I recently did an episode in my discipleship and apologetics class that I run every Monday; (you can sign on to it if you like via this very website); however, at the end of the class – though well received I felt I left too much out of what could have been said because – I was drawn into the point of showing why I think Jonah; was dead in the belly of the sea creature; (the scripture does not say Wale). I wanted therefore to have a second run at the issue – here in this article to draw out some of those points; I had neglected to draw out in the class.
The story begins in the gospel of Matthew 12: 38 – 41:
38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” 39 But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
- ESV
The scribes and pharisees are asking for a sign – that would give validity to the Lord’s teachings and powerful statements about Himself; the temple, the law, and themselves. Something that YHWH challenged Ahaz to ask for in Isaiah 7: 11; and so not completely unreasonable – and yet Christ condemns them; as adulterous, which shows that the journey of faith is akin to marriage. They wanted a wonder – but the Lord pointed them to scripture; as potentate to a wonder yet revealed. They have witness the previous works of the Holy Spirit wrought in Christ; and falsely judged them as evil and opposed them as such – betraying the fact; that some other god, reigns in their hearts.
Christ’s reply seems to suggest; that no other sign would be given; from this point on, until the sign of Jonah – which is the resurrection from the dead of the Lord Himself. There were of course other signs witnessed by the scribes and pharisees after this event; which would suggest that at least some of the signs they witnessed before the Jonah speech – were deliberately for their benefit; as a witness to them specifically; and that the following ones, were not for them. Christ refusing to indulge in their ‘blasphemy against the Holy Spirit – calling the works of the Spirit evil! (Something many sectarians run into – and a reason why we should consider the fruits of a work, before we judge it; incidentally; it is those unable to recognise the work of the Spirit that are the blasphemers, and it is their hard hearted inability to recognise it and repent of it, that makes it unforgivable, if you can change your mind – then you have not committed the blasphemy.). Alternatively this episode may have been placed here for or the following miracles later for inspired narrative purposes; as anyone who has ever given an account of the past, knows you sometimes move things around in the order; if the order of things, is not the main point. However It is this pointing forward to the resurrection; by pointing to this episode with Jonah in the past that both should influence our interpretation of the story Jonah; and our understanding of Prophecy. Here Christ himself establishes the typology interpretative key; which is that: episodes from stories, things or people – can embody something of the Christ’s life; and thus be read prophetically as pointing to him. That Christ refers so clearly to His death and resurrection; means that we should read into the Jonah story; that Jonah was dead in the belly of the fish; like Lazarus was dead in the tomb for four days.
Due to the prejudice of the Jews towards the gentiles; Jonah’s preaching to the gentile city of Ninevah, was devalued in the minds of the Jews; and he was made famous for his miraculous deliverance. However, as the Gospel of Luke renders the story; he re-emphasises, the preaching to Nineveh as the sign; which was the original point of the story; and by doing so – frames the Lord’s teachings as part of the signs (which they were – as particular fulfilment of prophecy) that demonstrated the Lord’s messiahship. The salvation of the Ninevites – was a sign – they heard the word of the Lord and repented; and believed the good news of salvation. The parallels for the hearers of the Lord were obvious, and so for Luke’s readers (whom he chiefly has in mind) and so this is why he highlights this nuance in his writings. Luke in his account of the Jonah teaching, moves the resurrection into the background (where it is still present and does not disappear) to emphasise to his readers – that they should repent and believe the gospel they are reading about the Resurrection; he wants to strengthen the resolve and faith of Theophilus. You can see this in the Luke 11: 29 sequence; and is a reminder to Bible students, that the scriptures are ‘accounts’ not video recordings of the life of Jesus.
Augustine of Hippo makes the same point:
‘The Savior pointed out that Jonah the prophet, who having been tossed into the sea was caught in the belly of the whale and emerged on the third day, prefigured the Son of Man who would suffer and rise on the third day. The Jewish people were censured in comparison with the Ninevites, for the Ninevites, to whom Jonah the prophet had been sent by way of reproof, placated God’s wrath by repenting and gained his mercy. “And behold,” he said, “something greater than Jonah is here,” the Lord Jesus implying himself. The Ninevites heard the servant and amended their ways; the Jews heard the Lord and not only did they not amend their ways but moreover they killed him.’
