What Animal Swallowed A River In The Bible

Any swallowed the prophet, it'southward not called a "whale" in the Hebrew original text.

Prophets have non ever been called prophets — not even in the Bible. In fact, the word prophet is a relatively new one. It was used to translate the Hebrew nevi'im into Greek around the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, and afterwards adopted by early on Christian Churches. And whereas the Greek prophétēs certainly says something about who a prophet is supposed to be (and what is he supposed to do), two other Hebrew words found in the Bible to refer to these same characters help us sympathise them better.

The Greek prophétēs is a compound word. The prefix "pro" is often translated as meaning "in advance." The verb, "phesein," ways "to tell," "to speak." This suggests a prophet is a person who is able to say things that accept not yet occurred. An old Hebrew word found in the volume of Samuel, "ro'eh," commonly translated as "seer," has more or less the same connotations. This is the reason why these biblical characters are often idea of as existence able to foretell (or foresee) the hereafter —which is non exactly the example. What prophets actually do is pretty utilitarian. They remind the people of the consequences of their deportment. Prophets warn.

But in that location is some other mode to read this Greek translation. Pro tin can likewise mean "on behalf of," "in the name of." This translation is really closer to the original pregnant of the Hebrew nevi'im. A passage in Deuteronomy seems to be summarizing what and who a navi (the singular for nevi'im) is: "I will put my words in his rima oris, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him." A navi is a spokesperson. The very root of the give-and-take (the three letters comprising the discussion in Hebrew, nun, bet, and aleph), rabbinical medieval commentary suggests, is based on a root (nun-bet) that denotes openness —or, fifty-fifty better, hollowness: the prophet remains "hollow" so that God can speak through him. He is an "empty oral fissure" to be filled with God's words.

But not Jonah.

Jonah ran the other way

A typical prophet worth being called a navi would get immediately to work. Elijah, for instance, was famously said to be burning with zeal for the Lord almighty (Cf. one Kings nineteen, x). As soon equally they hear their call, no matter how afraid or reluctant they might have felt, prophets go and deliver the bulletin as required, using the classic prophetic formula "thus sayeth the Lord."

But Jonah ran the other way and slipped aboard a send trying to get every bit far away as possible from God. Even more and then, when he finally gets to Nineveh (where God had asked him to become in the first place), he barely delivers the prophetic message. His is surely the shortest, least persuasive piece of rhetoric plant in the whole Bible. Whereas other prophets would passionately and zealously preach, reprimand, sway, and persuade their audiences, Jonah'southward speech consists of a single line — "Even so forty days, and Nineveh shall exist overthrown!" (Cf. Jonah 3, 4).

Jonah'south plain preaching works. The Ninevites wholeheartedly convert. They fifty-fifty dress their cattle in sackcloth. The city is saved. But Jonah is far from being pleased. Instead, he bitterly complains, arguing he already knew God was going to forgive the city. Why would God make him become through all this trouble in the beginning place? This whole prophetic business organisation gets him and then upset that he asks God to have his life away. Non once, simply twice. The book ends with God gently rebuking him for his minor-mindedness.

Simply perhaps describing Jonah as small-minded is unfair. He knew, after all, that his God was "a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast dear." (Cf. Jonah, four, 2) That was the reason he fled in the first place. Like all proficient prophets, he was able to foresee what really happened in the stop — a forgiving God forgiving a city; no need for a prophet to do much there. It seems logical, then, that he barely had to open his mouth to preach to the Ninevites. A simple phrase would do. Rather than "small-minded," perhaps he should be better be described as "small-mouthed."

But are not prophets supposed to be "hollow," as the Hebrew navi suggests? Jonah seems to be pretty filled up with his own words — there is barely room in him for a unmarried phrase actually coming from God. How tin he be a hollow, open mouth through which God'due south words are spoken?

Now, there is another graphic symbol in the narrative that actually opens wide. Enter the "whale."

Jonah'south "big fish"

When Jonah decided to flee from his mission, he got on lath a ship going to Tarshish. A threatening storm breaks, and a shipwreck is looming. Jonah urges his fellow sailors to throw him overboard to salve themselves. Information technology is then when "the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the abdomen of the fish three days and three nights." (Cf. Jonah 1, 17).

Now, the text doesn't say "God appointed a whale" but just "a great fish." Both the original Hebrew dag gadol and the Greek of the Septuagint, kētei megalōi, translate as "huge fish." Archæology has proved that the Mediterranean was in one case home to a swell variety of whales —which the Romans hunted almost to the signal of extinction. It might be the case that the writer of the biblical text just wanted to contrast Jonah's "airtight oral cavity" to that of the "big fish," able not only to eat a whole human being but also being hollow plenty every bit to provide him with safe shelter for three days and iii nights. Interestingly enough, during those 3 days Jonah certainly keeps his mouth open — he seems to spend them praying out loud.

But how did this "big fish" turn into a whale and not into one of the 47 species of sharks found in the Mediterranean? It seems St. Jerome is to blame.

Again, the Septuagint translated the Hebrew dag gadol as kētei megalōi, "huge fish." Jerome followed suit, just but once. He used the expression "piscis grandis" (Latin for "huge fish") when translating the book of Jonah. Merely he went for "ventre ceti" when translating Jesus' reference to Jonah found in Matthew 12:

"A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! Merely none volition be given except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For every bit Jonah was three days and three nights in the abdomen of a huge fish (kétous) then the Son of Man volition be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."

Marine mammals (whales, dolphins, porpoises) are called "cetaceans" — plainly, from the original Greek kētos. This is a word that was used in Greek mythology with relative frequency to refer not necessarily to whales or dolphins simply rather to sea monsters: Perseus slew one to relieve Andromeda, and Heracles killed another one to relieve Hesione. Chances are Jerome intended to highlight the exceptional character of the creature that swallowed Jonah. In fact, the discussion kētos had already been used in the Septuagint to refer to the biblical tanninim, the great "sea monsters" listed among the creatures God made in the fifth mean solar day, according to the offset book of Genesis. Information technology seems then that Jerome had these genesic "monsters" in listen when translating the Gospels —but not necessarily when translating the book of Jonah.

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