According to the
Hebrew Bible (
Tanakh/
Old Testament) and
Qur'an, 'Jonah' ( ;
Arabic: 'يونس', ''Yunus'' or 'يونان', ''Yunaan'' ;
Latin 'Ionas' ; "Dove") was a
prophet who was swallowed by a great
fish.
The Story of Jonah
In the Old Testament of the Bible, Jonah is mentioned twice, first in
2 Kings 14:25 (as a prophet in the time of King
Jeroboam II) and later in the
Book of Jonah. He was the son of
Amittai (meaning 'True'), from the Galilean village of Gath-hepher near
Nazareth. God orders Jonah to prophesy to the city of
Nineveh. Not wanting to, Jonah tries to avoid God's command by going to
Joppa and sailing to
Tarshish. A huge storm arises and the sailors, realizing this is no ordinary storm, cast lots and learn that Jonah is to blame. Jonah admits this and states that if he is thrown overboard the storm will cease. The sailors try to get the ship to the shore but in failing feel forced to throw him overboard, at which point the sea calms. Jonah is miraculously saved by being swallowed by a large fish. In chapter two, while in the great fish, Jonah prays to God and asks forgiveness. As a result, God commands the fish to vomit Jonah out.
God again orders Jonah to visit Nineveh and prophesy to its inhabitants. This time he goes there and walks through the city crying, "In forty days Nineveh shall be destroyed." The Ninevites believe his word and appoint a public fast, ranging from the King (who puts on sackcloth and sits in ashes) to the humblest person. God has compassion and spares the city for the time being.
Embittered by this, Jonah questions the need for his journey, stating that since God is merciful it was inevitable that God would yield to the Ninevites' entreaties. He then leaves the city and makes himself a shelter, waiting to see whether or not the city will be destroyed.
God causes a plant (in Hebrew a
kikayon) to grow over Jonah's shelter to give him some shade from the sun. Later, a worm bites the plant's root and it withers. Jonah, now being exposed to the full force of the sun, becomes faint and desires that God take him out of the world.
But God tells him, "Do you have reason to be concerned at the death of a plant, which cost you nothing, which rises one night and dies the next; yet would you not have me pardon such a city as Nineveh, in which are 120,000 persons not able to distinguish their right hand from their left, and many beasts besides?"
Jonah in Islam
Like many important Biblical characters, Jonah is also important in
Islam as a
prophet who is faithful to God (Allah) and delivers His messages. He is known to Muslims by his Arabic name, Yunus.
Sura 10 (equivalent to chapter 10) of the
Qur'an is named "
Sura Yunus" after him, although he only receives one reference, in verse 98. The full story of Prophet Jonah is recounted in Sura 37, verses 139-149:
★ 37:139 So also was Jonah among those sent (by Us).
★ 37:140 When he ran away (like a slave from captivity) to the ship (fully) laden,
★ 37:141 He (agreed to) cast lots, and he was condemned:
★ 37:142 Then the big Fish did swallow him, and he had done acts worthy of blame.
★ 37:143 Had it not been that he (repented and) glorified God,
★ 37:144 He would certainly have remained inside the Fish till the Day of Resurrection.
★ 37:145 But We cast him forth on the naked shore in a state of sickness,
★ 37:146 And We caused to grow, over him, a spreading plant of the gourd kind.
★ 37:147 And We sent him (on a mission) to a hundred thousand (men) or more.
★ 37:148 And they believed; so We permitted them to enjoy (their life) for a while.
★ 37:149 Now ask them their opinion: Is it that thy Lord has (only) daughters, and they have sons?
Note that in verse 139 God is referred to as 'Us' and in verses 145-8 refers to Himself as 'We'. This is not a reference to the
Trinity but an Arabic signifier of respect.
According to the Qur'an, when, 10 years after receiving revelation,
Muhammad went to the city of Ta'if to see if its leaders would allow him to preach his message from there rather than Makkah he was cast from the city by the urchins and children. He took shelter in the garden of Utbah and Shaybah, two members of the Quraysh tribe. They sent their servant, Addas, to serve him grapes for, although they were displeased at his Prophethood, their tribal bond - important in Jahili culture - took precedence. The Prophet asked Addas where he was from and the servant replied Niniwah. "The town of Yunus, son of Matta," the Prophet replied. Addas was shocked because he knew that the pagan Arabs had no knowledge of Yunus. He then asked how Muhammad knew of this man. "We are brothers," the Prophet replied. "Yunus was a Prophet of Allah and I, too, am a Prophet of Allah." Addas immediately accepted Islam and kissed the hands and feet of the Prophet.
Jonah in Christianity
Jesus made reference to Jonah when He was asked for a miraculous sign by the
Pharisees and teachers of the Law.
But he [Jesus] 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 whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgement with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.
(Matthew 12:39-41
KJV)
Jonah is regarded as a saint by a number of Christian denominations. He is commemorated as a prophet in the
Calendar of Saints of the
Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church on September 22. On the
Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar his feast day is September 21. He is commemorated with the other
minor prophets in the
Calendar of saints of the
Armenian Apostolic Church on
July 31.
Jonah in Rabbinic Literature
See
Jonah in Rabbinic Literature
Jonah in The Bahá'à Faith
Although the
Bahá'à Faith generally views Jonah as a
prophet,
[1] there is a passage in the
Qur'an which may support his being a
Manifestation of God because the term 'apostle' is generally associated with Manifestations of God.
