Eichhorn has noticed the above in his Introduction to the Old Testament (iii. 250.).
An anonymous writer says that dag means a fish-boat; and that the word which is translated whale, should have been preserver; a criticism inconsistent with itself, and void of authority.
The above four instances are the only hypotheses at variance with the received text and interpretation worthy of notice: if indeed the case of the shark can be deemed at all at variance, as the term κῆτος was used to designate many different fishes.
Jebb (Sacred Literature, p. 178.) says that the whale's stomach is not a safe and practicable asylum; but—
"The throat is large, and provided with a bag or intestine so considerable in size that whales frequently take into it two of their young, when weak, especially during a tempest. In this vessel there are two vents, which serve for inspiration and expiration; there, in all probability, Jonas was preserved."
John Hunter compares the whale's tongue to a feather bed; and says that the baleen (whalebone) and tongue together fill up the whole space of the jaws.
Josephus describes the fish of Jonah as a κῆτος, and fixes on the Euxine for the locality as an on dit (ὁ λόγος). The same word in reference to the same event is used by Epiphanius, Cedrenus, Zanarus, and Nicephorus.
The Arabic version has the word حُوْتا (choono), translated in Walton's Polyglott cetus; but the word, according to Castell, means "a tavern," or "merchants' office." This may have led to Herman de Hardt's whim.
The Targum of Jonathan, and the Syriac of Jonah, have both the identical word which was most probably used by our Lord, Noono, fish, the root signifying to be prolific, for which fishes are eminently remarkable. Dag, the Hebrew word, has the same original signification.
The word used by our Lord, in adverting to His descent to Hades, was most probably that of the Syriac version,