Davy,
re: "You're wanting to pick an argument. Go do it with someone who will listen to your rhetoric."
No argument wanted. I'm merely asking anyone who thinks it was common to forecast or say that a daytime or a night time would be involved with an event when no part of a daytime or no part of a night time could occur to provide the examples they are using to say that it was common.
That question is moot, simply because in Matthew 12:40 our Lord Jesus gave a direct comparison to His 3 days and 3 nights to Jonah's experience in the Old Testament. The other thing that makes your questioning moot is the historical fact of how the Hebrews applied the reckoning of a day. It began in Genesis.
DAY
Reckoned from sunset to sunset by the Hebrews. Gen 1:5: "the evening and the morning were the first day." 2 Cor 11:25: "a night and a day." Dan 8:14 margin. So our fortnight = fourteen nights. "Evening, morning, and noon" (Ps 55:17) are the three general divisions. Fuller divisions are: dawn, of which the several stages appear in Christ's resurrection (Mark 16:2; John 20:1; Rev 22:16, "the bright and morning star" answering to Aijeleth Shahar, "gazelle of the morning," Ps 22 title; Matt 28:1; Luke 24:1); sunrise; heat of the day; the two noons (tsaharayim (OT:6672), Hebrew; Gen 43:16); the cool of the day (Gen 3:8); evening (divided into early evening and late evening after actual sunset). Between the two evenings the paschal lamb and the evening sacrifice used to be offered. "Hour" is first mentioned Dan 3:6,15; 5:5. The Jews learned from the Babylonians the division of the day into twelve parts (John 11:9). Ahaz introduced the sun dial from Babylon (Isa 38:8). The usual times of prayer were the third, sixth, and ninth hours (Dan 6:10; Acts 2:15; 3:1). "Give us day by day our daily bread" (Luke 11:3); i.e., bread for the day as it comes (epiousion (NT:1967) arton (NT:740)).
(from Fausset's Bible Dictionary, Electronic Database Copyright (c)1998 by Biblesoft)
DAY
(da) (yom; hemera): This common word has caused some trouble to plain readers, because they have not noticed that the word is used in several different senses in the English Bible. When the different uses of the word are understood the difficulty of interpretation vanishes. We note several different uses of the word:
(1) It sometimes means the time from daylight till dark. This popular meaning is easily discovered by the context, e.g. Gen 1:5; 8:22, etc. The marked periods of this daytime were morning, noon and night, as with us. See Ps 55:17. The early hours were sometimes called "the cool of the day" (Gen 3:8). After the exile the day. or daytime was divided into twelve hours and the night into twelve (see Matt 20:1-12; John 11:9; Acts 23:23); 6 a.m. would correspond to the first hour, 9 a.m. to the third; 12 noon to the sixth, etc. The hours were longer during the longer days and shorter during the shorter days, since they always counted 12 hours between sunrise and sunset.
(2) Day also means a period of 24 hours, or the time from sunset to sunset. In Bible usage the day begins with sunset (see Lev 23:32; Ex 12:15-20; 2 Cor 11:25, where night is put before day). See DAY AND NIGHT.
(3) The word "day" is also used of an indefinite period, e.g "the day" or "day that" means in general "that time" (see Gen 2:4; Lev 14:2); "day of trouble" (Ps 20:1); "day of his wrath" (Job 20:28); "day of Yahweh" (Isa 2:12); "day of the Lord" (1 Cor 5:5; 1 Thess 5:2; 2 Peter 3:10); "day of salvation" (2 Cor 6:2);. "day of Jesus Christ" (Phil 1:6).
(from International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, Electronic Database Copyright (c)1996 by Biblesoft)