Told to Go to Nineveh
REV. CALVIN E. STOWE, D. D.—Jonah was probably born about 850 B. C.; he was a child when Homer was an old blind bard singing on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, and is the oldest of the prophets whose writings have reached our times.—Smith's Dict. of Bible, p. 1448.
STRABO.—Nineveh was a city much greater even than Babylon.—Strab., lib. xvi.
DIODORUS SICULUS.—Ninus (the builder of Nineveh) proposed to build a city of such magnitude, that it should not only be the greatest of the cities which were then in all the world, but that none of those who should be born after that time, attempting the like, should easily exceed it.—Diod. Sic., lib. ii., c. 3. Jonah 1:33But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. (Jonah 1:3).—But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish.
DR. HENRY J. VAN-LENNEP.—The Tarshish of Jonah is probably the Tarsus of the New Testament, and the Tarsoos of modern times, situated near the coast of Cilicia. It points out the fact, which is confirmed by other testimony, that there was much trade going on along the shore, between the different ports of the Mediterranean.—Bible Lands, p. 66.
PROF. EDWARD S. FFOULKES, M. A.—Joppa, now Yâfa or Jaffa, according to Josephus, originally belonged to the Phoenicians, is situated in the southwest of Palestine, being the port of Jerusalem in the days of Solomon, as it has been ever since. The Ordnance Survey makes Joppa a little over 39 miles from Jerusalem.—Smith's Dict., p. 1453.
The Storm
DR. JOHN KITTO.—It was a common notion among the ancient mariners that an extraordinary storm must be attributed to the indignation of the gods against some guilty person on board the ship.—Pict. Bib., In loco.
EURIPIDES.—Let no one be willing to act unjustly; neither let him sail with the perjured.—Electr., v. 1354.
XENOPHON. —Cyrus accounted the piety of those about him an advantage to himself; reckoning as they do who choose to undertake a voyage in company with men of piety, rather than with such as appear to have been guilty of anything impious.—Cyrop., lib. viii., c. I.
CICERO. —Diagoras, the atheist, being in a storm at sea, the sailors being greatly alarmed, told him they justly deserved that misfortune for admitting him into their ship.—De Nat. Dear., III., 37.
Jonah 1 so, I.—Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou done this?... What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us?
ORPHEUS. —They doubted in their prudent mind, Whether to kill and cast a prey to fishes Wretched Medea, and avert their fate.—Argon., v. 1178.
The Great Fish
Jonah 1:57.—Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
PROF. H. B. TRISTRAM, LL. D., F. R. S.—No description is given us of the fish that swallowed Jonah. It is simply said, “The Lord had prepared a great fish "—ketos, which may signify any sea monster.... Various species of shark, several of which occur in the Mediterranean, have been repeatedly known to swallow a man whole.—Nat. Hist. of Bible, p. 293.
REV. WILLIAM HOUGHTON, M. A., F. L. S.—The white shark, which sometimes attains the length of thirty feet, is quite able to swallow a man whole. Some are skeptical on this point. It would, however, be easy to quote passages from the writings of authors and travelers in proof of this assertion. Mr. Couch, in his History of the Fishes of the British Islands, says that the formation of the jaws and throat of this shark render this a matter of but little difficulty. Ruysch says that the whole body of a man in armor (loricatus) has been found in the stomach of a white shark; and Captain King, in his survey of Australia, says he had caught one which could have swallowed a man with the greatest ease. Blumenbach mentions that a whole horse has been found in a shark; and Captain Basil Hall reports the taking of one in which, besides other things, he found the whole skin of a buffalo, which a short time before had been thrown overboard from his ship (I., p. 27). Dr. Baird, of the British Museum (Cyclop. of Nat. Sci., p. 514), says that in the river Hooghly below Calcutta, he had seen a shark swallow a bullock's head and horns entire, and he speaks also of a shark's mouth being sufficiently wide to receive the body of a man.... But how Jonah could have existed for any time in the fish's belly it is impossible to explain by simply natural causes—it was a miracle; and certainly the preservation of the prophet in the belly of the fish is not more remarkable than that of the three children in the midst of Nebuchadnezzar's burning fiery furnace.— Smith's Dict. of the Bible, p. 3509.
PROF. COUCH. —Naturalists have recorded that it is no uncommon thing for sharks to throw up again, whole and alive, the prey they have seized.—Hist. of Fishes, Vol. I., p. 33.
