Luke 24:21

“But we hoped that it was he who would redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things came about.”

They have described the reverent view that they had had of Him, they have emphasised their shock at what had happened to Him, but now they also reveal the hopes that they had had of Him. They had not only seen Him as a prophet, they had ‘hoped that it was He Who would redeem Israel'. He had been their hope. Their words echo those spoken around the time of Jesus' birth (Luke 1:68; Luke 2:30; Luke 2:38). Jesus had been looked on as the Coming Expected Deliverer Who would bring about the emancipation of His people, and now those hopes had been dashed.

Note the reference to ‘redeeming Israel'. This is another sign of authenticity. It is a pre-resurrection idea, and certainly prior to the activities in the second part of Acts. An inventor would have phrased it very differently. Paul could speak like this to unbelieving Jews (Acts 28:20) but not to Christians.

“Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things came about.” However, they explained, there was a little more to it than that, for strange events had meanwhile occurred. It was now the third day since these things had come about, and they could not forget that Jesus had often referred to ‘the third day' after His death in unusual ways (Luke 9:22; Luke 13:32; Luke 18:33; Luke 24:7). Alternately it could be that they were thinking of the popular Jewish belief that the spirit left the body after the third day, if that belief was really held at that time, for the evidence for it is questionable, but Luke probably rather intends us to connect with other references to the third day.

‘It is now the third day.' This is literally ‘he/it is now spending the third day'