A GREAT FISH — the two plain Hebrew words of Jonah 2:1 (English 1:17). ⚠ It is NOT a whale: dag is the ordinary word for 'fish,' and no species is named anywhere in the book. The whale is an accretion of later art and translation (and a zoological impossibility besides — no whale can swallow a man whole). Even the New Testament keeps it unspecific: Jesus' 'sign of Jonah' (Matthew 12:40) uses the Greek ketos, 'sea-monster / huge fish.' ⚠ Note also that the fish is grammatically FEMININE in 2:2 (dagah) though masculine (dag) in 2:1 — a much-discussed shift, variously read as a scribal variation or a deliberate touch. The fish is one of four things God 'appoints' (manah) in the book — fish, plant, worm, wind — each a small creature bent to the divine will that Jonah resists. → first discussed at Jonah 1:15