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1The Journal of HebrewScripturesISSN 1203–1542http://www.jhsonline.org andhttp://purl.org/jhsArticles in JHS are being indexed in theATLA Religion Database, RAMBI, andBiBIL. Their abstracts appear in Reli-gious and Theological Abstracts. Thejournal is archived by Library and ArchivesCanada and is accessible for consultationand research at the Electronic Collectionsite maintained by Library and ArchivesCanada (for a direct link, click here).VOLUME 10, ARTICLE 6YAEL SHEMESH,“AND MANY BEASTS” (JONAH 4:11): THEFUNCTION AND STATUS OF ANIMALS IN THEBOOK OF JONAHdoi:10.5508/jhs.2010.v10.a6
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2JOURNAL OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES“AND MANY BEASTS” (JONAH 4:11): THEFUNCTION AND STATUS OF ANIMALS INTHE BOOK OF JONAHYAEL SHEMESHBAR ILAN UNIVERSITY1. INTRODUCTIONThe book of Jonah concludes with the Lord’s rhetorical question toJonah, which embodies his strong rebuke of the errant prophet:“And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there aremore than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do notknow their right hand from their left, and many beasts?” (Jonah4:11).11 Scholars are almost unanimous in reading this as a rhetorical ques-tion. A prominent exception is Alan Cooper (“In Praise of Divine Ca-price: The Significance of the Book of Jonah,” P.R. Davies and D.J.A.Clines [eds.], Among the Prophets: Language, Image, and Structure in the PropheticWritings [JSOTSup, 144;; Sheffield: JSOT, 1993], 144–63 [158]), who takesit for a declarative statement: “As for me, I do not care about Nineveh.”He was followed by P. Guillaume, “The End of Jonah is the Beginning ofWisdom,” Bib 87 (2006), 243–50. For rebuttals of Cooper’s reading, see:G.M. Landes, “Textual ‘Information Gaps’ and ‘Dissonances’ in the In-terpretation of the Book of Jonah,” R. Chazan, W.W. Hallo and L.H.Schiffman (eds.), Ki Baruch Hu: Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and JudaicStudies in Honor of Baruch A. Levine (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns,1999), 273–93 (91, n. 44);; E. Ben Zvi, Signs of Jonah: Reading and Rereading inAncient Yehud (JSOTSup, 367;; London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003),14, n. 1.Ben Zvi (Signs of Jonah, 28;; “Jonah 4:11 and the Metaprophetic Charac-ter,” JHS 9 [2009];; available at http://www.jhsonline.org) proposes asophisticated interpretation based on a “double-ending.” In the world ofthe story and Jonah son of Amittai, who prophesied about the expansionof Israel during the reign of Jeroboam II (2 Kgs 14:25)—more than acentury before the destruction of Nineveh—the Lord took pity on Nine-veh, as reflected in various details of the plot (chapters 3–4). In this con-text, the story concludes, quite naturally, with a rhetorical question. Butafter the lapse of several centuries, the later Persian-period literati forwhom the work was written could read the verse on two levels: in addi-tion to the rhetorical question, they also heard a declaration that ultimately
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“AND MANY BEASTS”3The very last words—“and many beasts”—indicate that divinemercy transcends human beings and includes animals as well.2 Justhow indigestible this idea is to an anthropocentric worldview isreflected in the traditional readings that alter its meaning and take“and many beasts” to mean the human inhabitants of Nineveh. AsRashi writes: “And many beasts: adults with the intelligence of beasts,in that they do not know who created them.” According to Deute-ronomy Rabbah, “many beasts” alludes to the evildoers among thecitizens of Nineveh: “And should not I pity Nineveh in which there aremore than a hundred and twenty thousand persons: These are the righ-teous. And many beasts: These are the wicked, whose deeds are likethose of beasts.”3Among modern scholars, too, some do not read compassionfor animals into this verse. John A. Miles, who reads the story as aparody, does not strip the expression of its plain meaning, but un-derstands it as a witticism by the Lord: The last line in particular, with its closing words ! : !/! #,“plus the many animals,” must surely prompt a smile;; for if Jo-nah is foolish in his resentment, the Ninevites, dressing theiranimals in sackcloth and forcing them to fast, have been foo-lish in their repentance. God concedes this much to Jonah.4These interpretations fit in with the fact that many of themost influential Western thinkers throughout the centuries leftanimals beyond the pale of their moral concerns, as the followingshort survey makes clear.In the first century, Paul maintained that the Torah’s prohibi-tion on muzzling a threshing ox (Deut 25:4) does not stem fromconcern for animals but has an anthropocentric motive: For it is written in the law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle anox when it is treading out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God isthe Lord would not forgive Nineveh and would consign the city to de-struction at the end of the seventh century BCE—a historical datum ofwhich they were well aware. In the present article I relate only to theworld of the narrative itself, for which the ultimate fate of the AssyrianEmpire is beyond the historical horizon. Nor do I believe that the histori-cal fall of the great city detracts from the message of the story, which isthat the Lord pities Nineveh after its citizens repent;; but this does notguarantee, of course, that He will not destroy it in the future, in differentcircumstances, as retribution for its sins.2 המהב ‘beast’ is a collective term for all four-footed creatures (see 1Kgs 5:13 [4:33]). Although it usually relates to domestic animals, we alsofind expressions like “beasts of the field” (1 Sam 17:44, Joel 1:20), “beastsof the forest” (Mic 5:7 [8]), and simply “beasts” (Deut 32:24).3 Deut. Rabbah (ed. Lieberman), Vezot haberakhah. See also KoheletRabbah 3;; Tanhuma (ed. Buber), Vezot haberakhah 5.4 J.A. Miles, “Laughing at the Bible: Jonah as Parody,” JQR 65 (1974–75), 168−81 (180).
