“So they picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea,
and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly,
and offered a sacrifice to the Lord and took vows. Now the Lord had prepared a
great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days
and three nights” (Jonah 1:15-17).
On October 5, the Orthodox Church commemorates Prophet Jonah.
Many people know, or at least have heard, the
story of Prophet Jonah, who was thrown into the sea and then eaten by the
whale. There are people, especially those who are dealing with biology, who
call into question this biblical story and consider it a fairy tale: people
state that a whale cannot eat even a small fish, for it feeds only on plankton
and it is just impossible for a whale to eat a whole human being. Putting this
story in doubt, people begin to foster their doubt even more in their
discussions and begin to question the words of Christ Himself and His Divine
Origin, for Christ once said: “For 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”
(Mathew 12:40). So, how can we handle this? Should we reject our mind and
common sense and believe that everything was just like that? Of course, nothing
is impossible for God and He could perform such miracle. What is more, there were
cases when the sailors killed a whale during hunting and found the remains of a
human inside of it. But will this assure our brothers and sisters who are full
of doubt and who have not believed in Christ yet? Should a Christian, especially
the one who respects scientific approach to knowledge, reconcile with his
mind, which also needs to be churched? Or is there any other way of reading and
interpreting holy texts?
All the troubles with the understanding of biblical
texts that emerged and continue to emerge today, are caused by our disability to listen and
understand biblical images. We just do not feel the language of the Bible. We
do not catch some senses because we do not know what the purpose of the author was. The Hebrews were a terrestrial people and there were not so many
words in their language for various naval creatures. In the original text that
was written in the ancient Jewish language, the words גדול
דג
– “dag gadol” are
used, which means “big fish”. In the language of the Bible, this “big fish”
could mean not only a large animal living in the sea but rather a “dragon”, a
“sea serpent”. In the submission of many peoples, this dragon symbolizes the
primal and chaotic waters. For the Bible the words “whale”, “big fish” and
“dragon” are interchangeable. This is why in the language of the Holy Scripture
there is no difference how exactly you would say: “Jonah was swollen by
waters”, by a “big fish” or by “death”. Sea beasts are just a personification
of the water chaos, the world in which there is no life and which is hostile to
life. This is why we can often find in the Holy Scripture such words like “Save
me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck” and “Deliver me out of the
mire, and let me not sink” (Psalm 69:1, 14). Jonah was willingly thrown into
that world of hostility and death. He sacrificed himself so that other people
on the board of the ship could save their lives. However, by the will of the
One Who created those waters and harmonized them, and by the will of the One
Whose Spirit “was hovering over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2), Jonah
did not die in that water, in that kingdom of death, but was saved. This is why
Jonah was one of the foretypes of Christ, although the story about Christ’s
sacrifice would be told in a completely different language – not in the
language of biblical allegory, but of a historical narration.
Let us remember
about this wonderful biblical image and this sad story about prophet Jonah. We
all were once eaten by the “big fish”, or the waters that took prophet Jonah by
his own will, at the very moment of our Baptism, in order to die with Christ for any
sin, sinking our old self in the primal water, and to resurrect for eternal
life and preach repentance for other people, who still do not know Christ, just
like Prophet Jonah did.
By John Nichiporuk,
a Bachelor of Theology, a student of
the Minsk Theological Academy .
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