?”

Perhaps it is:

“What is the third day?”

A third calendar day?

Or, within Hosea’s prophetic imagery:

a third time,
a third restoration,
a people raised,
returning to God,
to live before Him?

The identification of that people with Islam is an argument to be tested, not something Hosea states explicitly.

But the trail itself deserves to be followed.

And remarkably, the trail begins with Jesus:

“Go and learn what this means.”