Jonah Introduction 

"We reject with scorn all those learned and laboured myths that Moses was but a legendary figure upon whom the priesthood and the people hung their essential social, moral and religious ordinances. We believe that the most scientific view, the most up-to-date and rationalistic conception, will find its fullest satisfaction in taking the Bible story literally, and in identifying one of the greatest human beings with the most decisive leaps forward ever discernible in the human story. We remain unmoved by the tomes of Professor Gradgrind and Dr. Dryasdust. We may be sure that all these things happened just as they are set out in the Holy Writ."
   –Sir Winston Churchill 

"Jonah is the most beautiful story ever written in so small a compass."
   –Charles Reade 

Jonah Introduction–1:2 

Why? 
Why must God's children suffer?
Why must we feel pain?
Why must we keep on fighting
When it seems, we fight in vain?
Why do the ones who do not choose
To follow where He's led
Seem to walk an easy road
When a hard path we must tread?
Why does He give the riches here
To those who never heed?
Doesn't He see His own dear ones
Who really are in need?
So when they seem to sneer at us
When we speak of life above,
Remember, precious child, God chastens
those He loves.
God only sends these trials
To those He really loves.
His children will get their rewards
In Heaven up above.
So, though for now I'm tested,
Though I'm sick as I can be,
I know my Father really loves,
Because He chastens me.
   –By a 17-year-old girl from Grand Haven, Michigan
 
Jonah 2:1-6 

"There are at least two known monsters of the deep who could easily have swallowed Jonah. There are the Balaenoptera musculus or sulphur-bottom whale, and the Rhinodon typicus or whale shark. Neither of these monsters of the deep have any teeth. They feed in an interesting way by opening their enormous mouths, submerging their lower jaw, and rushing through the water at terrific speed. After straining out the water, they swallow whatever is left. A sulphur-bottom whale, one hundred feet long, was captured off Cape Cod in 1933. His mouth was ten or twelve feet wide–so big he could easily have swallowed a horse. These whales have four to six compartments in their stomachs, in any one of which a colony of men could find free lodging. They might even have a choice of rooms, for in the head of this whale is a wonderful air storage chamber, an enlargement of the nasal sinus, often measuring seven feet high, seven feet wide, seven feet long. If he has an unwelcome guest on board who gives him a headache, the whale swims to the nearest land and gets rid of the offender as he did Jonah.
   "The Cleveland Plain Dealer recently quoted an article by Dr. Ransome Harvey who said that a dog was lost overboard from a ship. It was found in the head of a whale six days later, alive and barking.
   "Frank Bullen, F.R.G.S., who wrote, 'The Cruise of the Cathalot,' tells of a shark fifteen feet in length which was found in the stomach of a whale. He says that when dying the whale ejects the contents of its stomach.
   "The late Dr. Dixon stated that in a museum at Beirut, Lebanon, there is a head of a whale shark big enough to swallow the largest man that history records! He also tells of a white shark of the Mediterranean which swallowed a whole horse; another swallowed a reindeer minus only its horns. In still another Mediterranean white shark was found a whole sea cow, about the size of an ox.
   "These facts show that Jonah could have been swallowed by either a whale or a shark. But has any other man besides Jonah been swallowed and lived to tell the tale? We know of two such instances.
   "The famous French scientist, M. de Parville, writes of James Bartley, who in the region of the Falkland Islands near South America, was supposed to have been drowned at sea. Two days after his disappearance, the sailors made a catch of a whale. When it was cut up, much to their surprise they found their missing friend alive but unconscious inside the whale. He was revived and has been enjoying the best of health ever since his adventure.
   "Dr. Harry Rimmer, President of the Research Science Bureau of Los Angeles, writes of another case. 'In the Literacy Digest we noticed an account of an English sailor who was swallowed by a gigantic Rhinodon in the English channel. Briefly, the account stated that in the attempt to harpoon one of these monstrous sharks, this sailor fell overboard, and before he could be picked up again, the shark turned and engulfed him. Forty-eight hours after the accident occurred, the fish was sighted and slain. When the shark was opened by the sailors, they were amazed to find the man unconscious but alive! He was rushed to the hospital where he was found to be suffering from shock alone, and a few hours later was discharged as being physically fit. The account concluded by saying that the man was on exhibit in a London Museum at a shilling admittance fee; being advertised as ‘The Jonah of the Twentieth Century.’
   "In 1926 Dr. Rimmer met this man, and writes that his physical appearance was odd; his body was devoid of hair and patches of yellowish-brown color covered his entire skin.
   "If two men could exist for two days and nights inside of marine monsters, could not a prophet of God, under His direct care and protection, stand the experience a day and night longer–so why should we doubt God's Word?"
   –The Bible Today by Grace W. Kellogg 

Jonah 2:7–3:2 

“I wanted to be that man, but it is still true that the world has yet to see what God can do with the man who is fully yielded to Him.”
   –D.L. Moody