Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jonah 1:17
Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
17. had prepared ] Rather: assigned, or appointed. (LXX. .) The same word and tense are used of the gourd, the worm, and the East wind, ch. Jon 4:6-8. They do not necessarily imply any previous or special preparation, much less the creation of these various agents for the purpose to which they were put; but merely that they were appointed to it by Him, whom “all things serve.” He sent the fish there to do His bidding. The word is rendered “appointed” in Job 7:3, Dan 1:5; Dan 1:10; and “set” in Dan 1:11.
“By God’s immediate direction it was so arranged that the very moment when Jonah was thrown into the waves, the ‘great fish’ was on the spot to receive him; God charged the animal to perform this function, as He afterwards ‘spoke to’ it ( Jon 1:10), or commanded it, to vomit out the prophet on the dry land.” Kalisch.
a great fish ] Probably a shark. See note A.
NOTE A. THE GREAT FISH
There is no reason to suppose that the fish which swallowed Jonah was not naturally capable of swallowing him whole. The old objection, that it is said to have been a whale, and that the gullet of a whale is not large enough to allow of the passage of a man, rests, as is now generally known, upon a mistake. Jonah’s fish is not really said to have been a whale. Even if it were, it might be urged that one kind of whale, “the sperm whale ( Catodon macrocephalus) has a gullet sufficiently large to admit the body of a man” (Smith’s Bible Dict., Art. Whale), and that if whales are not now found in the Mediterranean, they may have been “frightened out of it” by the multiplication of ships, and may have been common there in Jonah’s time, when “navigation was in its infancy, ships were few and small, and they kept mostly along the shores, leaving the interior undisturbed.” (Thomson, The Land and the Book, pp. 68, 69.) But in fact the common idea of Jonah being swallowed by a whale has no real warrant in holy Scripture at all. Our Lord, indeed, is made to say in our English Bibles that Jonah was “in the whale’s belly” (Mat 12:40); but the word ( ) used by Him to denote Jonah’s fish is taken from the Greek translation of the Book of Jonah, with which He and His hearers were familiar, and cannot be restricted to a whale, or to any of the so-called Cetaceans. It means “any sea-monster, or huge fish,” and is used of a “seal, or sea-calf, and later especially of whales, sharks, and large tunnies.” (Liddell and Scott, Lex. s. v.). The Bible then does not say that Jonah was swallowed by a whale. The O. T. simply speaks of “a great fish,” and the N.T. employs a strictly equivalent term. Here we might be content to leave the question. We are not bound to show what the fish was. It is, however, interesting to enquire whether any particular fish can with probability be fixed upon, and the rather because the choice of an agent ready to hand and naturally fitted for the work accords with that “economy” of the miraculous which is characteristic of holy Scripture. Now it has been satisfactorily proved that the common or white shark ( Carcharias vulgaris) is found in the Mediterranean, and well-authenticated instances have been given of its having swallowed men and other large animals entire. “A natural historian of repute relates, ‘In 1758, in stormy weather, a sailor fell overboard from a frigate in the Mediterranean. A shark was close by, which, as he was swimming and crying for help, took him in his wide throat, so that he forthwith disappeared. Other sailors had leaped into the sloop, to help their comrade, while yet swimming; the captain had a gun which stood on the deck discharged at the fish, which struck it so, that it cast out the sailor which it had in its throat, who was taken up, alive and little injured, by the sloop which had now come up. The fish was harpooned, taken up on the frigate and dried. The captain made a present of the fish to the sailor who, by God’s Providence, had been so wonderfully preserved. The sailor went round Europe exhibiting it. He came to Franconia, and it was publicly exhibited here in Erlangen, as also at Nurnberg and other places. The dried fish was delineated. It was 20 feet long, and, with expanded fins, nine feet wide, and weighed 3924 pounds. From all this, it is probable that this was the fish of Jonah.’ ” (See Dr Pusey’s Commentary on Jonah, Introd., pp. 257, 258; Smith’s Bible Dict., Art. Whale, where other instances are given.) There is another fish, of which the Norwegian name is Rorqual, i.e. whale with folds, which from its peculiar internal construction is thought likely by some commentators to have been the receptacle of Jonah. “The distinguishing feature of the whole genus is the possession of ‘a number of longitudinal folds, nearly parallel, which commence under the lower lip, occupying the space between the two branches of the jaw, pass down the throat, covering the whole extent of the chest from one fin to the other, and terminate far down the abdomen;’ in the Mediterranean species ‘reaching to the vent.’ ” It has accordingly been suggested that “it may have been in the folds of a Rorqual’s mouth, which in the case of an individual 75 feet long (such as was actually stranded at St Cyprien, Eastern Pyrenees, in 1828) would be a cavity of between 15 and 20 feet in length, that the prophet was imbedded.” ( Speaker’s Commentary in loc., and Encycl. Brit. quoted there.) It would seem, however, that this Rorqual’s throat is not large enough to swallow a man, so that on the whole it is most likely that Jonah’s fish was a shark.
three days and three nights ] At this point the transaction becomes clearly miraculous. The swallowing of Jonah by the fish may have been in the course of the ordinary working of divine Providence. His preservation within it for so long a time plainly belongs to that other working of Almighty God which, though it be no less after the counsel of that Will (Eph 1:11) which is the highest and only Law, appears to us to be extraordinary, and which we therefore call miraculous.
A comparison of 1Co 15:4 with Mat 12:40 shows that the period of Jonah’s incarceration in the fish was divinely ordered to be a type of our Lord’s being “three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” This is the only passage in the O. T., if we except Hos 6:2, in which there is any prophetical intimation of the length of time between our Lord’s burial and resurrection.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Now the Lord had (literally And the Lord) prepared – Jonah (as appears from his thanksgiving) was not swallowed at once, but sank to the bottom of the sea, God preserving him in life there by miracle, as he did in the fishs belly. Then, when the seaweed was twined around his head, and he seemed to be already buried until the sea should give up her dead, God prepared the fish to swallow Jonah . God could as easily have kept Jonah alive in the sea as in the fishs belly, but, in order to prefigure the burial of the Lord, He willed him to be within the fish whose belly was as a grave. Jonah, does not say what fish it was; and our Lord too used a name, signifying only one of the very largest fish. Yet it was no greater miracle to create a fish which should swallow Jonah, than to preserve him alive when swallowed . The infant is buried, as it were, in the womb of its mother; it cannot breathe, and yet, thus too, it liveth and is preserved, wonderfully nurtured by the will of God. He who preserves the embryo in its living grave can maintain the life of man as easily without the outward air as with it.
The same Divine Will preserves in being the whole creation, or creates it. The same will of God keeps us in life by breathing this outward air, which preserved Jonah without it. How long will men think of God, as if He were man, of the Creator as if He were a creature, as though creation were but one intricate piece of machinery, which is to go on, ringing its regular changes until it shall be worn out, and God were shut up, as a sort of mainspring within it, who might be allowed to be a primal Force, to set it in motion, but must not be allowed to vary what He has once made? We must admit of the agency of God, say these men when they would not in name be atheists, once in the beginning of things, but must allow of His interference as sparingly as may be. Most wise arrangement of the creature, if it were indeed the god of its God! Most considerate provision for the non-interference of its Maker, if it could but secure that He would not interfere with it for ever! Acute physical philosophy, which, by its omnipotent word, would undo the acts of God! Heartless, senseless, sightless world, which exists in God, is upheld by God, whose every breath is an effluence of Gods love, and which yet sees Him not, thanks Him not, thinks it a greater thing to hold its own frail existence from some imagined law, than to be the object of the tender personal care of the Infinite God who is Love! Poor hoodwinked souls, which would extinguish for themselves the Light of the world, in order that it may not eclipse the rushlight of their own theory!
And Jonah was in the belly of the fish – The time that Jonah was in the fishs belly was a hidden prophecy. Jonah does not explain nor point it. He tells the fact, as Scripture is accustomed to do so. Then he singles out one, the turning point in it. Doubtless in those three days and nights of darkness, Jonah (like him who after his conversion became Paul), meditated much, repented much, sorrowed much, for the love of God, that he had ever offended God, purposed future obedience, adored God with wondering awe for His judgment and mercy. It was a narrow home, in which Jonah, by miracle, was not consumed; by miracle, breathed; by miracle, retained his senses in that fetid place. Jonah doubtless, repented, marveled, adored, loved God. But, of all, God has singled out this one point, how, out of such a place, Jonah thanked God. As He delivered Paul and Silas from the prison, when they prayed with a loud voice to Him, so when Jonah, by inspiration of His Spirit, thanked Him, He delivered him.
