How long did jonah live in the whale

Jonah was a real prophet who is mentioned also in II Kings None of the ancient Jews or early Christians ever doubted the authenticity and historicity of the book of Jonah and its story. Most importantly, the Lord Jesus Christ accepted the account as true.

He said that the people of Nineveh repented of their sins as a consequence of his preaching Matthew He even said:. There is little question that the event was a miracle , but this fact certainly does not disprove it! The account, in fact, says as much:. Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. In addition, Jesus puts the historicity of the account of Jonah and the fish on the same level as His resurrection.

The analogy is clear. As Jonah was so Jesus will be. The Bible teaches that Jesus was literally dead and then resurrected from the dead. The resurrection of Christ is treated as a historical fact as is the account of Jonah. All things point to the event as having literally occurred. Not Impossible The next point that needs to be made is that there are creatures living in the sea which are capable of swallowing a human being whole.

Sperm whales have been known to swallow unusually large objects, including a fifteen-foot long shark! The whale shark, as well as the blue whale, also has the capacity of swallowing a man whole. Sperm whales and whale sharks are not unknown in that part of the world. Furthermore, Jonah-like incidents have been known to occur. There have been at least two documented reports where men have been swallowed by large sea creatures and have lived through the experience. One man, Marshall Jenkins, was swallowed alive by a sperm whale in and survived.

Another incident concerns James Bartley. In , Bartley was swallowed by a sperm whale that his whaling crew had harpooned. The whale slipped away, was found and killed a day or so later. Bartley was found alive, but unconscious, in the stomach of the whale. He was revived and in a few weeks regained his health for documentation see Ambrose James Wilson, Princeton Theological Revue, October, Thus, the account of Jonah cannot be rejected on the basis that: 1 No such sea creature exists that could swallow a man whole.

However, beyond the fact that a natural explanation could explain the episode is that the Bible says God prepared a fish to swallow Jonah. This could mean a special fish made for this very occasion or it could mean that God directed one of the large sea creatures to swallow the wayward prophet.

Whatever the case, the supernatural hand of God was involved. Conclusion There is every good reason to accept the account of Jonah in a literal manner. The fish involved could have been specially prepared by God or it could have been one of the sea creatures known to be able to swallow a human.

Whatever the explanation, the account given in Scripture is miraculous. Donate Contact. Blue Letter Bible is a c 3 nonprofit organization. APA Format. Chicago Format. SBL Format. Share This Page. Follow Blue Letter Bible. Blue Letter Bible.

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Re-type Password. Thank you for registering. A verification email has been sent to the address you provided. Please enter your account email below. Continue Cancel. What kind of animal swallowed Jonah?

In the passage above, the Greek word translated "whale" actually means a huge fish or sea monster. In the passage in Jonah ; ,10 , the Hebrew word was the normal word for "fish," but here the word is modified by the word great. Our modern taxonomic system places whales among the mammals, sharks, among the fish and plesiosaurs among the reptiles, but, the Bible uses a different system.

Evidently any living thing other than the creeping things Psalm in the seas is placed in the category of "fishes". In addition, there are several species of whale and of sharks alive today with gullets large enough to swallow a man whole. Among extinct animals like the plesiosaurs, the same could be said, and perhaps this was a heretofore unknown fish of large size.

The point is, the story is not impossible. However, most importantly, the Bible says that "the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah" Jonah Clearly this event was miraculous and not a naturalistic phenomenon.

The Hebrew idiom "three days and three nights" has been clearly shown both from Scripture and other sources to mean a period of time beginning on one day and ending on the day after the one following. It doesn't necessarily mean three full days and nights.

Furthermore, there have been several reported cases of modern sailors or other individuals swallowed by such an animal, only to be recovered many hours later.

But again, this story involves the miraculous.