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4JOURNAL OF HEBREW SCRIPTURESconcerned? Does He not speak entirely for our sake? It waswritten for our sake, because the plowman should plow inhope and the thresher thresh in hope of a share in the crop.5In the thirteenth century, Aquinas asked “whether irrationalcreatures ought to be loved out of charity?” and replied in thenegative, in part because we have no sense of friendship withthem.6The idea that nonrational creatures do not merit moral con-sideration was widespread during the Enlightenment and was givenextreme expression by Descartes (1596–1650). In line with hisfamous cogito ergo sum, “I think, therefore I am,”7 only man is a“thinking being”;; animals are not. He viewed animals as automa-tons incapable of conscious states, including a sense of pain. Be-cause they are only “machines,” they are not worthy of (nor dothey need) moral consideration.8 Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), too,argued that “all animals exist only as means, and not for their ownsakes, in that they have no self consciousness, whereas man is theend.” Our obligations towards animals are really “indirect duties tohumanity”;; for example, to educate men against cruelty.9The anthropocentrism that excludes animals from the ethicaldomain casts light on the extent to which the final words of thebook of Jonah, “and many beasts,” are not self-evident and mayeven be unexpected. Nevertheless, not only is the idea that theLord has compassion for animals expressed in the Bible,10 it is5 1 Cor 9:9–10. 6 T. Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas (trans. by fa-thers of the English Dominican Province;; rev. by D.J. Sullivan;; Chicago:Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1952), II, II, Question 25, article 3 (vol. 20,502–503).7 R. Descartes, Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philos-ophy (third edition;; trans. by D.A. Cress;; Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993),Part IV, 19.8 Ibid., Part V, 31–33;; a letter from Descartes to the Marquess ofNewcastle, 23 November 1646, in Descartes: Philosophical Letters (trans.and ed. by A. Kenny;; Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981),205–208 (esp. 207). For a survey of Descartes’ position and its forlorninfluence on the fate of animals in the experimental sciences, see: P. Sing-er, Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals (New York:Random House, 1975), 217–20.9 I. Kant, Lectures on Ethics (ed. by P. Heath and J.B. Schneewind;; NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 212–13, on p. 212.10 For example, the reason for observing the Shabbat as given in thebook of Exodus: “that your ox and your ass may have rest, and the son ofyour bondmaid and the alien may be refreshed” (Exod 23:12). From thiswe may infer that animals have needs that must be recognized and res-pected. This precept protects animals’ right to a day of rest just as it pro-tects the right of the weaker and exploited elements in human society.Similar sentiments are expressed in the book of Psalms: “Man and beast
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“AND MANY BEASTS”5particularly appropriate for the book of Jonah, in which animalsplay a prominent role, both as obedient agents of God and asmembers of a community who are partners in repenting and possi-bly also in shouting to the Lord. As I hope to show, in Jonah theportrayal of animals as divine agents, as well as the status indicatedby the Lord’s attitude towards them, plays both a literary and atheological role. We begin with the portrayal of animals as divine emissariesthroughout the Bible and especially in Jonah. Then we turn to howthey are depicted in Jonah as members of a community and as fullpartners in the efforts to abrogate the divine decree against Nine-veh. Finally, we see how they too are the object of divine mercy.2. ANIMALS AS AGENTS OF THE LORD2.1 Animals as agents of the Lord in the BibleThe book of Jonah is not the first to describe animals as emissariesof the Lord. The ram caught in the thicket, in the Binding of Isaac(Gen 22:13), is a helpless agent, a passive sacrifice, but also an es-sential part of the divine plan. Balaam’s ass, whose mouth isopened by the Lord so that it can speak