To thank God, only in order to obtain fresh gifts from Him, would be but a refined, hypocritical form of selfishness. Such a formal act would not be thanks at all. We thank God, because we love Him, because He is so infinitely good, and so good to us, unworthy. Thanklessness shuts the door to His personal mercies to us, because it makes them the occasion of fresh sins of ours. Thankfulness sets Gods essential goodness free (so to speak) to be good to us. He can do what He delights in doing, be good to us, without our making His Goodness a source of harm to us. Thanking Him through His grace, we become fit vessels for larger graces . Blessed he who, at every gift of grace, returns to Him in whom is all fullness of graces; to whom when we show ourselves not ungrateful for gifts received, we make room in ourselves for grace, and become meet for receiving yet more. But Jonahs was that special character of thankfulness, which thanks God in the midst of calamities from which there was no human exit; and God set His seal on this sort of thankfulness, by annexing this deliverance, which has consecrated Jonah as an image of our Lord, to his wonderful act of thanksgiving.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Jon 1:17
And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
The crux of the miracle
The real miracle was that Jonah should survive so long in his strange prison. That violates the laws of nature. But let us once understand Christs profound saying about a Father who worketh hitherto (Joh 5:17), that is, who has never taken His hand from off the thing which He has created, but is ceaselessly active and operative in His creation. Once let us understand that all force, in the last reach of our thought, is with force, and that the forces of nature are only the many-sided puttings forth of that force of the will of God, outspoken and expressed in that Word of His power by which He upholdeth all things. Once understand that there are no laws of nature to be violated, except the rules which He has laid down for His own ordinary and orderly action in governing His world. Once let it be seen that whilst for our sakes it is generally best and happiest that He should keep to His own rules, and should very seldom indeed do in any way differently, yet He is at perfect liberty to choose whether He will keep to His ordinary and orderly plan, or for some special reason will in any particular instance turn aside. Then, if there is as good evidence for the fact as the case admits of, and, above all, if plainly there is good reason for the fact, we may as reasonably fred no more difficulty in the miracle than in the general providence. What is ordinary is of God, just as much as the extraordinary. The natural is of God, as much as the supernatural. Once more it may be said that if our eyes were not too much the eyes of the children, we should see that the wonder is the orderly, reliable, age-long, ordinary providence, rather than the special thing, done just once, to meet an emergency for which the ordinary rule and method did not sufficiently provide. And the special is not an after-thought. It is provided for in the whole great plan of the Worker. It is one of His rules. It quite as much needed God to keep Jonah alive year after year in the atmosphere and upon the earth, as to keep him alive for three days within the body of the great fish. (H. J. Foster.)
The miracle of the whale
No miracle has been more frequently quoted, or more severely scrutinised.
I. Establish such principles as will warrant the fact.
1. There are some things of which even the Divine power is incapable. Things inconsistent or contradictory cannot be asserted of God.
2. There are other instances in which the Divine power may be easily supposed to interfere for the suspension or even contradiction of those laws which God hath given to a material world.
3. Besides these parts of creation with which we are in some measure acquainted, there are, doubtless, many others of which we remain totally ignorant. The infinitude of the Divine power is the basis on which this observation is built.
II. Consider the particular difficulties with which it has been thought this miracle was attended.
1. The act of deglutition.
2. The difficulty of respiration in the body of a fish.
3. The impossibility of resisting for so long the digestive powers of so huge an animal.
III. There were designs to serve which were worthy of such interposition.
1. It was of important advantage to the prophet.
2. It was of vast importance to the mariners.
3. It was of vast advantage, we may believe, to the people of Nineveh.
4. It was of the utmost importance if you consider it in its relations to the promised Messiah.
5. The sign of Jonas is intended for standing use to the Church, to the end of the world. (James Simpson.)
The miracle of the great fish
Strauss said, He who will rid the world of priests, must first rid religion from miracles. But the Christian religion stands or falls with the supernatural. A man may believe in a living God who works miracles, and yet hesitate and recoil at the extraordinary one which is narrated in the history of Jonah. No one will say that every man who believes that God can work miracles is bound to accept implicitly every miraculous event described in the Bible as having really happened, and as being the work of God. Let no one think that he is not a Christian because he must hesitate about the literal interpretation of this miracle of the great fish. Instead of adopting any artificial interpretation of this miracle, it would be better to suspend our judgment, and acknowledge that we cannot come to any conclusion about it. At any rate there is only the choice between saying that the whole history of Jonah is a parable, or an allegory, including the preaching in Nineveh, and saying that every event in it is related as an actual occurrence. To suppose that Jonah fell into a mysterious hiding-place is only to set aside the biblical miracle, and put another and more wonderful one in its place. We seek an answer to the general question, whether it is so wonderful a thing to believe that God works miracles: or whether, on the contrary, the belief that He must and does do so, is not founded on the very being of God, and on His relations with men. If we arrive at that decision, the question of the miracle by which Jonah was saved will be settled. A God without miracles would be the greatest miracle of all. If we have not a God who works miracles, we have no living God; and if no living God who communicates with men, then no God at all. Whoever knows anything of the living God, cannot possibly think that God has tied His own hands, once for all, with laws of nature. The rank and privilege of man demands Divine miracles. God must work for us in extraordinary and exceptional ways, or we could neither fear nor love Him, and He would soon be indifferent to us. (Otto Funcke.)
Jonahs preservation
I. An ordinary event in the providence of God. It was not a miracle that a large fish should swallow Jonah. Instances have been known in which sharks have swallowed men.
II. What may be called a special providence of God. A remarkable coincidence of ordinary providences leading to some important result we generally regard as a special providence.
III. We have a miraculous providence of God. That the prophet should have lived in the fish was a miracle. And the miracle is the more striking because conscious ness continued. Learn–
1. That there is no way out of a plain duty except through chastisement.
2. That the place of prayer can neither add to nor take from the value of prayer.
3. That the inferior creatures may become instruments of moral instruction to man.
4. That the fish was honoured by being thus brought into the plan of God for Jonahs recovery to the way of duty. Consider–
(1) The object and design of the miracle.
(2) The Disposer and Ruler of the action. The Lord.
(3) The manner of doing it. The Lord prepared.
(4) The instrument. A great fish.
(5) The end of its preparation. To swallow up Jonah.
(6) The time during which Jonah continued in the fish. Three days and three nights. (Outlines by a London Minister.)
Jonah in the sea
Mercy and truth, or an innate tendency towards kindness, and an essential love of rectitude form the most prominent features of the revealed character of God. A God all mercy would be a God unjust. The demands of justice were rigorously exacted, and the prophet was hurled into the deep. Why such severity? Jonah had sinned presumptuously against God, and he must bear the penalty. In this phase of Jonahs experience, which we now consider, we find mercy rejoicing against judgment.
I. The prophets imprisonment. Note–
1. The singularity of the mode of imprisonment; the agency of God in preparing the prophets cell. On the supposition that Jonah retained his consciousness when cast into the mighty deep, it must have been with emotions of indescribable horror that he saw the jaws of this marine monster expanding to receive him.
2. The term of Jonahs captivity. Explain Jewish reckoning three days and three nights.
II. The prophets prayer. Jonah retained his consciousness during the term of his imprisonment. Evidently we have only the substance of the prophets prayer. Note the evidences which his spiritual exercises furnish of sanctified affliction.
1. The spiritual exercises with which the prophets prayer is identified.
2. The conclusion of unbelief. I am cast out from Thy sight.
3. The victory of faith. Yet will I look again towards Thy holy temple.
4. The ardour of Jonahs gratitude.
5. His emphatic ascription. Salvation is of the Lord. Notice the evidence of spiritual reclamation which the prophets prayer supplies. See his altered feeling towards God: the rekindling of the spirit of devotion: the vigorous action of faith. In the expression of his faith Jonah embodied the sentiments of former saints. Jonah was evidently cured of his folly in flying from God.
III. The prophets deliverance. This was miraculous in its character. Jonah was conveyed back safely to the Holy Land, and cast upon the dry shore. It was intended to test the sincerity of the prophets penitence, to secure the fulfilment and success of his errand, and to typify the mission of Christ. (John Broad.)
A restrained fish
The chapter closeth with the narration of Jonahs preservation. Though thus pursued by justice in a fishs belly, where, in a miraculous way, he was kept three days and three nights. Doctrine.
1. When God is pursuing the rebellion of His children in a most severe way, yet doth He not altogether cast off His mercy toward them, but out of the abundance thereof, moderates their affliction: for the Lord, pursuing Jonah, had yet prepared a great fish to swallow him up.
2. Gods providence over rules and directs the motions of irrational creatures and sea monsters, as pleaseth Him. For the Lord had prepared a great fish, etc., whereas it knew nothing but to range up and down in the sea, and swallow him as any other prey.
3. God may have a mercy and proof of love waiting upon His people, in a time and place where it would be least expected; for Jonah meets a mercy in the heart of a raging sea, into which he is cast in anger, as to be destroyed.
