Page 345 - Way of Life Encyclopedia of the Bible Christianity. Based on the King James Bible

JONAH

“God prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah” (Jon. pathways for water lead out of the ten gill slits. Unlike
1:17). Those who say this is impossible don’t the throat of any other shark, or for that matter of any
understand God’s power. of the other 25,000 or so species of fish, the top and
Furthermore, the account of Jonah is not impossible sides of the whale shark’s throat form a complex, giant
‘colander’ composed of five pairs of gill plates,
even from a scientific standpoint. Many reports have essentially grids of cartilage. These are covered with a
been recorded of men being swallowed by whales. An dark, spongy material and have openings no larger
article by Ambrose John Wilson of Oxford, England, in than a tenth of an inch in diameter. The grids form a
the Princeton Theological Review, October 1927, gave wall that would prevent the escape of an anchovy
many facts in this regard. The article quotes the through the gill slits, let alone a human.
observations of a whaling-station manager who had “When the shark closes its mouth, the gill plates come
found the skeleton of a sixteen-foot shark in the belly of down behind the tongue and press liquid through the
a sperm whale. Many octopus carcasses, larger than spongy material and out the huge gill slits. You might
men, have also been found. Wilson explains how it is feel the beating of a huge heart through the floor of
possible for a man to live inside the whale: the pharynx as the back of the throat opens and all the
“The answer seems to be that he certainly could [live concentrated krill, small fish—and you—wash down
through the esophagus into the immense and elastic
in the whale], though in circumstances of very great banquet hall that is the cardiac stomach.
discomfort. There would be air to breathe—of a sort.
This is necessary to enable the fish to float. The heat “You could not swim back against the intake flow
would be oppressive. 104 to 106 degrees Fahrenheit is because every 15 or 20 seconds another load of
the opinion of one expert; a provision maintained by plankton sloshes down into the stomach. Luckily you
his ‘blanket’ of blubber, ‘often many feet in thickness,’ wouldn’t fit through the posterior exit either. It is so
which is needed ‘to enable him to resist the cold of small that only chyme—liquid digested goop—can pass
ocean’ and ‘keep himself comfortable in all waters, in through to the much smaller, inelastic pyloric stomach
all seas, times and tides’ ... but this temperature, that leads to 73 turns of a narrow, spiral ‘staircase’
though high fever heat to a human being, is not fatal to inside the intestine.
human life. Again, the gastric juice would be extremely “But you wouldn’t necessarily be trapped in the cardiac
unpleasant, but not deadly. It cannot digest living stomach. Sharks have a nonviolent way of getting rid
matter; otherwise it would digest the walls of its own of large objects of dubious digestibility they swallow
stomach” (Ibid.). accidentally. In a process known as gastric eversion, a
The Princeton Review article gives two accounts of shark can slowly empty its cardiac stomach by turning
persons who were swallowed by sperm whales and who it inside out and pushing it through the mouth. Once
the unwanted stomach contents are expelled, the
came out alive. One was Marshall Jenkins in 1771; the stomach is pulled back into place. So, you could come
other, James Bartley, in 1891. In a follow-up article in gliding out on a mucus-covered carpet, slimier but
the Review in October 1928, Ambrose Wilson notes that perhaps the wiser for the experience” (National
the reliability of Jenkins’ account has been questioned Geographic Magazine, December 1992, p. 134).
by some, but that the account has not been absolutely We offer the previous information simply to
disproven. demonstrate that even secular scientists admit the
The December 1992 issue of National Geographic possibility of a man being swallowed by a whale and
contained an article on whale sharks by University of then vomited out. For our part, we know that the
Maryland marine biologist Eugenie Clark, who has account of Jonah was a supernatural miracle of God and
studied whale sharks extensively. The article confirms not a mere natural phenomenon, and we have
nearly every aspect of Jonah’s ordeal in the fish’s belly. absolutely no problem with believing it. The Lord Jesus
Clark writes: Christ confirmed the account of Jonah (Mt. 12:39-41),
“The whale shark’s unusual digestive anatomy lends and His testimony is far more dependable than that of
itself to Jonah stories. It is easy to imagine yourself all the scientists in the world. The Bible says God
being inadvertently sucked into a whale shark’s mouth, prepared a fish to swallow Jonah (Jonah 1:17). It was a
which is huge and ‘terminal’—located at the front of special fish prepared especially to discipline the
the head. (Most sharks have underslung mouths that wayward prophet. Though the fish might have been a
open beneath and behind their snouts.) You wouldn’t whale shark or a sperm whale, we do not know that this
even notice the more than 3,000 teeth in each of the was the case. A man who questions the miracles
jaws, because they are tiny—less than a quarter of an described in the Bible must have a very small god. Our
inch long—and are covered with a skin flap, or velum.
The cavernous mouth of even a small adult whale God can do anything. With the wise prophet Jeremiah
shark could easily accommodate a pair of Jonahs. we exclaim: “Ah Lord GOD! behold, thou hast made the
“You wouldn’t stay long in the mouth but would be heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched
swept or sucked along to the pharynx, or throat, where out arm, and there is nothing too hard for

Way of Life Encyclopedia of the Bible & Christianity 345