words of sense to its ab-usive master (Num 22:28–30), is an agent of a different type—aself-conscious being, unlike the ram. Whether the action performedby animals that fulfill the Lord’s will is consistent with their nature,or at odds with it, they are always His deputies.The functions of animals as divine agents can be divided intoseveral categories, although a particular animal may belong in morethan one category:111. Animals as a miraculous sign or portent: The most im-pressive biblical miracles worked through animals areprobably Balaam’s talking ass (Num 22:28–30), Moses’staff that is transformed into a snake, as a sign to help himwin the people’s confidence (Exod 4:3), and Aaron’s staffthat is transformed into a serpent to impress Pharaoh(Exod 7:8–12). All three cases are breaches of natural law.Thou savest, O Lord” (Ps 36:7 [6]);; “for every beast of the forest is Mine,the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the air, and all thatmoves in the field is Mine” (Ps 50:10–11);; and especially “The Lord isgood to all, and His compassion is over all that He has made” (Ps 145:9).See also B. Janowski, “Auch die Tiere gehören zum Gottesbund: Gott,Mensch und Tier im alten Israel,” B. Janowski und P. Riede (Hrsg.), DieZukunft der Tiere: Theologische, ethische und naturwissenschafliche Perspektiven(Stuttgart: Clawer Verl. 1999), 31–60 (esp. 38–40).11 For a different classification of the roles of animals in the Bible (notnecessarily as agents of the Lord) see J.M. Sasson, Jonah: A New Translationwith Introduction, Commentary, and Interpretation (AB, 24B;; New York: Doub-leday, 1990), 144–46.
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6JOURNAL OF HEBREW SCRIPTURESBut there is a difference between Balaam’s ass, an animalthat existed before the miracle and continued to exist af-terwards, and the miraculous metamorphosis of the staffsinto reptiles. The quail sent by the Lord to feed the Israe-lites are another miracle involving animals, though thistime there is no gross deviation from natural law. In addi-tion to their function of feeding the discontented peoplethey also serve as a sign: “then you shall know that I amthe Lord your God” (Exod 16:12).12 We could perhapssay that the dogs, who are merely following their naturewhen they lap up the water that contains Ahab’s blood,are a sign that the Lord’s pledge that the king will be pu-nished measure for measure has been fulfilled (1 Kgs21:19 and 22:38). Sometimes animals serve as a portent byacting contrary to their nature: the dogs that refrain fromhowling on the night before the Israelites’ departure fromEgypt (Exod 11:7), the lion that does not mangle thebody of the man of God or kill his donkey (1 Kgs 13:28),and the lions that do not touch Daniel (Dan 6:23 [22]).Usually it is the Lord who takes the initiative to employanimals as a portent;; but we find that the Philistines, too,employed animals to determine whether it was the God ofIsrael who had sent their troubles on them. They placedthe Ark of the Covenant on a cart drawn by milch cows,who, contrary to their nature, took the road up to Beth-Shemesh, lowing as they went but turning neither to theleft or right, even though they had been separated fromtheir calves (1 Sam 6:12).2. Animals that serve a didactic purpose: the instruction“Consecrate to me all the first-born;; whatever is the firstto open the womb among the people of Israel, both ofman and of beast, is mine” (Exod 13:2) has an educationalpurpose: reminding the Israelites of the Plague of theFirstborn, which struck only the Egyptians and fromwhich the Israelites and their animals were spared: “Andwhen in time to come your son asks you, ‘What does thismean?’ you shall say to him, ‘By strength of hand theLord brought us out of Egypt, from the house ofbondage’ ” (ibid. v 14;; cf. Num 8:17). Balaam’s ass, who,unlike its master, sees the angel of the Lord and reprovesthe prophet for his abusive treatment (Num 22:25–30), al-so serves a didactic purpose: through the contrastinganalogy between animal and master, which makes a laugh-ingstock of the master, the story teaches that it is GodWho gives all creatures their ability to see and that it was12 The plant world, too, is represented in this category when Aaron’sstaff blossoms (Num 17:23 [8]).
