Did It Swallow Jonah?

THE Bible tells us that Jonah, a prophet of Jehovah in the ninth century B.C.E., fleeing an assignment, boarded a ship. During the stormy voyage in the Mediterranean, the crew hurled him overboard. “Jehovah appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, so that Jonah came to be in the inward parts of the fish three days and three nights.”​—Jonah 1:3-17.

Some say, ‘Impossible! No creature in the sea could swallow a man.’ But either a sperm whale or a great white shark could. National Geographic (December 1992) offered another possibility​—the whale shark. The largest known shark, it can grow to 70 feet [20 m] in length and weigh 70 tons.

“The whale shark’s unusual digestive anatomy lends itself to Jonah stories. It is easy to imagine yourself being inadvertently sucked into a whale shark’s mouth, which is huge . . . The cavernous mouth of even a small adult whale shark could easily accommodate a pair of Jonahs.”

The whale shark feeds on tiny plankton and krill, which “wash down through the esophagus into the immense and elastic banquet hall that is the cardiac stomach.” Yet, how could anyone get out? National Geographic says: “Sharks have a nonviolent way of getting rid of large objects of dubious digestibility they swallow . . . A shark can slowly empty its cardiac stomach by turning it inside out and pushing it through the mouth. . . . So, you could come gliding out on a mucus-covered carpet, slimier but perhaps wiser for the experience.”

Today whale sharks are not found in the Mediterranean, though they have been found as far north as New York City. Were they present in the Mediterranean in Jonah’s time? Who can say? The Bible does not specify what kind of sea creature Jehovah used, but Jesus himself confirmed that the account of Jonah is true.​—Matthew 12:39, 40.

[Picture Credit Line on page 32]

Norbert Wu/​Peter Arnold Inc.