History records that Jonah, a disciple of the prophet Elisha, was told to bring bad news to Israel: for their sins, they were to be destroyed. Israel repented and the destruction did not take lace. Thus, Jonah earned the reputation of "the false prophet". Next he was ordered to visit the heathens and tell them of their impending destruction. On his way he reasoned that, when the heathens heard of their doom, they would repent and God would take pity on them and forgive them, and so he, Jonah, would become known the world over as the false prophet.
To escape this fate, he decided to go to the sea. He came to Joppa on the coast and eventually embarked on a vessel. This in itself is a tale of adventures and miracles and through this Jonah was taught that there is no hiding from God. As they were two days out, a storm arose and put the ship in peril. A crew of sailors from all seventy nations on the earth were on board, each with his own idol representing to each their personal god. They decided to pray to each of these gods and the one that would help them out of the storm they would recognize as the true god. But none of them proved effective in the rescue. At last, the captain woke up Jonah who was peacefully asleep while all this was going on and asked him what nation he was from. Jonah said he was a Hebrew and the captain responded that it was known that the Hebrews had a pretty powerful God and Jonah should pray to Him for their rescue. Jonah confessed that he was really the cause of their peril and they should set him adrift. The passengers first refused to do this cruelty, but as the storm grew in intensity, they held him over the side and the storm abated. They pulled him back and the storm picked up. So they let him overboard till his feet were in the water and again the storm calmed and they pulled him back and the storm picked up strength again. Next they dunked Jonah into the see up to his knees and the same sequence occurred. Thus, in stages, they proved to themselves that they could not be saved unless they set Jonah adrift so they eventually let him go.
During the days of creation, God had fashioned the one fish that was destined to swallow Jonah and so it happened that he wound up in the stomach of the whale. This was such a spacious adobe that he was quite comfortable. The eyes of the whale served him as windows so he could see all the sights and there was also a large diamond that shone so brightly that he could observe everything that happened all around him and his fish, all the way to the bottom of the sea. The whale wanted to be kind to Jonah and swam hither and thither to show him the sights. He even showed him the spot in the Red Sea where the sons of Jacob crossed when they left Egypt.
Thus, Jonah was the first human who cruised from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea through the straight of Gibraltar and down along the western coast of Africa, rounded the Cape of Good Hope and cruised up along the eastern coast of the continent and into the Red Sea. They also returned back to the Mediterranean Sea along the same route, presumably, even though this part of the story is not detailed in the ancient records.
The whale must have traveled at a very high rate of speed, for only thee days Jonah spent in the big fish. He felt so comfortable that it never occurred to him to pray to God for his deliverance.
Then God sent a big female fish across their way and the female told the whale that she would devour him including his passenger, and so she did! She bore three hundred and sixty-five thousand little fish inside and Jonah had to share the rather tight space with this crowd and he was very uncomfortable. So he prayed to God and promised to repent and that he would redeem his oath and God heard him. So the female fish spew out Jonah over a distance of nine hundred and sixty-five parasangs, and he alighted on dry land.
The parasang is a historical Iranian unit of itinerant distance, the length of which varied according to terrain and speed of travel. The European equivalent is the league. The parasang may have originally been some fraction of the distance an infantryman could march in some predefined period of time.
The league originally was defined as the distance that one person can walk in an hour. This is between three to five miles, which is a very great stretch. Thus it is not clear from the records just for what distance Jonah was airborne. It could be anywhere around four thousand miles of our today's measure, which would indicate that the two big fish met somewhere out in the Atlantic Ocean, or that the female fish was waiting for Jonah's vessel even in the Red Sea. What happened to him is by any perspective very amazing. Also, even though all the while Jonah was in the stomach of one fish or another, the ship's crew that had abandoned him must have been aware of what was going on because it is recorded that “These miracles induced the ship's crew to abandon idolatry, and they all became pious proselytes in Jerusalem.”
Excerpt From: Ginzberg, Louis. “The Legends of the Jews — Volume 4.” iBooks.
Retold in abbreviated form by the present author.
. . . but the things you're liable
To read in the Bible,
They ain't necessarily so. 🎤
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