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Matthew 16:4

A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonah. And he left them, and departed.

All Commentaries on Matthew 16:4 Go To Matthew 16

Hilary of Poitiers

AD 368

But he descended from the sky and established for these an earthly sign that he might preserve among them a conviction of bodily humility, saying that the sign was to be given by Jonah. The Lord compares himself by means of like appearance with this one whom he had dispatched to Nineveh to accomplish the coming suffering for the proclamation of repentance. Indeed, Jonah was thrown from the ship by furiously raging winds and was devoured by the whale. After the space of three days he was cast out alive, not retained by the monster. He was not digested as food, but contrary to the nature of the human body, he escaped whole and unharmed into the open air. He prefigured the Lord. Therefore Jesus demonstrated that this sign of his own power had been divinely constituted, thus proclaiming in himself the forgiveness of sins through repentance. For he was soon to be cast out of Jerusalem and the synagogue by the blast of unclean spirits and by the power of Pontius Pilate.

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Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation - 2 Peter 1:20