The preaching of the Lord both in style, scope and substance – were greater than that of Jonah, the Lord’s audience better equipped with the prophets to hear it; and yet they missed it! We too – can miss the work of the spirit; the calling of Christ upon our lives; and so we should be watchful to what the Lord might call us to!
The issue of the ‘three days and three nights’ has been made much of in polemical work by Muslims in the last few decades; and sadly, Christian zealots of a certain type; have been quick to assume the rightness of the Muslim attack (that Jesus did not actually spend three days and nights in the tomb, and that Jonah was actually alive) and have avoided the parallel of Jonah being alive in the sea creatures belly, by moving the emphasis onto the timing before then falling foul of the timing problems; and so inventing a convoluted ‘high sabbath’ ‘normal sabbath’; two sabbaths in the week answer – and placing the crucifixion on Wednesday to allow for three days and nights; due to an assumption that Christ’s every word must be taken literally; which will as we will see fall foul of itself. Thus abandoning the tradition of the Church – that Christ was crucified on the Friday and rose on the Sunday.
However, a more humanist interpretation is readily available which is that Christ was not speaking a) about the exact timing – but the state that Jonah was in the sea creature; and b) that he was using the symmetry of ‘three days and nights’ between Jonah and himself – for the purpose of rhetorical effect; making the lesson stick and seem at the same time aesthetically pleasing; being prosaic with the timing; for the purpose of completing the parallel. I would not dare argue this point (b) except that their is strong biblical reason for saying so. So for example in John 2.1 we read ‘on the third day’ – which indicated that this events at Cana were some three days after the meeting Nathaniel and Philip; but in which – the third day is counted. The phrase ‘on the third day’ nota bene; not after the third day; is a phrase found in: 1 Corinthians 15.4, Luke 18: 33, Acts 10.40, Mat 20:19, Lk 24: 46; (this latter passage which speaks of the day as a whole even though it is not finished; a pattern you also see in John 2: 39; where part of the day is read as the day itself. Thus – the Christ was using a customary loose sense of time unfamiliar to our post industrial clock based world; with its technology and precise timings needing for work, meetings, flights, trains (if you are lucky enough to Japanese), and so on. There is of course a textual variant in Mark; favoured by scholars like Dr Daniel Wallace in Mark where the phrase ‘after three days’ is used; though manuscript witnesses such as: A* W Θ ƒ M sy; also have the phrase rendered: τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ, tē tritē hēmera or ‘on the third day’; other manuscripts maintain the ‘after three days reading’ such as: א B C D L Δ Ψ 579 892 it co; this does not mean some kind of contradiction; as the term meta μετὰ can be used in the sense of ‘with’ three days – or as we might say in English, ‘within’ three days; the terms on the third day and after/with three days can be used interchangeably; though clearly certain scribes, felt the need to iron out the ambiguity within the Marcon textual tradition.
Now we move to Jonah story itself; particularly the prayer in chapter two; and before I try to convince you Jonah, died in the belly of the sea creature and rested their for around three days; let me first try to draw out some of the other lessons of that passage, that I did not get to talk about in my class; and which can be missed in the all the apologetic work done around this passage.
The prayer itself captures different moments of time it seems; and its not entirely clear if the prayer is one a man alive recounting the experience of death; or of a soul recounting the experiences of life; the prayer is though most certainly is a retrospectively captured experience from the perspective of a man alive, that had died. I will expound on this below, but the preamble seems inescapable. The prayer itself feels like a psalm, which is why I think so many Christians came to the conclusion that Jonah was alive – as within the psalms the theme of Hades is used to mean that someone has come to disaster or narrowly escaped it; as you can see in these examples; Psalm: 30: 3 & 23; 17.5 & 7, 41.8, 49.14, 68.2 – 3, 119.1. Thus one can be forgiven – and it is acceptable – despite the apologetical problems you will then face, to conclude that Jonah was indeed alive in the belly of the sea creature.