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“AND MANY BEASTS”7not through his own powers that Balaam achieved his mi-raculous visions.3. Animals as a means of punishment: Often animals are themeans by which the Lord or his prophet exacts punish-ment. Several of the plagues in Egypt involve animals: thefrogs (Exod 8:1–2 [5–6]), the lice (vv 12–14 [16–17]), theswarming insects or wild beasts (vv 17–20 [21–24]), andthe locust (10:4–6 and 12–15).13 The Lord dispatches fieryserpents to slay some of the people in the wilderness(Num 21:6).14 A lion kills the man of God who violatedthe divine ban on dining in Bethel (1 Kgs 13:24). Anotherlion mauls one of the sons of the prophets who refuses tocomply with his comrade’s request to strike him (1 Kgs20:36). The Lord dispatches lions against the settlers ofSamaria because they do not fear Him (2 Kgs 17:25). Eli-sha’s curse, uttered in the name of the Lord, causes twoshe-bears to mangle 42 children who mocked him (2 Kgs2:24). The horses that trample Jezebel’s corpse are un-knowingly executing the divine sentence on her (2 Kgs9:33, and see v 37). In a number of passages dogs andbirds serve as means of divine punishment by eating thecorpses of dead transgressors.15 A similar formula relatesto the birds of heaven and the animals of the earth.16Birds as a means of retribution are also found in a didacticparable: “The eye that mocks a father and scorns to obeya mother will be picked out by the ravens of the valleyand eaten by the vultures” (Prov 30:17).174. Animals as a means of salvation and deliverance: TheLord employs a plague of hornets to subdue the Canaa-nite nations before the Israelites (Exod 23:28;; Deut 7:20;;Josh 24:12). Ravens provide Elijah with his twice-daily ra-tion of bread and meat when he takes refuge in Wadi13 See also Deut 28:38–39, 42, where locusts, worms, and crickets willpunish the Israelites if they sin. For a description of locusts as a divinemode of punishment see Joel 1.14 See Jer 8:17: “ ‘For behold, I am sending among you serpents, ad-ders which cannot be charmed, and they shall bite you,’ says the Lord”;;Amos 9:3: “Though they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea,there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them.”15 1 Kgs 14:11;; 16:4;; 21:24;; Jer 15:3.16 Deut 28:26;; Jer 7:33;; 16:4;; 19:7;; 34:20;; Ezek 29:5;; 32:4. Ezekiel in-cludes “evil beasts” among the string of punishments that the Lord willdispatch against the people (Ezek 5:17 and 14:21).17 This, incidentally, illustrates one of the principles of commensurateretribution—punishment of the sinning organ. See Y. Shemesh, “Punish-ment of the Offending Organ in Biblical Literature,” VT 55 (2005), 343–65 (363).
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8JOURNAL OF HEBREW SCRIPTURESCherith (1 Kgs 17:6).18 Heavenly animals, too, are en-listed, like the horses (and chariot) of fire that protect Eli-sha against the Aramean troop (2 Kgs 6:17).19Despite the many functions played by animals as divine agentsin the Bible, there is no story in which such animals evince anydegree of independence, such as that enjoyed by the fox in theSumerian legend of Enki and Ninhursag. A fox is there the gods’envoy to bring Ninhursag before them, having volunteered for themission in return for a suitable reward.20 In the Bible, including thebook of Jonah, animals that serve as agents of the Lord are totallysubordinate to Him and do not ask to be compensated for theirservices.2.2 Animals as agents of the Lord in the book of JonahThe book of Jonah portrays the actions of the great fish as imple-mentations of divine decrees: the Lord “appoints it” to swallow upJonah (2:1 [1:17]), just as He later “appoints” the gourd, the worm,and the east wind (4:6–8). More important, the fish obeys when theLord tells it to vomit Jonah out: “And the Lord spoke to the fish,and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land” (2:11 [10]). Jonah andthe fish are the only creatures addressed by the Lord in this story.21But unlike Jonah, who must be spoken to a second time before he18 In the apocryphal book of 2 Baruch (77:19–26 and 87:1), Baruchemploys an eagle (or vulture) to carry missives to the tribes;; he enjoins itnot to tarry and reminds it of the dove sent out by Noah after the flood,of the ravens that fed Elijah at the Lords’ behest, and of the bird thatserved Solomon and flew wherever he commanded. The story of ravenswho feed a holy man is also found in Christian legends (no doubt influ-enced by the story of Elijah) about St. Paul in the wilderness, to whom araven brings bread every day. See H. Waddell, The Desert Fathers (trans.from the Latin with an Introduction;; London: Constable, 1977 [1936]),48.19 A fiery chariot and fiery horses are involved in Elijah’s ascent toheaven in the whirlwind (2 Kgs 2:11), too. The horses of Zechariah 1:8,too, are undoubtedly celestial horses ridden by the angels sent to scout theland. Especially close to the role of the fiery horses in the siege of Dothan(2 Kgs 6:17) is the account in 2 Maccabees (3:25;; 10:29;; 11:8) of celestialhorsemen mounted on celestial horses who ride to deliver Israel from itsGreek foes.20 “Enki and Ninhursag: A Paradise Myth,” J.B. Pritchard (ed.), AncientNear Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament [=ANET] (Princeton: Prin-ceton University Press, 1969), 40.21 1:1: “Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai,saying”;; 3:1 “Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time,saying.” In 4:9 and 10 we find the same formula used for the fish:“God/the Lord said [to Jonah].”
