JONAH, in the Bible, a prophet born at Gath-hepher in Zebulun, perhaps under Jeroboam (2) (781-741 B.C.?), who foretold the deliverance of Israel from the Aramaeans (2 Kings xiv. 25). This prophet may also be the hero of the much later book of Jonah, but how different a man is he! It is, however, the later Jonah who chiefly interests us. New problems have arisen out of the book which relates to him, but here we can only attempt to consider what, in a certain sense, may be called the surface meaning of the text.
This, then is what we appear to be told. The prophet Jonah is summoned to go to Nineveh, a great and wicked city (cf. 4 Esdras ii. 8, 9), and prophesy against it. Jonah, however, is afraid (iv. 2) that the Ninevites may repent, so, instead of going to Nineveh, he proceeds to Joppa, and takes his passage in a ship bound for Tarshish. But soon a storm arises, and, supplication to the gods failing, the sailors cast lots to discover the guilty man who has brought this great trouble. The lot falls on Jonah, who has been roughly awakened by the captain, and when questioned frankly owns that he is a Hebrew and a worshipper of the divine creator Yahweh, from whom he has sought to flee (as if He were only the god of Canaan). Jonah advises the sailors to throw him into the sea. This, after praying to Yahweh, they actually do; at once the sea becomes calm and they sacrifice to Yahweh. Meantime God has “appointed a great fish” which swallows up Jonah. Three days and three nights he is in the fish’s belly, till, at a word from Yahweh, it vomits Jonah on to the dry ground. Again Jonah receives the divine call. This time he obeys. After delivering his message to Nineveh he makes himself a booth outside the walls and waits in vain for the destruction of the city (probably iv. 5 is misplaced and should stand after iii. 4). Thereupon Jonah beseeches Yahweh to take away his worthless life. As an answer Yahweh “appoints” a small quickly-growing tree with large leaves (the castor-oil plant) to come up over the angry prophet and shelter him from the sun. But the next day the beneficent tree perishes by God’s “appointment” from a worm-bite. Once more God “appoints” something; it is the east wind, which, together with the fierce heat, brings Jonah again to desperation. The close is fine, and reminds us of Job. God himself gives short-sighted man a lesson. Jonah has pitied the tree, and should not God have pity on so great a city?
Two results of criticism are widely accepted. One relates to the psalm in ch. ii., which has been transferred from some other place; it is in fact an anticipatory thanksgiving for the deliverance of Israel, mostly composed of phrases from other psalms. The other is that the narrative before us is not historical but an imaginative story (such as was called a Midrash) based upon Biblical data and tending to edification. It is, however, a story of high type. The narrator considered that Israel had to be a prophet to the “nations” at large, that Israel had, like Jonah, neglected its duty and for its punishment was “swallowed up” in foreign lands. God had watched over His people and prepared its choicer members to fulfil His purpose. This company of faithful but not always sufficiently charitable men represented their people, so that it might be said that Israel itself (the second Isaiah’s “Servant of Yahweh”—see [Isaiah]) had taken up its duty, but in an ungenial spirit which grieved the All-merciful One. The book, which is post-exilic, may therefore be grouped with another Midrash, the Book of Ruth, which also appears to represent a current of thought opposed to the exclusive spirit of Jewish legalism.
Some critics, however, think that the key of symbolism needs to be supplemented by that of mythology. The “great fish” especially has a very mythological appearance. The Babylonian dragon myth (see [Cosmogony]) is often alluded to in the Old Testament, e.g. in Jer. li. 44, which, as the present writer long since pointed out, may supply the missing link between Jonah i. 17 and the original myth. For the “great fish” is ultimately Tiāmat, the dragon of chaos, represented historically by Nebuchadrezzar, by whom for a time God permitted or “appointed” Israel to be swallowed up.