4. Albeit the mercy of God will not destroy His guilty people in their afflictions; yet His wisdom seeth it not fitting at first totally to deliver them, but will have their faith exercised.
5. God can, when He seeth fit, preserve His people from ruin in an incredible and miraculous way. Therefore Jonah is not only swallowed whole by the fish, not being hurt by its teeth; but is preserved in the belly of the fish three days and three nights, where he was in hazard of choking for want of breath, or of being digested by the fish into its own substance. (George Hutcheson.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 17. Now the Lord had prepared a great fish] dag gadol. This could not have been a whale, for the throat of that animal can scarcely admit a man’s leg; but it might have been a shark, which abounds in the Mediterranean, and whose mouth and stomach are exceedingly capacious. In several cases they have been known to swallow a man when thrown overboard. See the note on Mt 12:40, where the whole subject of this verse is considered at large. That days and nights do not, among the Hebrews, signify complete days and nights of twenty-four hours, see Es 4:16, compared with Es 5:1; Jdg 14:17-18. Our Lord lay in the grave one natural day, and part of two others; and it is most likely that this was the precise time that Jonah was in the fish’s belly.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Now, Heb. And.
Prepared; created at first, say some; but what need that, when a mighty overgrown fish of a double age may do this; by Gods will and appointment it attended the ship, and followed it in the storm, expecting a prey, and ready to receive the prisoner.
A great fish; a whale, as we read, Mat 12:40; others say it was a shark, a fish common in those seas.
To swallow up; not to chew upon him, but to take him down whole.
Jonah was in the belly of the fish, in safe custody, three days and three nights, that he might rightly typify Christs burial in the grave.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
17. prepared a great fishnotcreated specially for this purpose, but appointed in Hisprovidence, to which all creatures are subservient. The fish, througha mistranslation of Mt 12:40,was formerly supposed to be a whale; there, as here, the originalmeans “a great fish.” The whale’s neck is too narrow toreceive a man. BOCHARTthinks, the dog-fish, the stomach of which is so large thatthe body of a man in armor was once found in it [Hierozoicon,2.5.12]. Others, the shark [JEBB].The cavity in the whale’s throat, large enough, according toCAPTAIN SCORESBY,to hold a ship’s jolly boat full of men. A miracle in any viewis needed, and we have no data to speculate further. A “sign”or miracle it is expressly called by our Lord in Mt12:39. Respiration in such a position could only be by miracle.The miraculous interposition was not without a sufficient reason; itwas calculated to affect not only Jonah, but also Nineveh and Israel.The life of a prophet was often marked by experiences which made him,through sympathy, best suited for discharging the propheticalfunction to his hearers and his people. The infinite resources of Godin mercy as well as judgment are prefigured in the devourer beingtransformed into Jonah’s preserver. Jonah’s condition underpunishment, shut out from the outer world, was rendered as much aspossible the emblem of death, a present type to Nineveh and Israel,of the death in sin, as his deliverance was of the spiritualresurrection on repentance; as also, a future type of Jesus’ literaldeath for sin, and resurrection by the Spirit of God.
three days and threenightsprobably, like the Antitype, Christ, Jonah was castforth on the land on the third day (Mt12:40); the Hebrew counting the first and third parts of days aswhole twenty-four hour days.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah,…. Not from the creation of the world, as say the Jews p; for this is to be understood, not of the formation or making of it; but of the ordering and disposition of it by the providence of God to be near the ship, and its mouth open to receive Jonah, as soon as he was cast forth from thence: and a great one it must be, to take him at once into its mouth, and swallow him down its throat, and retain him whole in its belly; and such great fishes there are in the sea, particularly the “carcharias”, or dog fish; the same with Triton’s dog, said to swallow Hercules, in which he was three days; and which fable perhaps took its rise from hence. In Mt 12:40, it is said to be a “whale”; but then that must be understood, not as the proper name of a fish, but as common to all great fishes; otherwise the whale, properly so called, it is said, has not a swallow large enough to take down a man; though some deny this, and assert they are capable of it. Of the “balaena”, which is one kind of whale, it is reported q, that when it apprehends its young ones in danger, will take them, and hide them within itself; and then afterwards throw them out again; and certain it is that the whale is a very great fish, if not the greatest. Pliny r speaks of whales six hundred feet long, and three hundred and sixty broad; and of the bones of a fish, which were brought to Rome from Joppa, and there shown as a miracle, which were forty feet long; and said to be the bones of the monstrous fish to which Andromede at Joppa was exposed s; which story seems to be hammered out of this history of Jonah; and the same is reported by Solinus t; however, it is out of doubt that there are fishes capable of swallowing a man. Nierembergius u speaks of a fish taken near Valencia in Spain, so large that a man on horseback could stand in its mouth; the cavity of the, brain held seven men; its jaw bones, which were kept in the Escurial, were seventeen feet long; and two carcasses were found in its stomach: he says it was called “piscis mularis”; but some learned men took it to be the dog fish before mentioned; and such a large devouring creature is the shark, of which the present bishop of Bergen w, and others, interpret this fish here; in which sometimes has been found the body of a man, and even of a man in armour, as many writers x have observed. Some y think it was a crocodile, which, though a river fish, yet, for the most part, is at the entrance of rivers, and sometimes goes into the sea many miles, and is capable of swallowing a man; some are above thirty feet long; and in the belly of one of them, in the Indies, was found a woman with all her clothes on z:
and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights: that is, one whole natural day, consisting of twenty four hours, and part of two others; the Jews having no other way of expressing a natural day but by day and night; and to this the antitype answers; namely, our Lord’s being so long in the grave; of whose death, burial, and resurrection, this was a type, as appears from Mt 12:40; for which reason Jonah was so miraculously preserved; and a miracle it was that he should not in this time be digested in the stomach of the creature; that he was not suffocated in it, but breathed and lived; and that he was able to bear the stench of the creature’s maw; and that he should have his senses, and be in such a frame of mind as both to pray and praise; but what is it that the power of God cannot do? Here some begin the second chapter, and not amiss.
p Pirke Eliezer, c. 10. fol. 10. 2. q Philostrat. Vit. Apollonii, l. 1. c. 7. r Nat. Hist. l. 32, c. 1. s Nat. Hist. l. 9. c. 5. t Polyhistor. c. 47. u Nat. Hist. l. 2. c. 26. apud Schotti Physics Curiosa, par. 2. l. 10. c. 10. sect. 9. w Pantoppidan’s History of Norway, par. 2. p. 114, 116. x Vid, Lipen. Jonae Displus, c. 2. th. 6. in Dissert. Theolog. Philol. tom. 1. p. 987. y Vid. Texelii Phoenix, l. 3. c. 6. p. 242, 243. z Mandelsloe in Harris’s Voyages and Travels, vol. 1. B. 1. c. 2. p. 759.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(Heb. Ch. 2:1). “And Jehovah appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah.” does not mean to create, but to determine, to appoint. The thought is this: Jehovah ordained that a great fish should swallow him. The great fish (lxx , cf. Mat 12:40), which is not more precisely defined, was not a whale, because this is extremely rare in the Mediterranean, and has too small a throat to swallow a man, but a large shark or sea-dog, canis carcharias , or squalus carcharias L. , which is very common in the Mediterranean, and has so large a throat, that it can swallow a living man whole.
(Note: The aqualus carcharias L. , the true shark, Requin , or rather Requiem , reaches, according to Cuvier, the length of 25 feet, and according to Oken the length of four fathoms, and has about 400 lance-shaped teeth in its jaw, arranged in six rows, which the animal can either elevate or depress, as they are simply fixed in cells in the skin. It is common in the Mediterranean, where it generally remains in deep water, and is very voracious, swallowing everything that comes in its way – plaice, seals, and tunny-fish, with which it sometimes gets into the fishermen’s net on the coat of Sardinia, and is caught. As many as a dozen undigested tunny-fish have been found in a shark weighing three or four hundredweight; in one a whole horse was found, and its weight was estimated at fifteen hundredweight. Rondelet (Oken, p. 58) says that he saw one on the western coast of France, through whose throat a fat man could very easily have passed. Oken also mentions a fact, which is more elaborately described in Mller’s Vollstndiges Natur-system des Ritters Carl v. Linn (Th. iii. p. 268), namely, that in the year 1758 a sailor fell overboard from a frigate, in very stormy weather, into the Mediterranean Sea, and was immediately taken into the jaws of a sea-dog ( carcharias ), and disappeared. The captain, however, ordered a gun, which was standing on the deck, to be discharged at the shark, and the cannon-ball struck it, so that it vomited up again the sailor that it had swallowed, who was then taken up alive, and very little hurt, into the boat that had been lowered for his rescue.)