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“AND MANY BEASTS”9performs his mission (“Then the word of the Lord came to Jonahthe second time, saying” [3:1]), the fish complies the first time.22Perhaps the text is picking up on Jonah’s act of prayer—“Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish.He said (:/ '#)” (2:2–3 [1–2])—when it employs the same root :/ in the context of the Lord’s deliverance of Jonah: “The Lordspoke (:/ '#) to the fish …” (2:11 [10]). This reinforces the linkbetween the prayer and the divine response, measure for measure.The great fish that swallows Jonah seems to fit into all of thecategories listed above. The miracle of Jonah’s being swallowed,spending three days inside the fish, and then being vomited up onthe shore, safe and sound, turns the episode (for both Jonah andreaders) into a sign of divine involvement in everything that hap-pens. The fish serves both as a means to punish the prophet, who,trying to evade his mission, finds himself trapped helplessly in itsbowels for three days, and as a “life raft” that saves him fromdrowning.23 Most of all, Jonah’s adventure with the fish promotesthe moral lesson of the story, as I shall try to show below. Theworm, which is also an agent of God, serves only a didactic func-tion, teaching both the prophet and readers that the Lord governsall His creatures and that having compassion for every living beingis a virtue.The Tales of the Prophets by al-Kisa’i, a medieval Arabic collec-tion of popular interpretations of the narratives of the Old andNew Testaments,24 retells the story of Jonah with significantchanges and extensive homiletic additions.25 In this version the roleof animals as divine agents is developed at length and several ofthem actually speak. Among other new details we learn that whenJonah ran away he took his property and family with him, only tolose his belongings and be separated from his wife and two sonsduring his flight. The account of the loss of the older son, kid-22 In the Bible, the only other animal to whom God speaks is the ser-pent in Eden, whom God addresses to curse (Gen 3:14).23 On the fish as a means of rescue see D. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah (WBC31;; Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1987), 438. 24 The author’s name is in fact unknown and his date in dispute. SeeT. Nagel, “KњLVџDVў al-Anbiyā’,” Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed;; ed. by P. Bear-man et al., Brill, 2010). Brill Online. Last accessed 19 April 2010http://www.brillonline.nl/subscriber/entry?entry=islam_SIM-4401;;idem, “al-Kisā’ī, 6ÁKўџLE .њLVџDVў al-Anbiyā’,” Encyclopaedia of Islam;; ibid,http://www.brillonline.nl/subscriber/uid=1433/entry?entry=islam_SIM-4398. I would like to thank my friend Dr. Livnat Holtzman from thedepartment of Arabic in Bar-Ilan University for her help with these refer-ences.25 Al-.LVÁΈL 0XKѡDPPDG LEQ ·$EG $OOÁK, Tales of the Prophets (QisГDVГ DO-DQDEL\Á), (trans. from the Arabic by W.M. Thackston Jr.;; Chicago:Great Books of the Islamic World, 1997), 321–26 (tale 85: “Jonah son ofMatthew”).
