The Blue Whale

Skeptics who doubt that a large fish could have swallowed Jonah have not done their research properly or thoroughly enough. Let me introduce you to the Blue Whale, also called the Sulphur Bottom Whale. The Blue Whale is the largest animal ever to exist on earth including all of the prehistoric dinosaurs known to man. Yet, their enormous mass and power are coupled with grace while also having good vision and excellent hearing.

The Blue Whale maintains its diet on krill which are small, shrimp-sized animals. The Blue Whale is called a “rorqual” which is a Norwegian name for “furrow” and refers to the pleated grooves running from its chin to its navel. The throat grooves, in addition to streamlining the shape of the whale, allow the throat area to expand tremendously during feeding allowing it to hold 1,000 tons or more of food and water when fully expanded. By taking tons of water into its mouth and filtering out the fish, a Blue Whale can eat four tons of krill a day.

Most Blue Whales live in the Southern Hemisphere while smaller populations inhabit the North Atlantic and North Pacific. They migrate long distance between low latitude winter mating grounds and high latitude summer feeding grounds. Before man’s intervention there were 228,000 Blue Whales swimming the oceans of the world. Between 1904 and 1978, whalers scoured the seas for this huge cetacean. Current figures suggest that a mere 11,700 animals are left resulting in their being on the endangered list.

So just how big is a Blue Whale? The National History Museum has an exhibit of a life-size Blue Whale measuring 92 feet long. This whale can grow to a length of 110 feet and can weigh 190 tons. One Blue Whale was captured that measured 100 feet long with a 12 foot wide mouth. This whale had up to 6 stomach compartments which easily could have fit several men. Its nasal sinus alone measured 7 feet high by 7 feet wide and was 14 feet long. A 15 foot long shark was found in one of the stomach compartments.

But the Blue Whale is not the only fish large enough to swallow a man. Take, as another example, the Rhinodon Typicus, better known as the whale shark. In a museum in Syria, there is a head of a whale shark big enough to swallow the largest man history records. Stories exist of whale sharks swallowing a horse; a reindeer minus its horns; and a sea cow the size of an ox

Both of these animals feed the same way. They have no teeth. Instead of chewing, they feed by opening their mouths, submerging their lower jaw, and rushing speedily through the water. After straining out the water, they swallow what is left.

Now with these oceanic facts in mind, how difficult would it be for the God of the universe, the God of all creation, to speak to a Blue Whale or a Whale Shark and have that fish in the right place at the right time to swallow up Jonah as he was thrown overboard just like the Bible describes?