The miracle consisted therefore, not so much in the fact that Jonah was swallowed alive, as in the fact that he was kept alive for three days in the shark’s belly, and then vomited unhurt upon the land. The three days and three nights are not to be regarded as fully three times twenty hours, but are to be interpreted according to Hebrew usage, as signifying that Jonah was vomited up again on the third day after he had been swallowed (compare Est 4:16 with Est 5:1 and Tob. 3:12, 13, according to the Lutheran text).
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
What the Prophet here briefly relates ought to be carefully weighed by us. It is easily passed over, when we read in a few words that Jonah was swallowed up by a fish, and that he was there three days and three nights: but though Jonah neither amplified or illustrated in a rhetorical manner what is overlooked by us, nor adopted any display of words, but spoke of the event as though it were an ordinary thing, we yet see what the event itself really was: Jonah was cast into the sea. He had been previously not only a worshipper of the true God, but also a Prophet, and had no doubt faithfully discharged his office; for God would not have resolved to send him to Nineveh, had he not conferred on him suitable gifts; and he knew him to be qualified for undertaking a burden so great and so important. As Jonah then had faithfully endeavored to serve God, and to devote himself to him through the whole of his past life, now that he is cast into the sea as one unworthy of the common light, that he is cut off from the society of men, and that he seems unworthy of undergoing a common or an ordinary punishment, but is exiled, as it were, from the world, so as to be deprived of light and air, as parricides, to whom formerly, as it is well-known, this punishment was allotted — as then Jonah saw that he was thus dealt with, what must have been the state of his mind?
Now that he tells us that he was three whole days in the inside of the fish, it is certain that the Lord had so awakened him that he must have endured continual uneasiness. He was asleep before he was swallowed by the fish; but the Lord drew him, as it were, by force to his tribunal, and he must have suffered a continual execution. He must have every moment entertained such thoughts as these, “Why does he now thus deal with thee? God does not indeed slay thee at once, but intends to expose thee to innumerable deaths.” We see what Job says, that when he died he would be at rest and free from all evils, (Job 14:6.) Jonah no doubt continually boiled with grief, because he knew that God was opposed to and displeased with him: he doubtless said to himself, “Thou hast to do, not with men, but with God himself, who now pursues thee, because thou hast become a fugitive from his presence.” As Jonah then must have necessarily thus thought within himself of God’s wrath, his case must have been harder than hundred deaths, as it had been with Job and with many others, who made it their chief petition that they might die. Now as he was not slain but languished in continual torments, it is certain that no one of us can comprehend, much less convey in words what must have come into the mind of Jonah during these three days. But I cannot now discuss what remains; I must therefore defer it to the next lecture.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
JONAH OVERBOARD
Jon 1:17 to Jon 2:9
WE come now to a further study of the Book of Jonah. You will remember our last discourse ended with the sixteenth verse, with Jonah overboard, and the sailors offering sacrifice unto the Lord and making vows. That seemed indeed to be the end of Jonah; but one of my professors used to say, A man is immortal until his ministry is finished.
Whether that is always true, it will appear to have been the fact of this Prophets existence, for although he is thrown into the midst of the sea and is swallowed up by a great fish, his history goes right on, and the belly of that fish, instead of being his grave, was converted into a closet of prayer.
This is one of the points at which the critics stumble. They cannot quite believe that anything so improbable ever actually took place. If the text of this night could be cut out of the Book of Jonah, the modern Jehoiakims would be made more happy thereby, and would the more readily consent to the inspiration of the Minor Prophets. But this is the very part of the Book which cannot be set aside. Upon these ten verses Jesus Christ has set the seal of His own acceptance. To cut them out is to call in question either His knowledge or His honesty. Personally I am not disposed to do either! To me this record contains no serious barrier to belief. My reason is no more offended by it than by many another historical incident of the Word of the Lord. I do not see one feature in the whole narrative which ought to strain the faith of the man who admits that there is a God in Heaven. The record is,
The Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fishs belly.
And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and He heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and Thou hearest my voice.
For Thou hast cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about; all Thy billows and Thy waves passed over me,
Then I said, I am cast out of Thy sight; yet I will look again toward Thy holy Temple,
The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head,
I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast Thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God,
When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord: and my prayer came in unto Thee, into Thine holy Temple,
They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy,
But I will sacrifice unto Thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord.
Three or four suggestions for our consideration! In the first place Jonahs experience involves both
THE NATURAL AND THE SUPERNATURAL
Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonahnatural!
There is not the least occasion to suppose a miracle here. The Mediterranean Sea has in it many a white shark which could, and if he had a chance, would swallow a man. The scholarly Pusey in his Notes on the Book of Jonah cites from history a number of instances in confirmation of the naturalness of this episode. There are a half dozen instances on record where these sharks, which sometimes attain the enormous weight of 10,000 pounds, with an extreme length of thirty to forty feet, have swallowed men. He also cites well authenticated instances where this same specie of fish has been found, one with a deer, absolutely whole, in the stomach; one with a large sea-calf, undigested; and one which had a full grown horse. Mueller still further confirms the naturalness of this incident by saying, In 1758, in stormy weather, a sailor fell overboard from a frigate in the Mediterranean. A shark was close by, which, as he was swimming and crying for help, took him in his wide throat so that he forthwith disappeared. The captain had a gun which stood on the deck discharged at the fish, striking it and sickening it so that it cast out the sailor, who was taken up alive. The wounded fish was harpooned and presented to the man who, by Gods providence, had been so wonderfully preserved. The sailor went around Europe exhibiting it at Farnconia, Erlangen, Numberg, and other places. It was twenty feet long and weighed 3,924 pounds when dried.
Yet people go up and down the country saying, A whale cannot swallow a man. Well, the record says, A great fish. Naturalists know that the larger of these white sharks could, at one gulp, swallow a descent sized family without effecting a sore throat. Natural!
And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nightssupernatural!
This might have been accomplished by natural means so far at least as the preservation of life is concerned. It is claimed that the fakirs of India have a custom of sealing up the lungs by turning the human tongue back into the epiglotis, thereby rendering the victim insensible, and leaving him in a comatose condition for weeks, out of which he is aroused at their pleasure. It is a fact of natural history that life can be sustained for sometime in the belly of a fish, possibly because the gastric juices hermetically seal the body swallowed.
But we are not so anxious to escape the miracle as to insist upon this as an explanation of Jonahs remaining alive. In fact, we do not believe it is the explanation. The admission of a miracle from God in preserving his life seems the more rational. It is one of the amazing features of modern thinking that so many men seem determined to deny the supernatural. Anything, any explanation, is regarded by a certain class of so-called thinkers as more satisfactory than an assent to the intervention of divinity. You have heard the story perhaps of the colored man who had caught the spirit of modem criticism and was disposed to remove the miraculous element from the Word. He was preaching about the Israelites passage over the Red Sea, and the overthrow of Pharaoh and his host in the waters thereof. Looking at his congregation with a learned air, he said, My bredern; der aint no use sposin a miracle heah. Dis can all be splained on natural grounds. You see, it was like dis: It was about de middle ob de winter when dese Israelites was agittin out ob Egypt, and when dey come down to de sea, dey found it well froze ober. And dey, bein afoot, all walked across on de ice. But when Pharo, with his great heaby charots tried to foiler em, de ice wouldnt hold em up, and so he and all his army broke thro, and got drowned.
An old deacon of this colored church, not quite satisfied with this explanation on natural grounds, rose and said, Hold on, Elder; jes a minute dere! I got one question I would jes like to ask ye! Ise been studin Gogaphy, an de Gogaphy do say dat am de place ob de tropics, whar it dont freeze ober; now will you splain dat?
To which the colored parson replied, Yes, sah; dats all easy enough. You see dis all happened before dey made any gogaphies, and dere warnt no tropics den.
We smile at the colored mans irrational method of avoiding the miracle, but we are not able to see wherein it is one whit less rational than the present-day critics endeavors to do the same. The man who has a mind so constituted that it can accept the Gospel record of Lazarus resurrection, a mind so constituted that it can believe Daniels report of how the three Hebrew children passed, unhurt, through the fiery furnace, and yet denies the possibility of Jonahs Divine preservation in the fishs belly at the bottom of the deep is not saved from the charge of faulty reasoning because his skin is white and he speaks the lingo of the schools. The only man who need have trouble with this incident in the Book of Jonah is the man who is unwilling to admit the claim of Scripture, With God all things are possible.
This supernatural experience was significantly symbolical. It had another meaning than that which then appeared. If as a judgment it looked backward to Jonahs sin, as a symbol it looked forward to Christs burial and resurrection. Doubtless that was the very reason God had prepared the fish to swallow Jonah up. He could as easily have gotten him ashore by means of a floating spar. He could have sent an angel to keep him afloat until another vessel came that way. He could have gone to him Himself, walking on the water, as He went to Peter and other disciples in an awful night of similar storm. But He let him go into the deep, and be swallowed up by this fish that He might prefigure His own descent into the earth and His escape therefrom by His resurrection. One day certain of the Scribes and of the Pharisees said to Jesus,
Master, we would see a sign from Thee.