For further details see T. K. Cheyne, Ency. Bib., “Jonah”; and his article “Jonah, a Study in Jewish Folklore and Religion,” Theological Review (1877), pp. 211-219. König, Hastings’s Dict. Bible, “Jonah,” is full but not lucid; C. H. H. Wright, Biblical Studies (1886) argues ably for the symbolic theory. Against Cheyne, see Marti’s work on the Minor Prophets (1894); the “great fish” and the “three days and three nights” remain unexplained by this writer. On these points see Zimmern, K.A.T. (3), pp. 366, 389, 508. The difficulties of the mission of a Hebrew prophet to Asshur are diminished by Cheyne’s later theory, Critica Biblica (1904), pp. 150-152.
(T. K. C.)
JONAH, RABBI (Abulwalid Merwan Ibn Janah, also R. Marinus) (c. 990-c. 1050), the greatest Hebrew grammarian and lexicographer of the middle ages. He was born before the year 990, in Cordova, studied in Lucena, left his native city in 1012, and, after somewhat protracted wanderings, settled in Saragossa, where he died before 1050. He was a physician, and Ibn Abi Uṣaibia, in his treatise on Arabian doctors, mentions him as the author of a medical work. But Rabbi Jonah saw the true vocation of his life in the scientific investigation of the Hebrew language and in a rational biblical exegesis based upon sound linguistic knowledge. It is true, he wrote no actual commentary on the Bible, but his philological works exercised the greatest influence on Judaic exegesis. His first work—composed, like all the rest, in Arabic—bears the title Almustalḥa, and forms, as is indicated by the word, a criticism and at the same time a supplement to the two works of Yehuda ‘Ḥayyuj on the verbs with weak-sounding and double-sounding roots. These two tractates, with which ‘Ḥayyuj had laid the foundations of scientific Hebrew grammar, were recognized by Abulwalid as the basis of his own grammatical investigations, and Abraham Ibn Daud, when enumerating the great Spanish Jews in his history, sums up the significance of R. Jonah in the words: “He completed what ‘Ḥayyuj had begun.” The principal work of R. Jonah is the Kitab al Tanḳiḥ (“Book of Exact Investigation”), which consists of two parts, regarded as two distinct books—the Kitab al-Luma (“Book of Many-coloured Flower-beds”) and the Kitab al-uṣul (“Book of Roots”). The former (ed. J. Derenbourg, Paris, 1886) contains the grammar, the latter (ed. Ad. Neubauer, Oxford, 1875) the lexicon of the Hebrew language. Both works are also published in the Hebrew translation of Yehuda Ibn Tibbon (Sefer Ha-Riḳmah, ed. B. Goldberg, Frankfurt am Main, 1855; Sefer Ha-Schoraschim, ed. W. Bacher, Berlin, 1897). The other writings of Rabbi Jonah, so far as extant, have appeared in an edition of the Arabic original accompanied by a French translation (Opuscules et traités d’Abou’l Walid, ed. Joseph and Hartwig Derenbourg, Paris 1880). A few fragments and numerous quotations in his principal book form our only knowledge of the Kitab al-Tashwir (“Book of Refutation”) a controversial work in four parts, in which Rabbi Jonah successfully repelled the attacks of the opponents of his first treatise. At the head of this opposition stood the famous Samuel Ibn Nagdela (S. Ha-Nagid) a disciple of ‘Ḥayyuj. The grammatical work of Rabbi Jonah extended, moreover, to the domain of rhetoric and biblical hermeneutics, and his lexicon contains many exegetical excursuses. This lexicon is of especial importance by reason of its ample contribution to the comparative philology of the Semitic languages—Hebrew and Arabic, in particular. Abulwalid’s works mark the culminating point of Hebrew scholarship during the middle ages, and he attained a level which was not surpassed till the modern development of philological science in the 19th century.
See S. Munk, Notice sur Abou’l Walid (Paris, 1851); W. Bacher, Leben und Werke des Abulwalid und die Quellen seiner Schrifterklärung (Leipzig, 1885); id., Aus der Schrifterklärung des Abulwalid (Leipzig, 1889); id., Die hebr.-arabische Sprachvergleichung des Abulwalid (Vienna, 1884); id., Die hebräisch-neuhebräische und hebr.-aramäische Sprachvergleichung des Abulwalid (Vienna, 1885).
(W. Ba.)