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10JOURNAL OF HEBREW SCRIPTURESnapped by a wolf, is relevant for us. When Jonah sets out in pursuitthe wolf turns to him and says, intelligibly: “Jonah, turn back fromme, for I am commanded to do so.”26 The fish, too, addressesJonah before swallowing him, “Jonah, I have come from India insearch of you.”27 After the fish vomits up Jonah, who is utterlyexhausted and reduced to skin and bones, the Lord sends a gazelleto nurse him, as a mother does a child.28 After Jonah completes hismission he is reunited with his family. He discovers his older son inthe care of a shepherd, who tells him that a wolf had brought himthe boy and informed him, “in an eloquent tongue,” that he wasreceiving the child in trust from God.29But the biblical account is marvelous enough without al-Kisa’i’s homiletic expansions. It is easy to understand how theextraordinary incident of Jonah’s being swallowed by a huge fish,remaining in its bowels for three days, and returning to dry landhale and hearty has captured readers’ imagination and made Jonahone of the best-known biblical tales for the general public. Scholarswho want to focus on the book’s theological message complainabout what they consider to be the excessive attention directed tothis one episode. As G. Campbell Morgan put it wittily, “Nevermind the fish. Men have been looking so hard at the great fish thatthey have failed to see the great God.”30 Leslie C. Allen, whoquotes Morgan and agrees, adds, “but obviously a subject that takesup only three verses out of a total forty-eight can hardly be re-garded as the narrator’s main concern.”31As I will try to show below, however, the huge fish and tinyworm are devices employed by the narrator and by the Lord (as aliterary character) to convey a better understanding of the Lord’sessence and ways, and of His governance of the entire earth. Hence(pace Morgan) interest in them does not conflict with interest inthe Lord Himself.Jonah’s encounter with the great fish and survival in its guthave long been a topic of debate between those who accept thehistoricity of the story and those who reject the possibility of sucha miracle and frequently mock the naiveté of the believers in this“fish story.” One method employed by those who hold the story to26 Ibid., 322.27 Ibid., 323–24. 28 Ibid., 324.29 Ibid., 326.30 G.C. Morgan, The Minor Prophets: The Men and their Message ([West-wood, N.J.]: Revell, [1960]), 69.31 L.C. Allen, The Book of Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micha (NICOT;; GrandRapids: Eerdmans, 1976), 192. See also the complaint by T.E. Fretheim,(The message of Jonah: A Theological Commentary [Minneapolis: Augsburg Pub.House, 1977], 13) that the excessive scholarly attention to the scene ofJonah’s being swallowed by the fish impedes genuine understanding of thebook’s theological message.
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“AND MANY BEASTS”11be true has been to fish up other incidents in which a human beingis supposed to have been swallowed by a marine creature but sur-vived.32 Another method is to rationalize what is represented as amiracle: Jonah was picked up by a ship named the Big Fish or spentthree nights at an inn called At the Sign of the Whale or in a bath-ing establishment known as The Whale. A less absurd rationaliza-tion is that Jonah dreamed he was being tossed about in the bowelsof a big fish while he was actually asleep in the bowels of thestorm-tossed ship.33 As Jacques Ellul rightly observes, however,these rationalizing explanations “neglect the text.”34In light of the widespread occurrence of the motif of a personwho survives being swallowed by a fish or sea monster,35 JuliusBewer argues that the author “uses the fish episode merely in orderto bring Jonah back to the land. If he had not known any of thosestories, he might perhaps have thought of a different means ofdelivering Jonah. But this feature lay ready at hand and was mostimpressive, and there was no reason why he should not use it.” 3632 For a conspicuous example of this see A.J. Wilson, “The Sign of theProphet Jonah and its Modern Confirmations,” The Princeton TheologicalReview 25 (1927), 630–42. After he tries to prove that it is physiologicallypossible for a person to survive inside a sperm whale (pp. 631–35) hepasses to the historical documentation, chiefly the case of James Bartley,who is supposed to have been swallowed by a sperm whale in 1891 (pp.635–37). For additional bibliography see D. Marcus, From Balaam to Jonah:Anti-Prophetic Satire in the Hebrew Bible (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995), 97, n.21. See Sasson (Jonah, 151, n. 14) for a more recent example, from 1987,of a shark that swallowed the Japanese fisherman Mikado Nakamura andlater spat him back on shore unharmed. Sasson does not conclude fromthis, however, that the story of Jonah’s being swallowed by the fish ishistorical. For