But He answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the Prophet Jonas:
For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whales belly; so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
When Paul came to write to the Corinthians, touching the resurrection of Jesus Christ, he spoke of how Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. A disposition, therefore, to take Jonah from the sacred cannon, the present-day endeavor to cast discredit upon the record of the Prophets experience in the deep, is the disposition and endeavor which, if it were successful, would leave the resurrection of Jesus Christ to be followed by an interrogation point. Then, as the Apostle Paul says, If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.
God forbid! If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
In the second place Jonahs experience as here narrated illustrates
GODS PURPOSE IN JUDGMENT
If He follows with affliction it is for our reform.
Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fishs belly,
And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and He heard me.
Of course He did. Long before this time David had been subjected to severe judgment, a judgment sent upon him for his good, and he wrote what Jonah is now quoting, In my distress I cried unto the Lord, and He heard me.
The devil is responsible for our sufferings. He it is who led Jonah away from his Lord and landed him in the deep; but God in His great mercy makes even the plans of this arch enemy to praise Him, and the very troubles into which Jonahs sin led were overruled for his good, in that he saw how serious it was to run away from the Heavenly Father. It was the devil who put it into the heart of the Prodigal son to say, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. It was the devil who deceived him into supposing that riotous living would lead to pleasure; and it was the devil who paid him off with pigs for his associates, and the sweet honeysuckle for his sustenance.
But those very hardships proved to be a power in the hand of God in impressing the awfulness of his iniquity, the degradation of his station, and bringing him to a keen appreciation of the fellowships and the food in his fathers house.
That is always the purpose of judgment so far as God has anything to do with it. His speech for the present-day sinner is exactly what it was three thousand years ago, when by Ezekiels lips He said, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O House of Israel?
Jonah accepted his affliction with wisdom. There are two ways to meet judgment. The one is to declare it unjust and plunge into deeper sin; the other is to see as Jonah saw, that it is sent for our good, and turn back to God. Although he believed that God had cast him into the sea, so that the floods had compassed him about, and billows and waves had gone over him, still he said, I will look again toward Thy holy Temple. When the waters came even to the soul, when the depth closed him round about, when the weeds wrapped his headsymbol of the graveclotheswhen he went down to the bottoms of the mountains, when the earth with Her bars were about him forever, when his soul fainted within him, he remembered the Lord, and his prayer made in the deep was heard in the holy Temple. That is the way to meet affliction.
The prodigal son gives us an example of what to do in the darkest hour. When the waves and billows of trouble were rolling over him he said, I will arise and go to my father. Blessed way to meet them! The man who so treats affliction will convert it into a friend. Manasseh at Jerusalem had forgotten God and gone after sin, but when he found himself in prison in Babylon, he turned again to God and was blessed in the turning.
Charles Spurgeon says: Troubles are called weights, and a weight, you know, generally cloggeth and keepeth down to the earth; but by the use of the laws of mechanics you can make a weight lift you up. And the man who knows how to take hold on God in the time of trouble will find his affliction a weight that can be made to lift him into the very presence of the Infinite One.
Jonah did his utmost, also, toward reparation.
He offered the [sacrifice] of thanksgiving, and pledged the fulfillment of his vows. That was all he could do under the circumstances. It was his besthis utmost. Had he been on land it would have been his business to have gone to Nineveh, and only such an action would have been acceptable; but, situated as he was he could only resolve, and God accepted the resolution as sufficient. It is high time that men who have sinned against God learn that in turning back to Him again, so far as lieth in them they must put the past right. There are some acts that one cannot undo, and for such he must plead forgiveness. There are others that he can reverse, and in these, reparation alone will suffice.
A friend of mine about to die could gain no peace of mind whatever until she had sent for her stepmother and asked forgiveness for some things she had said to her.
Dr. Louis Albert Banks tells the story of a lawyer of distinguished ability who went into the Music Hall of Cleveland, Ohio, to attend the Mills meeting there. As he listened to the truth, he was convicted of sin, and because he had been pushing a suit and had already won it in the lower courts, knowing that the principal witness on the winning side had falsified for a definite sum of money, the attorney had been promised a fee of $12,000 on condition that the suit was won in the highest court. He went out from this meeting to face the crisis of his life$12,000 on the one side for pleading a false issue, and defrauding the defendant. On the other side a clean conscience, if he restored the payments already received, and refused to further prosecute the suit. All night he wrestled like Jacob of old, but the next day he settled the question by determining to retore the ill-gotten money, and resign his office as attorney in the case. Then it was he realized Gods favor in forgiveness; then it was he said to the friends to whom he communicated it all, Now let me go home to my wife. She will be so happy, for she is a Christian woman, and godliness means more to her than gain.
Zacchaeus gave an excellent evidence of his conversion when he said, If I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.
But the concluding sentence of this study contains a most important suggestion, namely:
SALVATION IS OF THE LORD
Jonah had lost confidence in self.
There had been a time when Jonah had felt some self-sufficiency, but a fishs belly is a poor place to exercise any such sentiment. When Peter attempted to walk on the sea, and found himself suddenly sinking, his self-confident spirit departed and he cried, Lord, save me. But even his predicament had more of promise in it than Jonahs position presents. He has gone down already. He is at the bottom of the deep. Except God interfere, he is dead. Except God save, there is absolutely no hope. Where could you find a better figure of the condition of the natural man who is dead in trespasses and sins, and who can do nothing whatever to help or save himself?
Charles Spurgeon, in one of his sermons says:
Last week I stood beside that window of Carisbrooke Castle, out of which King Charles, of unhappy and unrighteous memory, attempted to escape. I read in the guidebook that everything was provided for his escape. His fellows had means at the bottom of the wall to enable him to fly across the country, and on the coast they had their boats lying ready to take him to another land. In fact, everything was ready for his escape, but here was the important circumstance. His friends had done all they could, he was to do the rest. But that doing the rest was just the point and brunt of the battle. It was to get out of the window, out of which he was not able to escape by any means; so that all his friends did for him went for nothing so far as he was concerned.
So with the sinner, if God had provided every means of escape and only required him to get out of his dungeon, he would have remained there to all eternity. Why, is not the sinner by nature dead in sin? The Spirit must quicken him. He is bound hand and foot, and fettered by transgression. The Spirit must cut his bands and then he will leap to liberty.
Spurgeon is right! Salvation is not of our effort. Salvation is of the Lord, and to see that truth as Jonah saw it is the first essential. So long as a man is expecting to be saved in some other way he remains in his sins, for There is none other name under Heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
Jonah had ceased from trusting to circumstances.
There had been a time when he was in health and his feet on solid ground, and he felt he could do as he pleased, and somehow or other make it right with God at the end. But all of that is past now, for at the bottom of the deep a man does not so reason. It is only when he is in health and prosperity! After he is brought down low, after he is utterly buried, as it were, he wonders how he could ever so blunder as to imagine that sin could escape judgment, or that circumstances could be depended upon to effect a favorable issue of life.
I appeal to those of you who are in health tonight, to those of you who are in prosperity, to make your calling and election sure. Circumstances now are favorable to your doing so, but who can tell what a day may bring forth. Tomorrow the end may be on, and it may be associated with such untold suffering, such indescribable agony of body or mind, or both that it would be a poor time to settle the great questions of the soul. A dying man may pray but all preparation for a deathbed repentance seems unwarranted when we remember Jesus words, Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in Heaven.
Jonah knew that God, and God alone, could save.
Our text is authority for the claim, Salvation is of the Lord.
The sea captain had seen the same truth in the time of storm. When the vessel rocked to the winds and was ready to go down, the shipmaster came to Jonah and said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not.
But there is something better than either the conduct of the shipmaster or that of Jonah, and that is to call upon God before the storm comes. I plead with those of you who have not made your peace with Him, to make it now, Behold, now is the accepted time. Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near.
Dr. Talmage tells the story about the ship Rebecca Goddard, which comes into our ports in midwinter. She was all scoured up and ready for the landing, when, coming almost into the harbor, an ice floe came and pushed the ship out to sea, and it drifted about two or three days. There was great suffering and one was frozen dead at his post. They had been almost in the harbor, but they did not go altogether in. Many of you will either come in now, or else the ice floe of indifference will push you out and out, upon the seas of irreligion, until at last you will be going down without hope and without God. God help you, now, to come!
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
(17) Now the Lord.In the Hebrew, Jonah 2 commences with this verse.
