Whale: The Hebrew word tan (plural, tannin) is so rendered in
(Job 7:12)
(A.V.; but R.V., "sea-monster"). It is rendered by "dragons" in
(Deuteronomy 32:33; Psalms 91:13; Jeremiah 51:34; Psalms 74:13) (marg., "whales;" and marg.
of R.V., "sea-monsters");
(Isaiah 27:1) and "serpent" in
(Exodus 7:9)
R.V. marg., "any large reptile," and so in
(Exodus 7:10,12) The
words of Job
(Job 7:12) uttered in bitter irony, where he asks, "Am
I a sea or a whale?" simply mean, "Have I a wild, untamable nature,
like the waves of the sea, which must be confined and held within
bounds, that they cannot pass?" "The serpent of the sea, which was but
the wild, stormy sea itself, wound itself around the land, and
threatened to swallow it up...Job inquires if he must be watched and
plagued like this monster, lest he throw the world into disorder"
(Davidson's Job). The whale tribe are included under the general
Hebrew name tannin
(Genesis 1:21; Lamentations 4:3) "Even the sea-monsters
[tanninim] draw out the breast." The whale brings forth its young
alive, and suckles them. It is to be noticed of the story of Jonah's
being "three days and three nights in the whale's belly," as recorded
in
(Matthew 12:40) that here the Gr. ketos means properly any kind of
sea-monster of the shark or the whale tribe, and that in the book of
Jonah
(Jonah 1:17) it is only said that "a great fish" was prepared
to swallow Jonah. This fish may have been, therefore, some great
shark. The white shark is known to frequent the Mediterranean Sea, and
is sometimes found 30 feet in length.