the refutation of the most famous of these stories, that ofJames Bartley, see E.B. Davies, “A Whale of a Tale: Fundamentalist FishStories,” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 43 (1991), 224–37.33 These rationalizations were surveyed by P. Haupt (“Jonah's Whale,”Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 46 [1907], 151–64 [154]) andby E. Bickerman (Four Strange Books of the Bible: Jonah, Daniel, Koheleth,Esther [New York: Schocken, 1967], 4);; and, at greater length, in the lat-ter’s article in French on Jonah (E. Bickerman, “Les Deux Erreurs duProphète Jonas,” Studies in Jewish and Christian History [ed. by E. Bickerman;;Part one;; Leiden: Brill, 1976], 33–71 [34–35]).34 J. Ellul, The Judgment of Jonah (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, [1971]), 43.35 See: L. Frobenius, The Childhood of Man (trans. by A.H. Keane;; NewYork: Meridian Books, 1960), 273 ff.;; T.H. Gaster, Myth, Legend, and Cus-tom in the Old Testament: A Comparative Study (New York: Harper & Row,1969), 653–54;; I.A. Ben-Yosef, “Jonah and the Fish as a Folk Motif,”Semitics 7 (1980), 102–117. The last-named, however, notes that the storyof Jonah is unique, because here being swallowed by a fish leads to thevictim’s survival. See also Motif F 9114.4. “Jonah. Fish (or water monster)swallows a man,” in S. Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature (Blooming-ton: Indiana University Press, 1966), vol. 3, 233.36 J.A. Bewer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on [Haggai, Zechariah,
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12JOURNAL OF HEBREW SCRIPTURESPaul Haupt believes that the fish was inserted into the story asa device to transport the recalcitrant prophet as swiftly as possiblefrom Joppa to Alexandretta, the start of the shortest road to Nine-veh.37 He seems to forget that the text never tells us where the fishswallowed Jonah, where it spewed him back on to the shore, andhow long it then took him to get to Nineveh.38None of these arguments attribute any literary or theologicalimportance to the fish. There are several reasons, however, why thestory might employ a fish as the agent of God.First of all, a fish may be associated with the name of the cityof Nineveh. Several scholars have noted that in cuneiform, “Nine-veh” is written as a fish (ˀD) inside an enclosure;; that is, we aredealing with a popular Assyrian etymology that associates Ninevehwith a fish (Akkadian nūnu, Hebrew nûn).39 According to C.T.Fritsch, the name Nineveh is “an obvious allusion to the river-goddess Nina, whose emblem was the fish.”40If the thesis of a link between the name of the city and thefish is correct, the story incorporates an ironic play on words thatenhances readers’ enjoyment: Jonah tries to flee in the oppositedirection, to get as far as possible from “Fish City” and avoid per-forming his mission. But the Lord intervenes and sees to it that hewinds up in a fish all the same—first a marine creature and thenthe metropolis.Second, the use of a fish as the divine agent sharpens one ofthe story’s messages: the Lord’s absolute control of His world.From the dawn of history the sea has fascinated and terrified thehuman race, because it is unpredictable, ungovernable, and normal-ly outside the domain of human beings. It is easy to understand theemergence of the ancient myths (which left their traces in the Bibleas well) that portray the sea and the monsters to which it is homeas a primordial force that wages war against the celestial god(s).41Malachi and] Jonah (ICC, 21;; Edinburgh: Clark, 1912), 6–7;; see also ibid.,41.37 Haupt, “Jonah's Whale,” 160, 162–63.38 See Bewer’s criticism of Haupt (Bewer, Jonah, 41).39 See, for example, E.A. Speiser, “Nineveh,” The Interpreter’s Dictionaryof the Bible: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, vol. 3 (New York: Abingdon Press,1962), 551–53 (552);; C.T. Fritsch, “Nineveh,” The International StandardBible Encyclopedia, vol. 3 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 538–41 (538);;H.C. Brichto, Toward a Grammar of Biblical Poetics: Tales of the Prophets (NewYork and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 83;; Ben Zvi, Signs ofJonah, 42. 40 Fritsch, ibid. 41 This idea can be found in the Akkadian creation epic, Enūma Elish,in which the dracoform Tiamat employs sea monsters in its battle againstthe creator god Marduk (Tablets I and II;; see Pritchard, ANET, 61–63),as well as in the Ugaritic myth of Baal and Anat, where Zevul Yam enlistssea monsters for his war against Baal (ibid., 137). There are glimmers of
