Thread: Male or female fish?

In Jonah 2:1, the fish is masculine. (dag)
In Jonah 2:2, it's feminine. (dagah)
In Jonah 2:11, it's masculine again? (dag)

Exegetically significant, or not?

Maybe it was a REALLY big sheepshead.

Originally Posted by chbrooking

In Jonah 2:1, the fish is masculine. (dag)
In Jonah 2:2, it's feminine. (dagah)
In Jonah 2:11, it's masculine again? (dag)

Exegetically significant, or not?

verse 2:2 uses the word Sheol to represent what the belly of the fish was like. So even tho we know he's talking about the belly of the fish, he is speaking figuratively here about the conditions of the fish's belly and is not talking about the physical fish. So maybe that's why it changes gender.

Sorry, Sarah, I should have made note of the fact that the versification is different. For the English, it's
1:17 male
2:1 female
2:10 male

Perhaps (?!) it is spoken of in the feminine (2:2) because Jonah is "in the belly".

Otherwise, I'm not sure there's any discernible reason...
Certainly I'm not grammatical enough to tell.

That was actually my thought -- is the fish "pregnant" with Jonah? Given Jonah's experience mirroring, to some extent, Israel's, I wondered if there were some significance. I was just throwing it out to see if someone brighter than me could take the insight and run with it.

Originally Posted by chbrooking

That was actually my thought -- is the fish "pregnant" with Jonah? Given Jonah's experience mirroring, to some extent, Israel's, I wondered if there were some significance. I was just throwing it out to see if someone brighter than me could take the insight and run with it.

I don't have the answer, but it seems to me there must be a logical and normal - for biblical Hebrew - grammatical reason for the change in gender. All the legitimate exegetical possibilities should be exhausted. Then, if we still don't know the answer, the correct answer to the question then is "I don't know." It's not a good idea to start allegorizing the passage in order to have an explanation just because we don't have a good legitimate answer yet.

I'm not making any accusations. I just think that, in the light of our lack of information, and as a way of honoring God's text, we should tread lightly with our explanations, if the real explanation isn't obvious.

Or it could simply be a copyists error. haggad to haggada. I agree with the person above who stated we should not try and drawn anything specific from it. One witness is hardly significant.

Richard,
Thanks. My hunch, however, is not allegory. "Allegory" is a bit of an inflammatory word, and you should be careful that you know what it is before using it to describe an interpretive suggestion. I know you weren't "making any accusations", but the hint was strong.

Robert,
Admittedly, I wouldn't build a doctrine on a subtle literary device, but I'm intrigued by the notion that one text "isn't significant." If it is very clear, can one biblical text not establish a doctrine? Must God repeat himself to be heard?

At any rate, I'm not trying to push this interpretation. I was throwing it out to see if someone thought it was scribal, insignificant linguistic variation, a literary device, or something else.

Thanks for the interaction.

Originally Posted by chbrooking

Robert,
Admittedly, I wouldn't build a doctrine on a subtle literary device, but I'm intrigued by the notion that one text "isn't significant." If it is very clear, can one biblical text not establish a doctrine? Must God repeat himself to be heard?

Ah note I said one witness not one text. All of the text is significant else God would not have inspired it to come to be. That being said, I know of no Doctrine that is established by a single witness. It has always been 2-3+ maybe someone can correct me in this. Must God repeat himself to be heard? No but He does certainly seem to do so. Think how much shorter the New Testament would be if it included none of the Old Testament in it. Think how much shorter the ld Testament would be if the people had gotten it the first time and not the upteenth time.

Is it like Greek where gender doesn't necessarily mean "male and female" like we would think it does?

That very well could be the case. That's why I was ASKING if it were significant. I don't know that it is at all. My Hebrew's not bad, but perhaps someone around here could answer definitively for us.

I would think that free variation is the most likely explanation, possibly combined with the pleasantness of sound, preferring the plene spelling for the end of the verse?

Genesis 1:28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish [fem.] of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

Genesis 9:2 The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish [masc.] of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered.

I finally dug out my old 2nd edition of Gesenius. Section 122, particularly notes s and t, discuss variations of gender in nouns. He notes Jon. 2:2 and more or less shrugs it off as an example of not so uncommon variation.

Elsewhere in the same section he notes that animals may take on a masculine gender if they are depicted as strong, and a feminine gender if the are depicted as weak. He notes the wild ass in Jeremiah 2:24 changes from male to female in the same passage, going from the epicene masculine use (as one would use for a class of animals) to the feminine for its behavior. (Note, I don't quite see it, myself). Elsewhere, the feminine form is used to denote a class of animals.

Having hung out with desert Arabs and being exposed to their storytelling techniques, I think it is more a literary technique than anything else. A guess: when Jonah was tossed into the belly of the fish, the masculine form was used to denote the abruptness of it all. When Jonah is confined, helpless, and without anything but prayer for an option, the feminine use seems more appropriate. It certainly sounds good as a sentence, sort of plaintive and despairing. And when the fish vomits him back out, the masculine form seems more suitable.

But, I'm sure somewhere someone has a dissertation on all this. I personally think it doesn't have any exegetical significance.

Thanks for the research -- and particularly the Jer. 2 reference. I need to look into that one.

Originally Posted by victorbravo

I finally dug out my old 2nd edition of Gesenius. Section 122, particularly notes s and t, discuss variations of gender in nouns. He notes Jon. 2:2 and more or less shrugs it off as an example of not so uncommon variation.

Elsewhere in the same section he notes that animals may take on a masculine gender if they are depicted as strong, and a feminine gender if the are depicted as weak. He notes the wild ass in Jeremiah 2:24 changes from male to female in the same passage, going from the epicene masculine use (as one would use for a class of animals) to the feminine for its behavior. (Note, I don't quite see it, myself). Elsewhere, the feminine form is used to denote a class of animals.

Having hung out with desert Arabs and being exposed to their storytelling techniques, I think it is more a literary technique than anything else. A guess: when Jonah was tossed into the belly of the fish, the masculine form was used to denote the abruptness of it all. When Jonah is confined, helpless, and without anything but prayer for an option, the feminine use seems more appropriate. It certainly sounds good as a sentence, sort of plaintive and despairing. And when the fish vomits him back out, the masculine form seems more suitable.

But, I'm sure somewhere someone has a dissertation on all this. I personally think it doesn't have any exegetical significance.