Jonah 1:17 records that the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah and that the prophet remained in the fish for three days and three nights. In the original narrative, Jonah's experience is not presented as a verbal prediction of the Messiah. It is an extraordinary act of divine judgment and preservation: Jonah descends into a death-like confinement because of his disobedience and is then delivered by God so that he may continue the mission to which he had been called.

Jesus Himself gives Jonah's experience its explicit messianic significance. In Matthew 12:39-40 He says that no sign will be given to His unbelieving generation except "the sign of the prophet Jonah," explaining that just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the great fish, so the Son of Man would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Matthew 16:4 again refers to the sign of Jonah in the context of demands for a sign. The fulfillment is therefore typological, but unlike many proposed Old Testament types, it is identified directly by Christ. Jonah's descent and God-given deliverance foreshadow Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, while Jesus is explicitly greater than Jonah. The parallel should not obscure the differences: Jonah suffers because of his own disobedience and is rescued from death-like danger, whereas the sinless Christ willingly enters actual death and rises bodily in victory. The traditional "three days and three nights" language reflects the biblical/Jewish inclusive manner of reckoning portions of days and emphasizes the correspondence Jesus Himself establishes between Jonah's confinement and His own burial and resurrection.