Had prepared.The pluperfect is misleading. Render appointed, and comp. Jon. 4:6-8, where the same word is used of the gourd, the worm, and the east wind. The Authorised version renders the word accurately in Job. 7:3; Dan. 1:5-10. Previous special preparation is not implied, still less creation for the particular purpose. God employs existing agents to do His bidding.
A great fish.The Hebrew dag is derived from the prolific character of fish, and a great fish might stand for any one of the sea monsters. The notion that it was a whale rests on the LXX. and Mat. 12:40. But was a term for any large fish, such as dolphins, sharks, &c. (See Hom. Od. xii. 97.) And unless we have previously determined the question, whether the Book of Jonah is intended by the sacred writer to be a literal history, or an apologue founded on a history or a parable pure and simple, tota hc de pisce Jon disquisitio, as an old commentator observes, vana videtur atque inutilis. The explanations given by commentators divide themselves into those of a strictly prternatural kind, as that a fish was created for the occasion; or into the natural or semi-natural, as that it was a ship, or an inn bearing the sign of the whale; or that it was a white shark. (For the last hypothesis see all that can be collected in Dr. Puseys commentary on Jonah.) In early Christian paintings the monster appears as a huge dragon.
Three days and three nights.See Mat. 12:40, New Testament Commentary.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
JONAH’S WONDERFUL DELIVERANCE, Jon 1:17 to Jon 2:10 (in Hebrew, Jon 2:1-10).
The deliverance of Jonah is recorded in Jon 1:17; Jon 2:10. Jehovah prepared a great fish, which swallowed Jonah. After he had been in the fish’s belly for three days and three nights he was, at the divine command, cast upon the dry land. Jon 2:1-9, contains a poem, a prayer which Jonah is said to have offered from the belly of the fish. If so, one would expect it to be a petition; in reality it is a hymn of praise and thanksgiving for the deliverance already wrought. This peculiarity has been explained either by assuming that it was spoken by Jonah after he was vomited out by the fish, and that its proper place is after Jon 2:10; or that it is a song of thanksgiving uttered in the fish’s belly when the prophet discovered that he was preserved alive. This preservation he regarded as a pledge of final deliverance, and for it he praised God in anticipation (see Introduction, p. 337).
Prepared The verb does not mean “created,” as if Jehovah had created the fish for this special purpose, but “ordain” or “appoint.” Jehovah appointed some great fish, already in existence, to swallow Jonah. “By God’s immediate direction it was so arranged that the very moment when Jonah was thrown into the waves the ‘great fish’ was on the spot to receive him.”
Great fish This is the literal translation. Nothing is said of the species of the fish; but for a long time the popular idea has been that it was a whale. Against this identification it has been urged that the whale is not found in the Mediterranean, and that he has such a small gullet that he could not swallow a man. However, of the existence of whales in the Mediterranean there can be no doubt, and, while the gullet of the common whale is not large enough to let a man pass through whole, there are whales that would not have this difficulty; and of these the great spermaceti whale is said to wander sometimes into the Mediterranean. Most commentators, however, who interpret the narrative literally, identify the “great fish” with the shark. The latter is not uncommon in the Mediterranean. G.E. Post says that he saw one at Beirut twenty feet long; and this fish would have no difficulty in swallowing a man. To illustrate the capacity of the shark it has become customary to call attention to the following incident: “In 1758 in stormy weather a sailor fell overboard from a frigate in the Mediterranean. A shark was close by, which, as he was swimming and crying for help, took him in his wide throat, so that he forthwith disappeared. Other sailors had leaped into the sloop to help their comrade, while yet swimming; the captain had a gun which stood on the deck discharged at the fish, which struck it so that it cast out the sailor which it had in its throat, who was then taken up, alive and little injured, by the sloop which had now come up.” From this and similar incidents it would seem that there are fish that might swallow a man whole; though it would be remarkable for him to remain alive and uninjured.
Three days and three nights Whether this is interpreted as meaning three full days and full nights, or simply “a space of time reaching backward and forward beyond twenty four hours” (Mat 12:40), is of little consequence; according to all natural laws it would be impossible for any man to remain alive for any considerable length of time in the belly of a fish (see Luther’s words quoted on p. 325). Only by direct, divine, miraculous interference could Jonah be kept alive. At the end of this period the fish, at the divine command, vomited out Jonah.
Dry land Where, is not stated. The author probably intended it to be understood that the fish carried Jonah back to the place from which he had embarked. The traditional site of the ejection of the prophet is near Sidon.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘And YHWH prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly (innards) of the fish three days and three nights.’
Meanwhile YHWH had not forgotten YHWH and as God of land and sea had already made provision for Jonah by arranging for a large fish to be in the area, so that as Jonah began to drown in the turbulent seas, the fish might swallow him. And when it did he was inside the fish for ‘three days and three nights’, which in Israelite terminology indicated ‘a day or two’. (A ‘day and a night’ could refer to part of a day, seeing it as part of the day and night cycle. Compare Est 4:16 with Est 5:1). He had not deserted His prophet, but had arranged for his rescue. The word for ‘belly’ simply means the innards, and is not necessarily specifically referring to the whale’s stomach. They did not know the physiology of whales.
Jonah, who had found himself drowning in the sea, and being dragged down into the depths, was, once he found himself alive and well and able to breathe in what appeared as some kind of chamber, grateful to God, and the psalm in chapter 2 expresses his gratitude. He probably did not quite know what had happened to him, or where he was (he would find that out later), but he knew that he was alive and was therefore confident that if he repented God intended to spare his life. Ironically he found himself in the same position as the Ninevites to whom he had refused to go, as one who was under sentence and deserving of death, but with an opportunity of repentance. The Psalm adequately expresses this position, and is a necessary part of the story. Without it there would be no indication of Jonah’s repentance.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jon 1:17. Now the Lord had prepared a great fish That there are fishes large enough to swallow a man, there can be no question; the Scripture calls this a great fish, in the general, and therefore there is no need to confine it to a whale. But we shall speak more on this subject, when we come to Mat 12:40. See also Calmet’s dissertation on the subject, and Scheuchzer. We may just observe farther, that the Hebrew language has no one word to express what we call a natural day: so that what the Greeks express by , they denote by a day and a night: therefore the space of time consisting of one whole revolution of twenty-four hours, and part of two others, is fitly expressed in that language by three days and three nights. Such a space of time our blessed Lord lay in the grave; that is to say, one whole , or natural day, and part of two others: and we may thence conclude that Jonah, who was an eminent figure of him in this particular, continued no longer in the belly of the fish. But on this point we shall say more when we come to speak of our Saviour’s resurrection.
REFLECTIONS.1st, We have here,
1. The prophet’s name and parentage: Jonah, a dove; God’s prophets should be harmless as these, and, like the dove of Noah, bring the olive-branch of peace, the tidings of mercy and salvation to perishing sinners: his father’s name was Ammittai, my truth; for prophets must be sons of truth faithful to their office, and steady to maintain the truths of God.
2. His mission. The word of the Lord came unto him, bidding him arise, and go to Nineveh, that great city, the metropolis of the Assyrian empire, where wickedness abounded, as in great cities it usually does, the multitudes of sinners serving to embolden and stimulate each other to commit iniquity. It was now ripe for vengeance, and he must go and cry aloud in the streets, to give the inhabitants warning of their approaching doom unless they repented.
3. His disobedience. He rose up to flee from the presence of the Lord, from the chosen land, where God was pleased in an especial manner to reveal himself, to Tarshish; either Tarsus in Cilicia, or the sea, determined to ship himself in the first vessel, and fly any where rather than go to Nineveh. Either he dreaded the dangers of the service; or rather, as he suggests, chap. Jon 4:2 he knew God’s compassions, that the Ninevites would be forgiven, and himself be counted a false prophet. A ship was ready to sail as soon as he arrived at Joppa, and he instantly paid the fare and embarked. Providence seemed to concur with his desires: but the ready way is not always the right way; and they who fly from duty, whatever present relief they may gain, are only treasuring up for themselves greater sorrow.
2nd, They who think to fly from God will soon perceive the folly of the attempt.
1. God sends a mighty tempest on the ship in which the prophet sailed, so that it seemed ready each moment to founder. Such storms does sin raise in the conscience; and the poor sinner in despondence is ready to give himself up for lost, little suspecting that the very tempest, which he imagines will be his ruin, is only designed to drive him to the haven of rest.
