Jonah 1:17

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. Matthew 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 (Jonah 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. Psalms 74:13-14; Psalms 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 (Jonah 2:2; Jonah 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 (Matthew 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.