Hosea 6:2

‘After two days will he revive us, on the third day he will raise us up, and we will live before him.'

The reference to ‘two days' indicates that all will not occur instantly, even after their repentance. These are God's days and therefore longer than those of men. But then YHWH will revive His people in readiness for the ‘third day' when He will raise them up and restore them to full health so that they may begin to live before Him. The picture is of a man rising from the dead within the three day period while the soul was still in the body. Israel is thus seen as ‘rising from the dead'. While partially fulfilled after the Exile, the greater fulfilment came, first through the teaching and ministry of Jesus (when indeed many were also literally healed and bound up), and then in the period after His death and resurrection, when He was raised on ‘the third day', and a new Israel came to life, a believing Israel (in contrast with the old unbelieving Israel which was cut off (Romans 11:17; Romans 11:20), and became as one of ‘the nations' (Acts 4:25)), a new Israel which brought light to the Gentiles so that many responded and became a part of the new Israel (Galatians 3:29; Galatians 6:16; Ephesians 2:11; 1 Peter 2:10). It was an Israel raised up from the dead, and living before Him in resurrection life.

In view of the fact that Jesus clearly saw Himself as the representative of Israel this was possibly one of the passages that He had in mind (along, for example, with Isaiah 53:10, and Psalms 16:10) when He spoke of rising again on the third day, and which Paul had in mind when he spoke of ‘rising on the third day according to the Scriptures' (1 Corinthians 15:4).