2. Jonah alone seemed unconcerned about the danger. The mariners, affrighted, ran to their prayers, and cried to their idols for help: for the imminent views of death will sometimes bring those to their knees who never thought of bowing them before: and, life being dearer to them than all besides, they readily part with their merchandise, and cast it into the sea to lighten the ship. Worldly goods are nothing worth when death stares men in the face: what folly then, for the sake of them, to make shipwreck of faith and a good conscience, and lose an immortal soul, infinitely more precious than the dying body! When will men be wise? The roaring billows, which terrified the heathen seamen, joined perhaps with the grating sorrows of his mind, served but to rock Jonah asleep: he of all that company appeared the only person insensible, though none had so much cause to be alarmed. Into such stupefaction does sin sometimes lull the conscience of the back-slider. He appears to have lost all apprehension of danger; and even the judgments which make others tremble, he seems to pass over unaffected. From such blindness and hardness of heart, good Lord, deliver us!
3. The ship-master rouses him from his slumbers, and upbraids him with his insensibility. What meanest thou, O sleeper? Strange that a prophet of the Lord should need reproof even from the mouth of a heathen! Arise, call upon thy God: delay is ruinous when danger urges. They had cried to their gods in vain; perhaps his was more able to help them; if so be that God will think upon us that we perish not, as, without immediate help, they knew they must. Note; No danger is so great, but, if God think upon us, he is able to save us to the uttermost.
4. The storm increasing, notwithstanding all their endeavours and prayers, they began to suspect that there might be among them some atrocious sinner, on whose account the divine displeasure pursued them. As was usual with the heathens, therefore, they resolved to inquire which of them it was, and to refer the decision to the lot; and God so ordained that the lot fell upon Jonah. Thus is the iniquity of the sinner often found out by means that he never suspected, and when he thinks himself most secure and best concealed from detection.
5. They hereupon strictly interrogate the prophet. The lot had said, This is the man, and he is called upon to acknowledge his crime, that they might know for whose cause, or for what cause, this evil was upon them; what he had done to provoke God; what was his occupation; whence he came; and to what country he belonged. Note; In order to get our troubles removed, we must search diligently into our sins, which are the cause of them.
6. Jonah, without reserve, makes confession of his crime; and probably, now convicted in his own conscience, desired to take to himself all the shame and punishment which he felt that he had deserved. He declares himself by nation and religion a Hebrew, which was an aggravation of his guilt; his occupation was that of a prophet of the Most High, I fear the Lord Jehovah, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land; which, though it added to his sin, yet he owns to God’s glory, and in order to the instruction of the heathen mariners, who blindly worshipped many gods, instead of the one true and living Jehovah. His crime he owns: he had told them that he fled from the presence of the Lord, rebellious to his command, and running from his duty; for which this judgment was sent. Note; When we have sinned, nothing remains but to justify God in his judgments, and with penitence to bow into the dust.
7. The seamen appear exceedingly affected with his narrative. Probably they had heard what the God of the Hebrews had done of old; and this increased their terrors. With just upbraidings, therefore, of the prophet, who by his wickedness had brought them into this imminent danger, they expostulate with him, Why hast thou done this? why didst thou so foolishly attempt to fly? and why embark with us, to involve us with thyself in danger. Note; (1.) They who profess religion, and act unsuitably, deserve to be reproached. (2.) None know how extensive and dangerous the consequence of even a single sin may be.
3rdly, The criminal is detected by his own confession; the question is, what is to be done with him?
1. They refer the matter to himself. Since he was a prophet of the God of the Hebrews, he best could inform them what was the likeliest means to appease his anger, and thereby, obtain deliverance from the storm, which raged more furiously than ever. Note; When by our sins we have raised a storm of wrath around us, it highly imports us to inquire how it may be appeased.
2. Jonah pronounces his own doom. He well knew himself to be the troubler, and that, till he was cast into the sea, there could be no hope of the storm’s abating; and therefore he bids them throw him overboard: he would not be his own destroyer; yet, conscious that he deserved to die, he offers himself for execution; and chooses rather himself to perish, than involve the innocent in destruction. Note; (1.) They who truly know the evil of sin, and are deeply humbled under it, are ready to submit to any shame or suffering, whereby God may be glorified, and reparation be made to the injured. (2.) When sin has raised a storm, we must never hope for peace till the accursed thing is removed.
3. Very unwilling to execute this grievous sentence, the mariners rowed hard for land; but the more they strove, the more the sea wrought, and was tempestuous; so that despair took place in every countenance, and nothing remained but this last experiment, with which they felt the more reluctance to comply on account of the noble simplicity and deep humiliation which now probably appeared in the penitent prophet. Note; (1.) When a gracious man, overtaken with a fault, with frank acknowledgment takes shame to himself, he is entitled to our greatest compassion; nor should we ever by severity aggravate his distress. (2.) There is no striving against God’s counsels: his will must be done.
4. Before they execute the dread decree, they present their importunate supplications to God, that he would not impute to them innocent blood, nor cause them to perish for taking away this man’s life; when they had desired to know his will, and acted now, according to the best of their light, in conformity thereto; it appearing to be his pleasure that Jonah should be cast into the sea. Note; (1.) In all our emergencies we must have recourse to God in prayer. (2.) When we follow, according to our best knowledge, under the guidance of Divine Providence, what appears to be God’s will, we are bound with satisfaction to trust him with the issue.
5. Jonah is cast into the sea, and, to the astonishment of the mariners, instantly the storm ceased. They feared the Lord exceedingly, amazed at the sudden change; and, filled with thankfulness, offered an immediate sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, and made vows of future oblations whenever they should reach the shore. Thus, sometimes, our greatest loss proves our greatest gain. The acquaintance which they hereby gained with Israel’s God amply compensated for the damage that they had sustained by the storm.
6. By a miracle the prophet’s life is preserved. God, who designed not to destroy but save him, had prepared a great fish which swallowed him alive; and by almighty power he was preserved three days and three nights, at least part of three days, unhurt in the fish’s stomach, a monument of divine mercy, and an illustrious type of him, who, when he had given his life a ransom for others, lay so long in the grave, and rose again the third day, Mat 12:40.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
I stay not to enquire what fish this was. Our Lord Jesus himself hath said it was a whale. Mat 12:40 . Neither do I consider myself as called upon to show how Jonah could remain the time here spoken of, without being suffocated. The subject itself is miraculous; and as such, he that appointed the means, made it effectual to the end. I only beg the Reader to observe with me, that the time here mentioned of three days and three nights, doth not mean, neither was it ever intended to mean, three whole days and three whole nights; but only part in each, of the first and third of those times, that is to say, one whole day, and part of two others. For the Jews have no way of expressing a day and a night separately, but together. So it was by Christ when he lay in the grave; that is, part of the day of his crucifixion, from the time he was taken down from the cross and laid in the tomb; then the whole following day; and then to the next morning before sun rise; for that Christ was risen before the sun is evident from what is said of the godly women. Mar 16:2 . And as Jonah was an express type of the Lord Jesus, it should seem that the time in both events was the same.
REFLECTIONS
PRECIOUS Lord Jesus! improving as the history of Jonah may be found in numberless instances, I cannot, I dare not for a moment lose sight of thee, while beholding thy type in the wonderful account here given, and which so strikingly sets forth thy glorious person, as three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. If Jonah was the only sign given in the days of thy flesh, to an evil and adulterous generation, let my, soul bless the Lord for the sweet testimony this brings with it, to thy sovereign grace and salvation. Yes!, dearest Lord! Jonah did resemble thee, when delivered to the raging sea for the salvation of the people. Thou didst indeed bear the overwhelming torrents of thy sufferings, when the vials of justice were poured out upon thy devoted head, and when thou didst tread the wine-presses, of thy Father’s wrath alone. And although in thy holy nature there was no shadow of guile; and never wert thou otherwise from one eternity to another than the unceasing object of thy Father’s love; yet, as the sinner’s surety, like Jonah, thou didst stand the only cause of the dreadful storm; and all the cataracts of tempest came in upon thy soul, until thou wert sorrowful even unto death, sore amazed, and very heavy. And hence those cries of soul; I sink in deep water where there is no standing; I am come into deep waters where the floods overflow me. Blessed Lord Jesus! may my soul frequently meditate on thee in this endearment of character! And as often as I read of Jonah’s being cast forth, and the tempest of the sea ceasing in consequence, may I feel my soul refreshed in the contemplation; Jesus I will say was made this and infinitely more for me, that I might be made the righteousness of God in him!
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Jon 1:17 Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Ver. 17. Now the Lord had prepared a great fish ] A whale, Mat 12:40 , which is a great fish indeed. Pliny tells of one taken that was six hundred feet in length, and three hundred and sixty in breadth; when they swim and show themselves above water, annare insulas putes, saith the same author, you would think them to be so many islands. So many mountains, saith another; who also addeth, that when they grow old they grow to that size and weight, that they stay long in a place. Insomuch as ex collectis et condensatis pulveribus frutices erumpere cernantur, the dust and filth gathered upon their backs seems to be an island, which while shipmen are mistaken and think to land at, they incur a great deal of danger (Sphinx Philid.).
