The name of Jonah, of his family, and the place of residence of his
family, are definitely stated. The work is accomplished "by the hand of
his servant Jonah," and the date of its accomplishment, is so precisely
recorded that these statements could have been disproved had they been
false. Hence, there was a person named Jonah.

Our Lord has settled the questions of the personality and work of Jonah,
if anything can be settled for unbelief. He has affirmed the historical
certainty of the two important events which critical assumption declares
impossible. The critical Jews were demanding a sign from our Lord. He
had wrought many miracles, but they wanted something beyond what he had
given, a miracle for their special benefit. He declined to gratify them.
Of that generation he said: "There shall no sign be given it, but the
sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights
in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three
nights in the heart of the earth." (Matt. xii. 39-41.) As Jonah was
miraculously preserved for three days and nights and was brought forth,
as by a resurrection, so was the Son of man to be brought forth from the
tomb. His resurrection was to be the crowning miracle, the sign forever
confronting his nation, Jonah's deliverance from apparent death was such
a miracle as convinced the Ninevites that he had a message from God for
them, so Christ's resurrection was to become the keystone of the arch on
which the whole structure of the redemptive system should rest. "He was
raised for our justification." (Rom. iv. 25.)

The reader will mark that our Lord referred to the miraculous
preservation of Jonah, and his deliverance, as a historical event,
recorded in the first and second chapters of the book of Jonah, not as a
myth or allegory, but as a historical fact. "_As_ Jonah was three days