DARWIN. —I have heard from Dr. Allen Forres, that he has frequently found a Diodon floating alive and distended in the stomach Of a shark; and that on several occasions he has known it to eat its way out, not only through the coats of the stomach, but through the sides of the monster, which has been thus killed.—As quoted by Houghton in Smith's Dict.
Jonah in Nineveh
Jonah 3:1-31And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, 2Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. 3So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey. (Jonah 3:1‑3).—And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord.
DR. CALVIN E. STOWE. —According to Babylonian tradition, a fish-god or fish-man, named Oannes, was divinely sent to that country, the region of the Euphrates and Tigris, to teach the inhabitants the fear of God and good morals, etc. He came from the sea, and spake with a man's voice, teaching only in the daytime, and returning again every night to the sea. Sculptures of this fish-god are frequently found among the ruins of Nineveh. The head and face of a dignified and noble-looking man are seen just below the mouth of the fish, the hands and arms project from the pectoral fins, and the feet and ankles from the ventral; and there are other forms, but it is always a man in a fish.
—In Smith's Dict., P. 1448.
DIODORUS SICULUS. —The whole circuit of Nineveh was 480 furlongs. (This was a little more than sixty miles, and, according to common computation, equal to three days' journey for a foot traveler.)—Diod. Sic., lib. ii., c. 3.
Jonah 3:77And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: (Jonah 3:7).—And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything: let them not feed, nor drink water.
DR. JOHN KITTO. —Among the Hebrews we find no instance of their extending fasting, and other acts of mourning and humiliation, to their cattle. Something similar, however, may be found in other nations.—Pict. Bible, In loco.
PLUTARCH. —Alexander's grief at the death of Hephæstion exceeded all bounds. He ordered all the horses and mules to be shorn, that they might have their share in the mourning; and with the same view pulled down the battlements of the neighboring cities.—Alexan., c. 72.
IDEM.—The Thebans, on the death of Pelopidas, cut off their horses' manes and their own hair.— Pelop., c. 3.
IDEM.—The barbarians in their grief for Masistius, cut off their hair and the manes of their horses and mules.—Arist., c. 14.
VIRGIL.—On the death of Daphne:—
The swains forgot their sheep, nor near the brink
Of running waters brought their herds to drink;
The thirsty cattle of themselves abstained
From water, and their grassy fare disdain'd.
—Eclog. V., v. 25.
The Gourd
DR. JOHN KITTO, F. S. A.—" Gourd "—Hebrew, Kikayon. This, the name in the original, leads us at once to the castor-oil tree, which with its broad palmate leaves extends a grateful shade over the parched traveler. It is described by Dioscorides under the name of kiki the identity of which with the Hebrew name, kikayon, will not escape notice; he speaks of it as having leaves like those of the Oriental plane-tree, but larger, smoother, and of a deep hue. The stem and branches are hollow, and of rapid growth, though incapable, without the interposition of a miracle, of rising and becoming a shelter in the course of a night. From the softness and little substance of the stem, it may easily be destroyed by insects, which Rumphius describes as being sometimes the case. The conclusion that this plant is to be identified with the gourd of Jonah is corroborated by local traditions, as well as by the fact that it abounds near the Tigris, where it is not an annual, and grows to a size much more considerable than it is commonly supposed to attain.—Pict. Bible, In loco.
TAYLOR.—It was early in the evening, when the pointed turrets of the city of Mosul opened on our view... I was now within sight of Nineveh, renowned in holy writ... The heat here was so intense, that in the middle of the day there was no stirring out, and even at night the walls of the houses are so heated by the day's sun, as to produce a disagreeable heat to the body, even at the distance of a yard from them... Besides this, the ordinary heat of the climate is extremely dangerous to the blood and lungs, and even to the skin, which it blisters and peels from the flesh, affecting the eyes so much that travelers are obliged to wear a transparent covering over them to keep the heat off.—In Calmet.
HON. AUSTEN H. LAYARD, M. P.—It was late in the forenoon before we reached our halting- place, after a dreary and fatiguing ride. We were now fairly in the Assyrian plains; the heat was intense—that heavy heat, which seems to paralyze all nature, causing the very air itself to vibrate.— Nineveh and Babylon, p. 47.