Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up
Jonah,
&c.] Not from the creation of the world, as say the Jews
F16; for this is to be understood, not
of the formation or making of it; but of the ordering and
disposition of it by the providence of God to be near the ship,
and its mouth open to receive Jonah, as soon as he was cast forth
from thence: and a great one it must be, to take him at once into
its mouth, and swallow him down its throat, and retain him whole
in its belly; and such great fishes there are in the sea,
particularly the "carcharias", or dog fish; the same with
Triton's dog, said to swallow Hercules, in which he was three
days; and which fable perhaps took its rise from hence. In (
Matthew
12:40 ) , it is said to be a "whale"; but then that must be
understood, not as the proper name of a fish, but as common to
all great fishes; otherwise the whale, properly so called, it is
said, has not a swallow large enough to take down a man; though
some deny this, and assert they are capable of it. Of the
"balaena", which is one kind of whale, it is reported F17, that
when it apprehends its young ones in danger, will take them, and
hide them within itself; and then afterwards throw them out
again; and certain it is that the whale is a very great fish, if
not the greatest. Pliny F18 speaks of whales six hundred feet
long, and three hundred and sixty broad; and of the bones of a
fish, which were brought to Rome from Joppa, and there shown as a
miracle, which were forty feet long; and said to be the bones of
the monstrous fish to which Andromede at Joppa was exposed
F19; which story seems to be hammered
out of this history of Jonah; and the same is reported by Solinus
F20; however, it is out of doubt that
there are fishes capable of swallowing a man. Nierembergius
F21 speaks of a fish taken near
Valencia in Spain, so large that a man on horseback could stand
in its mouth; the cavity of the, brain held seven men; its jaw
bones, which were kept in the Escurial, were seventeen feet long;
and two carcasses were found in its stomach: he says it was
called "piscis mularis"; but some learned men took it to be the
dog fish before mentioned; and such a large devouring creature is
the shark, of which the present bishop of Bergen F23, and
others, interpret this fish here; in which sometimes has been
found the body of a man, and even of a man in armour, as many
writers F24 have observed. Some F25 think
it was a crocodile, which, though a river fish, yet, for the most
part, is at the entrance of rivers, and sometimes goes into the
sea many miles, and is capable of swallowing a man; some are
above thirty feet long; and in the belly of one of them, in the
Indies, was found a woman with all her clothes on F26:
and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three
nights:
that is, one whole natural day, consisting of twenty four hours,
and part of two others; the Jews having no other way of
expressing a natural day but by day and night; and to this the
antitype answers; namely, our Lord's being so long in the grave;
of whose death, burial, and resurrection, this was a type, as
appears from ( Matthew
12:40 ) ; for which reason Jonah was so miraculously
preserved; and a miracle it was that he should not in this time
be digested in the stomach of the creature; that he was not
suffocated in it, but breathed and lived; and that he was able to
bear the stench of the creature's maw; and that he should have
his senses, and be in such a frame of mind as both to pray and
praise; but what is it that the power of God cannot do? Here some
begin the second chapter, and not amiss.