Jonah had ran from the Lord’s calling – rejected His leading; and this had brought about his ruin. He vows unto the Lord, which should be a normative way of life for the Christian; to hem in their commitments to the Lord with vows: as we do at our baptisms/confirmations, weddings, when entering into ministry and other professions like: police, magistrate, doctors, or entering the monastic life. Anyone in any standing can make vows according to their patter of life – that fixes it, to their Christian walk. God’s will ordains creation – and so it was by His will; that the fish should regurgitate – the now alive Jonah from its belly having delivered him to his destination. Something of the irresistible will of GOD speaks here; that when GOD desires a thing; one way or another – it is accomplished; to achieve His will; something important for future salvific time was important about the conversion and salvation of those in Nineveh; but we will never know the full reason why; as scripture does not say. Note the well the personal nature of the relationship of Jonah to YHWH; GOD was intimate with all HIs prophets – and desires this intimacy with all of His servants in the Church. The term translated as ‘belly’ of the sea creature – could also be translated womb; and not only is it a subtle nod to the ’round’ earth understanding, but it allows for a parallel to ‘new birth’ and being ‘born again’ as the man spewed out of the ‘womb’ of the sea creature was one that was different to the one that entered into it, he had passed into death; and brought through the waters to a newness of life. The ocean represents death; it is a symbol of the chaos of nature untamed by the Logos; see Job 7: 12 in which Job uses the imagery of a wild sea creature – giving the sense of the sea – as being dangerous and chaotic; a theme also in Genesis. Death – is that ‘monster’ which devours man; and from which Christ has come to save them; by entering into death – so that man might have life. Christ the conqueror; conquers death; and breaks free from the tomb, the womb of the earth, being ‘firstborn of a new creation’; with a spiritual body transformed from his physical body. This is why Jonah, in Church custom is often artistically represented on baptismal fonts.
Following in the logic of Dr James White, my principle reason for arguing that Jonah was dead in the sea creature, is principally because of the way Christ uses him figuratively, though, something of this episode must speak to Christ’s use of it; and it is clear – that Christ was pointing to his death and resurrection; and just as the sign of Lazarus, pointed to the resurrection of the Lord, so did this prefigure it. St Paul says, Christ ‘rose again according to the scripture’ – so where would we go in scripture – to see the prophecy of the resurrection; there are a few places in the psalms amongst others; but the sign of Jonah, is the clearest one of all; and the one expressly used by the Lord Himself. Thus; for Him to use it this way must affect how we interpret the text. I have said above that it is the similarity of Jonah’s prayer, to the Psalms that has lead many to believe that Jonah was alive in the belly of the wale; but if that is the case – this is a miracle – the miracle of preservation; like Daniel amongst the Lions; and that would then seem a poor choice of the Lord to pick it as a sign of His up coming death and resurrection. The prayer recounts the means of death – drowning – and sense of the permeance of that death; not being able to sea the temple, being a prisoner of the underworld; plunge to the depths of the earth; but it also speaks of being ‘raised from the pit’ and a life revived and rescued from death. People do not live in the belly’s of Wales and live; (assuming it was something like a Blue Wale) Jonah says he was praying from Sheol; and scripture records, the words of other souls departed, think of the martyrs in Revelations, think of the the soul of Samuel; think of the assumptions that lay behind the parable of the of Lazarus and the rich man; or why in Maccabees, we are called to pray for the dead. Clearly, the scripture, has a world view which occasionally spills into the perspective of the next life; and this is one of those occasions. Jonah describes how he was praying as he was dying; in his recount talking of how his life was ‘fainting away’; showing he was indeed dying – do people die for three days? No, it is better to understand that Jonah was as dead in the belly of the sea creature – as Lazarus was in the tomb; and as Lazarus was raised to new life; so Jonah, was raised to new life – neither without being resurrected to the new creation. This makes an ease of the text and of our Lord’s use of it.
