* Not Abrevanel (cf. Wolf, op. eit. p. 0, note 4, a^punst Iliivernlclt, Kinlrit. 11. i, p. 3i7), but H. Act Urimm {Drr Proph. Jona au.f» nru* ub^rtfUt, etc.), luppoMd that Jonah drrained tlmt ho wa* awallowwl hy a great flali. CU-rii-ua, af^ain, thrvw out the su)n{r»tion (lUlitioL arte, tl moti.. tonia XX. S, p. 450) that Jonw) 'was picked up by a $hiii whoee fltfurGhcad waa a whale'; while Anton (in Paulur S^if4 lifprrtonum, Hd. Hi. p. 36 IT.) ■up)^tti'-<l that Jonah ciuijj re the belly of the Oali. See, for more (aiidu of the aaine kind. Eichhorn. HinMt.* Bd. It. | 67».
750
JONAH
JONAH
book might be called simply ' the free use of an ancient prophetic legend (Kaiitzsch, AhrUs d. Gesc/i. d. alttest. Schri/tthums, 1897, p. 120). It is more likely, however, that the book has no ancient history for basis.
JIany upholders of this /enemfary interpretation, in dealing with particular features of tlie Book of Jonali, have appealed to legends and mijtli.i uf antiquity. In the first place, they have reminded us that it was in the neighbourhood of Joppa that Andromeda, too, was reduced to straits by a sea- monster (Jos. BJ III. i.\. 3, (ii9a Twv 'h.v5i>o^oa% Sefffiu:!' in SuKvv^voi Tinroi TTitrrovvrai rrtv apx^^^T'Tfo. ToO fivSov ; cf. on Andromeda also \V. R. Smith, JiS 159, and Duhm, Kurzer Hdcom., 1897, on Job 7"). But this tale agrees with the story of Jonah in the single point of tlie locality, Joppa (^s;, 'liTTTj)), and the latter was the natural one to lix upon in the case of a man fleeing from Palestine to the Mediterranean. Still less can the ' legend ' of Jonah be derived from the story of the Trojan princess Hesione, who was delivered by Hercules from a sea-monster (H. xx. 14511'., xxi. 44111'.). For the features of this tale, which in some measure resemble the history of Jonah, were all produced at a much later date, and hence it is far easier to see here a modification of the story of Jonah than to suppose that the author of the latter borrowed from tliat foreign tale (cf. Hitzig's third ' 'Vorbemerkung ' to his Coinmentar iiber Jona). Finally, F. C. Baur, above all, has connected (llgen's Zeitschrift, 1837, p. 10211.) the story of Jonah with the Babylono-Assyrian myth of Oaunes. On this Bee further, below, p. 751, note *.
(d) But even the ea:<er«o-/iM<orica/ interpretation of the Book of Jonah has found defenders down to the most recent times. Of these we may mention first, Frz. Kaulen, representing the traditionalist Roman Catholic Church (Einleit. in d. heil. Schrift, 1892, § 414), then C. F. KeU (Einleit., 1873, § 89), and J. Kennedy (On the Book of Jonah, 1895). This standpoint may perhaps be best characterized in some such way as the following : —
(a) Features which point to the didactic charac- ter of the story of Jonah are not sufficiently taken into account even by the most recent representatives of the externo-historical interpretation. To begin with, the circumstance is significant that the book closes with the presentation of a general truth (against B. Wolf, op. cit. p. 28). Cf., further, what has been said above (p. 746") on the inter- polation of the prayer (Jon 2''"'). Again, the repentance of the city of Nineveh is depicted with such grotesque features that the intention of the writer to indicate the didactic tendency of the narrative appears sufficiently clear. For, not to speak of the king sitting in ashes (3'"'), the very beasts are also mentioned as partaking in the fast and the mourning (3"-). This command that ' the cattle, the oxen, and the sheep should eat nothing and should drink no water,' and that 'man and beast ' (see above, p. 745'') should put on sackcloth, is not to be co-ordmated with the custom whereby at the death of Masistios the Persians cut off their own hair and that of the horses and beasts of burden (Herodot. ix. 24 ; Plutarch, Aristides, cap. 14, ^Keipav itrl t(^ Ma(7'«rT/y Kal iVirous Kal i]fu6vovs), or the custom mentioned by Chrysostom of har- nessing horses ^ith black trappings to a hear.se. Further, Kleinert (ad loc.) refers to the mourning which, according to the myth (cf. 