Such a great fish God prepared
And Jonah was in the belly of the fish
Three days and three nights
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Jon 1:17
17And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights.
Jon 1:17 the LORD appointed a great fish The VERB appoint (BDB 584, KB 599, Piel IMPERFECT) is used in all four miraculous occurrences.
1. the great fish, Jon 1:17
2. the vine, Jon 4:6
3. the worm, Jon 4:7
4. the scorching east wind, Jon 4:8
This phrase emphasizes that God did not create here, but assigned an existing creature to act on His behalf (like the donkey in Numbers 25). The God who made Jonah controls history and nature. I believe in a supernatural, personal, loving, present God! However, the miraculous is not the major theological focus of the overall message of the book (i.e., God’s love for all humans, even pagans; and Jewish arrogance and pride).
three days and three nights This phrase can mean three full days, but since it is used of Jesus’ burialand time in hades (cf. Mat 12:39-40; Luk 11:29-32), it probably means part of one day, all of the next day, and then part of a third day. It is not meant to be a specific time indication.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
This is a study guide commentary which means that you are responsible for your own interpretation of the Bible. Each of us must walk in the light we have. You, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit are priority in interpretation. You must not relinquish this to a commentator.
These discussion questions are provided to help you think through the major issues of this section of the book. They are meant to be thought provoking, not definitive.
1. Why did Jonah not want to go to Nineveh?
2. How do the sailors spiritually measure up to Jonah’s spirituality in this account?
3. Why has the great fish bothered so many people?
4. What is the purpose of the book?
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
prepared = appointed, or assigned. From Hebrew. mdndh, to number. Hence, to appoint, as in Job 7:3. Dan 1:5; Dan 1:10-11; and Chaldee. mynah (Dan 5:25, Dan 5:26). Compare Jon 4:6-8. Never means to create.
great fish. Large enough to swallow him. in Mat 12:40, Greek. kilos – any large marine monster; whence Cetacece -the mammalian order of fish. No need for any name. Compare Mat 12:20; Mat 16:4. Luk 11:30.
swallow up . . . belly. Not therefore kept alive in the fish ‘ s mouth, as some imagine. When thus swallowed up, Jonah must have died, and thus became a type of Christ. The “as” and “so” in Mat 12:40 require Jonah’s death. He would have been no type if he had been miraculously kept alive. See further notes below.
was = came to be.
belly = bowels.
three days and three nights. The Hebrew idiom “three days” can be used for parts of three days (and even of years): but not when the word “nights” is added. See Mat 12:40, and note the force of “as”. See App-144and App-156.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
the Lord: Jon 4:6, Gen 1:21, Psa 104:25, Psa 104:26, Hab 3:2
in: Mat 12:40, Mat 16:4, Luk 11:30
belly: Heb. bowels
Reciprocal: Exo 2:5 – when she 1Sa 30:12 – three days Psa 124:3 – swallowed Jon 2:10 – General Jon 4:8 – that God Mat 17:27 – and take Mar 8:31 – and after 1Co 15:4 – according
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jon 1:17. i almost hesitated at giving any serious attention to the foolish criticisms that carping infidels make on this verse. There is either a Supreme Being or there is not; and if there is, He would be able to do what he willed with the things of creation. If God is able to take a camel through the eye of a needle (Mat 19:26), He could confine a man in the body of a minnow if he so desired. But for the sake of some who might think the criticism is unanswerable, I will state that I have personally seen the skeleton of a fish whose throat was large enough to permit a very big man to creep through easily. And it should be remembered that what I saw was the dead hone, while the fish in the case of Jonah was alive and the framework of the throat would be capable of expanding to a much larger opening than the dead bony structure that was on exhibition. This is all I care to say on this phase of the subject at this time. But we should observe that Jonah was in the fish three days and three nights.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Jon 1:17. Now the Lord prepared a great fish, &c. We have but an imperfect acquaintance with the natural history of fishes. However, it is a well-attested fact, that there are fishes, sharks, for instance, that grow to a size capable of swallowing and containing a man. The Scripture calls this a great fish in the general, and therefore there is no need to confine it to a whale; in which view, much of the wit thrown out by persons disposed to be merry on the Scripture is quite foreign to the purpose. See more in the note on Mat 12:40, in Calmets dissertation on the subject, and in Scheuchzer. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights The Hebrew language, says Lowth, has no one word to express what we call a natural day; so that what the Greeks express by , they denote by a day and a night. Therefore the space of time consisting of one whole revolution of twenty-four hours, and a part of two others, is fitly expressed in that language by three days and three nights. Such a space of time our Lord lay in the grave; (that is, one whole , or natural day, and part of two others;) and we may from thence conclude that Jonah, who was an eminent figure of him in this particular, was no longer in the fishs belly. This miracle of preserving Jonah was evidently very important. It served to spread the knowledge of the true God, the whole transaction having this tendency: see Jon 1:16. And it also taught Jonah, and in him the whole prophetical order, Gods power and determination to enforce his commands.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
1:17 Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the {m} belly of the fish three days and three nights.
(m) Thus the Lord would chastise his Prophet with a most terrible spectacle of death, and by this also strengthened and encouraged him of his favour and support in this duty which was commanded him.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The identity of the great fish remains a mystery since the only record of what it was is in this story, and that description is general. The Hebrew word dag, translated "fish," describes a variety of aquatic creatures. The text does not say that God created this fish out of nothing (ex nihilo) nor does what the fish did require such an explanation. There are many types of fish capable of swallowing a human being whole. [Note: See Wilson, pp. 631-32.] Two examples are the sperm whale and the whale shark. Occasionally today we hear of someone who has lived for several days in a fish or in some other large animal and has emerged alive. [Note: See Harrison, pp. 907-8, or Keil, 1:398, for several such instances.] Notwithstanding Jonah’s experience has been one of the favorite targets of unbelievers in the miraculous, who claim that this story is preposterous (cf. Mat 12:39-40). Some Bible students have faulted some commentators for documenting instances of large fish swallowing people who have survived, as if such suggestions slight God’s power. They do not necessarily.
"The numerous attempts made in the past to identify the sort of fish that could have kept Jonah alive in it are misguided. How would even Jonah himself have known? Can we assume that he caught a glimpse of it as it turned back to sea after vomiting him out on shore (Jon 1:1 [10])? How much could he have understood of what had happened to him when he was swallowed? These questions have no answer. To ask them is to ignore the way the story is told. What sorts of fish people can live inside is not an interest of the scripture." [Note: Stuart, p. 474.]
Significantly God saved Jonah’s life by using a fish rather than in a more conventional method such as providing a piece of wood that he could cling to. Thus this method of deliverance must have some special significance. The Jews were familiar with the mythical sea monster (Ugaritic lotan, Heb. leviathan) that symbolized both the uncontrollable chaos of the sea and the chaotic forces that only Yahweh could manage (cf. Psa 74:13-14; Psa 104:25-26). The Hebrews did not believe that leviathan really existed any more than we believe in Santa Claus. Yet the figure was familiar to them, and they knew what it represented. For Jonah to relate his experience of deliverance in his ancient Near Eastern cultural context would have impressed his hearers that a great God had sent him to them. It is probably for this reason that God chose to save Jonah by using a great fish.
Here God controlled the traditionally uncontrollable to spare Jonah’s life. The God who is great enough to control it could control anything, and He used His power for a loving purpose. This is more remarkable since Jonah, as God’s servant, had rebelled against his Master. God’s method of deliverance therefore reveals both His great power and His gracious heart.
"Men have been looking so hard at the great fish that they have failed to see the great God." [Note: G. Campbell Morgan, The Minor Prophets, p. 69.]
"It is the greatness of Israel’s God that is the burden of the book." [Note: Allen, p. 192.]
Jonah was able to calculate how long he was in the fish after he came out of it. Obviously he lost all track of time inside the fish.
Ancient Near Easterners viewed the trip to the underworld land of the dead as a three-day journey. [Note: George M. Landes, "The ’Three Days and Three Nights’ Motif in Jonah 2:1," Journal of Biblical Literature 86 (1967): 246-250.] Original readers of this story would have concluded that the fish gave Jonah a return trip from the land of the dead to which Jonah, by his own admission, had descended (Jon 2:2; Jon 2:6).
The three-day time was significant also because Jonah’s deliverance became a precursor of an even greater salvation that took three days and nights to accomplish (Mat 12:40). God restored Jonah to life so he would be God’s instrument in providing salvation to a large Gentile (and indirectly Jewish) population under God’s judgment for their sins. He raised Jesus to life so He would be God’s instrument in providing salvation for an even larger population of Gentiles and Jews under God’s judgment for their sins.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
E. Jonah’s deliverance by God 1:17-2:1
For the second time in this story God took the initiative to move His prophet to carry out His will (cf. Jon 1:1). This time Jonah turned to the Lord.