[2]
The Person of Jonah
The greatest detail on his personal history is to be found in the
Book of Jonah, traditionally ascribed to Jonah himself (although this is not stated in Scripture). In the book, Jonah is a reluctant and non-compassionate prophet. This story contains a twofold characterization of Jonah: first as a reluctant prophet of doom to the heathen city of
Nineveh, and second as a "
Son of man" type. The character of Jonah, who wants Nineveh destroyed, is contrasted with that of God, who is compassionate towards Jews and
Gentiles,
humans and
animals.
The Fish
Though it is often called a whale today, the Hebrew, as throughout scripture, refers to no species in particular, simply sufficing with "great fish" or "big fish" (whales are
mammals and not
fish, but no such distinction was made in antiquity). While some Bible scholars suggest the size and habits of the
White Shark correspond better to the representations given of Jonah's being swallowed, normally an adult human is too large to be swallowed whole.
[3]
In Jonah 2:1 (1:17 in English translation), the original
Hebrew text reads ''dag gadol'' (דג גדול), which literally means "great fish." The
Septuagint translates this phrase into Greek as ''ketos megas'' (κητος μεγας). The term ''ketos'' alone means "huge fish," and in Greek mythology the term was closely associated with sea monsters, including sea
serpents. (See the
Theoi Project "Ketea" for more information regarding Greek mythology and the Ketos.)
Jerome later translated this phrase as ''piscis granda'' in his Latin Vulgate. He translated ''ketos'', however, as ''cetus'' in Matthew 12:40.
At some point ''cetus'' became synonymous with "whale" (the study of whales is now called ''
cetology''). In his 1534 translation,
William Tyndale translated the phrase in Jonah 2:1 as "greate fyshe" and he translated the word ''ketos'' (Greek) or ''cetus'' (Latin) in Matthew 12:40 as "whale". Tyndale's translation was, of course, later incorporated into the Authorized Version of 1611. Since then, the "great fish" in Jonah 2 has been most often interpreted as a whale.
There is anecdotal evidence that the throats of many large
whales, as well as possibly the whale shark, could accommodate passage of an adult human.
The story of Jonah mentions weeds wrapped around Jonah's head, perhaps to shield his face with seaweed against the acid.
However, doubts have been cast that any existing whale or fish would be able to repeat the feat described, either due to size of mouth, narrowness of throat, or because it diverges so wildly from these animals' normal eating habits. The largest whales -
baleen whales, a group which includes the
blue whale - eat
plankton and "it is commonly said that this species would be choked if it attempted to swallow a herring."
[4] The
sperm whale, on the other hand, has "a small mouth... Its food is torn to pieces before being swallowed," according to Dr. C. H. Townsend, a former Acting Director of the
American Museum of Natural History and the
New York Aquarium. He further states that "there is no evidence that such a feat would be possible." As for the
whale shark, Dr. E. W. Gudger, an Honorary Associate in
Ichthyology at the American Museum of Natural History, noted that "while the mouth is cavernous, the throat itself is only four inches wide and has a sharp elbow or bend behind the opening. This gullet would not permit the passage of a man's arm." In another publication he also noted that "the whale shark is not the fish that swallowed Jonah."
[5][6]
One may argue that applying contemporary
taxonomy from a literalist perspective does little to further our understanding of this legend, written in a time when such knowledge did not yet exist (and as such was less relevant than in our time) and all large sea creatures had the same symbolism so that a generic term could easily suffice.
==Jonah, Jason and
Gilgamesh==
In 1995 the classicist Gildas Hamel connected the story of Jonah with that of the Greek hero
Jason in a similar manner as
Joseph Campbell had done before.
[7] Drawing on the Book of Jonah and Greco-Roman sources — including Greek vases and the accounts of
Apollonius of Rhodes,
Valerius Flaccus and
Orphic Argonautica — Hamel identifies a number of shared motifs, including the names of the heroes, the presence of a dove, the idea of "fleeing" like the wind and causing a storm, the attitude of the sailors, the presence of a sea-monster or dragon threatening the hero or swallowing him, and the form and the word used for the "gourd" (
kikayon, a
hapax legomenon within the Hebrew Bible). Hamel argues that the Hebrew author was reacting to and adapting this mythological material to communicate his own, quite different message.
The elements of Jonah and Jason disappearing into the sea (or monster) and the kikayon reflect those in the much older
Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh.
Gilgamesh obtains the plant at the bottom of the sea. Both the belly of the beast and the bottom of the sea represent the
chthonic Netherworld to which the shamanic hero must descend on his quest.
[8]. In the Book of Jonah a
worm (in
Hebrew ''tola'ath'', "maggot") bites the plant's root causing it to wither, while in the epic of Gilgamesh the plant is eaten by a
serpent. In ancient times "worm" (or
wurm or
wyrm) could mean
maggot, worm, serpent or
dragon.
[9]
References
1. H.M. Balyuzi, Baha'u'llah - The King of Glory, p. 182
2. The Qur'an (Rodwell tr), Sura 37 - The Ranks
3. [1]
4. Lydekker's New Natural History, Vol, III, p. 6
5. The Scientific Monthly, March, 1940, p. 227
6. "Essays of an Atheist," Woolsey Teller. Copyright 1945, The Truth Seeker Company, Inc., found online here.
7. "Taking the Argo to Nineveh: Jonah and Jason in a Mediterranean context," ''Judaism'' Summer, 1995; reproduced online here.
8. The Hero With A Thousand Faces, , Joseph, Campbell, Princeton University Press, ,
9. [2]
External links
★
The Book of Jonah (Hebrew and English)
★
The Book of Jonah (actual text)
★
Jewish Encyclopedia: Jonah
★
Catholic Encyclopedia: Jonah
★
Jonah from an Islamic viewpoint
★
Studies on the Book of Jonah
★
A Guide to Jonah
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