'Virgil, Eclog. V. 19 ff.), was held over the death of Daphnis. But by his reference Kleinert himself unconsciously concedes that the representation in Jon 3"- can be compared only with an unreal occurrence. More- over, the complaint of Jonah about the gourd (4"') is put into such hyperbolical language ('for me deatn is better than Ufe '), that one is compelled
to a.-<sume that the writer did not mean the com- plaint to be understood as a serious one. Again, the narrator puts in the mouth of the projihet the statement that he does ' right ' (3^'.n) to be angry jver the loss of the gourd, 'even unto death.' But is this not to depict him as an ill-natured child who sulks over the loss of a toy? Certainly, it is not without ground that Ant. Baumgarten, in his L'liumuur dans Vancien Testament (1S9G, p. 27'), h.ts adduced 'Jonas, irritti jusqu'.'l la mort d'avoir vu perir le ricin,' as fit to be included in the category he is dealing with.
(^) Elements in the story, which upon the sym- bolical interpretation explain themselves, are wrongly weakened by the adherents of the cxterno- hislurical interpretation. For instance, the ex- pression ' three days and three nights ' (Jon 2') indicates by its twofold mention of the number ' three ' that the writer has in view a small 'numerus rotundus ' (cf. Ex 20», 2K IP'-, Ezk b-. Zee 13"'- etc. ; specially 'three days,' Gn 40'"'= 42", Ex 10« 19", Jos 1" 2'«- ", 2S 24'», 1 K 12», 2 K 20», Hos 6*, Jon 2', Est 4", Mt 10='; 'three months' or ' years,' Ex 2=, Lv 19=^, Is 16'* 20', Dn P etc. ; cf. Kockerath, Bib. Chronol., 186.5, 1111., also Kud. Hirzel, ' Kuntlzahlen' in Ahhand. d. sdch.i. Gessell. d. Wiisensch., Leipzig, 1885). The author would not have specified in detail ' three days and three nights,' if he had meant merely one day along with part of the preceding and tlie following day. Hence his meaning cannot have been 'a period of 37 hours' (Kaulen, Einleit. % 414). Such an in- terpretation of the text (Jon 2') can by no means be built upon 1 S 30'='-, Est 4'" 5' (against Kleinert and V. Orelli, ad loc), which is opposed also by the expression 'seven days and seven nights' of Job 2". The representatives of the externo- historical interpretation appeal, further, to nar- ratives according to whicli the gigantic shark carcharias has been known to swallow a man or even a horse whole — nay, to have vomited up a tunny fish and the body of a sailor undecomposed (Kaulen, Einleit. § 414). In an occurrence of this kind, which is most correctly related bj' Eichhom (Einleit.* iv. 340 f.), a ' " Seehund," after taking a sailor in its jaws, immediately of its own accord threw him out a^ain, and he was picked up alive and only slightly injured.' Here we miss the ' three days and three nights.' Or we read in the Ncue Luth. Kirchenzeitung (1895, p. 303 f.), that the whale-hunter, James Bartley, was in February 1891 swallowed by a whale, and that on the follow- ing day, when the animal was killed, he was taken alive out of its stomach. ' He lay in a swoon in the belly of the whale. The sailors had much difficulty in restoring him to consciousness. It was not till after three months' nursing that James Bartley recovered his reason.' But, grant- ing the truth of this story, the Jonah of the OT was longer in the belly of the fish than James Bartley, and, so far from there being any word of illness or subsequent nursing, he is said even in the fish's belly to have indited a song of thanks- giving. This point is overlooked also by B.