Jonah 1 & 2 - A Big Fish Story

Certain Bible stories have taken on details that aren't actually found in the Bible. For example, we aren't told if Eve offered an apple to Adam; scripture just calls it "fruit." The Bible doesn't say that Jonah was swallowed by a whale, but by a large fish... though one might assume it was a whale of some kind.

These details are unimportant if the stories are just myths or moral lessons. Yet Jesus himself refers to Jonah as an historical person. [1]

What happened to Jonah happens elsewhere in Scripture: an animal's obedience to God stands in contrast to human disobedience.

God had told Jonah to travel east to Ninevah, capital of the Babylonian empire. They were arch enemies of Israel and Israel's God and now Jonah was to tell them to repent. Jonah didn't want to warn them of God's judgment. He knew that the Babylonians might repent and then God would probably show them mercy and forgiveness.

He wanted God judge them, so he boarded a ship headed west on the Mediterranean--the opposite direction from inland Ninevah. God sent a storm to get Jonah's attention. (Even the weather obeys God!) Jonah told his shipmates that the life-threatening storm would stop if they threw him overboard.

Enter the fish. The big fish.

Jonah was swallowed by the fish and spent three days and nights there, realizing that he himself needed to cry out for mercy. Mercy is what he received, and the fish vomited him out onto dry land.

Now one could say that the fish just "happened" to be right under the ship when Jonah was tossed overboard. The fish just "happened" to vomit Jonah near a shoreline. And I assume that the fish swam back east before unswallowing his humbled passenger. But God didn't leave the fate of Jonah --or Ninevah-- up to mere coincidences.

Lord God, you've given me the capacity to think, to reason, to choose. So why do I use those abilities to make choices contrary to Your will? Thank you for reminders from creation that I need Your mercy like everyone else. Teach me to not just enjoy receiving mercy for myself, but to pass on to others the forgiveness that can be found in Jesus Christ, in whose name I pray.

[1] Matthew 12:39-41. English Standard Version, introduction to the book of Jonah.
Illustration:  Pieter Lastman - Jonah and the Whale (1621)