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“AND MANY BEASTS”13As a counterweight to these myths, various biblical passages em-phasize God’s control of the sea and all its inhabitants, for Hecreated them all.42 The same message is encapsulated in Jonah’sconfession to the sailors: “I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, whomade the sea and the dry land” (1:9). But the prophet belies thisprofession of faith when he tries to run away from the God whocreated that same sea by taking passage on a ship.43 The fish, whichobeys the Lord’s decree, reminds us that God’s dominion extendsto the sea as well.Third, the portrayal of the fish as an agent of God fits in withthe broader depiction of animals in general and of all creation asdivine agents. This conception sharpens the criticism of Jonah’sattempted flight and illustrates its hopelessness. The story developsa contrasting analogy between the animals (and all creation) andJonah. It describes how fauna (the big fish and the worm, a tinycreature), flora (the gourd), and the forces of nature (the sea, thestorm, the sun, and the wind) are all obedient to the word of God.They are all His creatures44 and consequently His servants andagents. Only the prophet Jonah, who is God’s official messenger,tries to evade his mission.45 The book begins with the Lord’s in-this myth in several passages of biblical poetry: “In that day the Lord withhis hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeingserpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that isin the sea” (Isa 27:1);; “Thou didst divide the sea by Thy might;; Thou didstbreak the heads of the dragons on the waters. Thou didst crush the headsof Leviathan, Thou didst give him as food for the creatures of the wilder-ness” (Ps 74:13–14);; “Thou didst crush Rahab like a carcass, Thou didstscatter Thy enemies with Thy mighty arm” (Ps 89:11 [10]). See also Job7:12: “Am I the sea, or a sea monster, that Thou settest a guard over me?”as well as Job 9:13 and 26:12–13. 42 God’s control of the sea is expressed in many biblical passages, es-pecially in Psalms. For example, “Thou dost rule the raging of the sea;;when its waves rise, Thou stillest them” (Ps 89:10 [9]) See also Ps 24:1–2;;29:3,10;; 33:7;; 48:8 [7];; 77:17 [16], 20 [19];; 78:13;; 95:5;; 98:7;; 104:24–31;;107:23–29;; 148:7;; Job 38:8–11;; 40:25–32 [41:1–8].43 On the incongruity between Jonah’s confession and his action, seeGood’s pointed comment: “Jonah’s theology is unexceptionable, but, likeso much theology, it seems to make no difference to his action” (E.M.Good, Irony in the Old Testament [Philadelphia: The Westminster Press,1965], 45). 44 Jonah’s definition of the Lord as “the God of heaven, who madethe sea and the dry land” (1:9) emphasizes that they are all His creatures.On the book’s doctrine of creation, see E. Achtemeier, Minor Prophets I(NIBCOT;; Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 1996), 256.45 Cf. S.D.F Goitein, “Some Observations on Jonah,” The Journal of thePalestine Oriental Society 17 (1937), 63–77 (68–69);; Ben Zvi, Signs of Jonah,88;; R.F. Person Jr., “The Role of Nonhuman Characters in Jonah,” N.C.Habel and P. Trudinger (eds.), Exploring Ecological Hermeneutics (Atlanta:Society of Biblical Literature, 2008), 85–90 (esp. 87, 89). What is more,
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14JOURNAL OF HEBREW SCRIPTURESjunction to Jonah—“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cryagainst it;; for their wickedness has come up before me” (Jonah1:2)—and continues with what seems to be the prophet’s full com-pliance: “And Jonah arose” (v 3). But at once we are astonished tolearn that he is in fact trying to run away and avoid his mission:Jonah does arise, but “to flee to Tarshish from the presence of theLord” (ibid.). Readers, with their natural expectation of total ob-edience to the divine decree, are shocked and astonished by Jonah’sresponse.46 Tarshish lies in the opposite direction from Nineveh;;47in the last chapter of Isaiah it is cited as a remote place whose in-habitants do not know the name of the Lord (Isa 66:19).48 Al-though Jonah is not the first emissary who attempts to shirk hisobligation,49 he is undoubtedly the only one who, instead of tryingto persuade the Lord not to entrust him with the mission, tries tosever his connection with God and His command by means ofphysical flight.50 Jonah’s rejection of his mission is reflected in themultiple occurrences of the root :' in the account of his flightfrom the Lord (1:3 [twice] and 5);; as Uriel Simon notes, thisrepresents both Jonah’s “vertical flight” from the Lord and his“horizontal flight” from his assigned destination.51 Another expres-sion of Jonah’s abdication of his duty is the fact that he lies downand goes to sleep while the tempest is raging and all the sailors arecrying out to their gods (1:5). Jack M. Sasson links Jonah’s slumberwith a prophetic trance (see Dan 10:9);; he holds that at this pointof the story the prophet bows to the Lord’s will and understandsthat there is no point in trying to run away.52 But the story does notPerson (ibid, 86) sees inanimate objects—the vessel that “thought it wasgoing to founder” (the literal rendering of the Hebrew!
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