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Jonah   /dʒˈoʊnə/   Listen
Jonah

noun
1.
(Old Testament) Jonah did not wish to become a prophet so God caused a great storm to throw him overboard from a ship; he was saved by being swallowed by a whale that vomited him out onto dry land.
2.
A person believed to bring bad luck to those around him.  Synonym: jinx.
3.
A book in the Old Testament that tells the story of Jonah and the whale.  Synonym: Book of Jonah.



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"Jonah" Quotes from Famous Books



... error traversed by truth in this sublunary sphere! Piggie was wrong in admitting that. Konky was right, for, as every one knows, or ought to know, it was not a whale at all that swallowed Jonah, but a "great fish" which ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne

... in a posture of woe, with his face buried in his hands; an Arctic hunter wrestling with a polar bear; the head of a turbaned Turk; and, most wonderful of all, the semblance of a vine (Penn named it "Jonah's gourd"), which spread its massive branches on the wall, and, climbing under the arched roof, hung its heavy ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... two pictures, with which the room is decorated, are David dancing before the ark, and Jonah seated under a gourd. They are placed there, not merely as circumstances which belong to Jewish story, but as a piece of covert ridicule on the old masters, who generally painted from the ideas of others, and repeated the same ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler

... slew one hundred and eighty-five thousand men. When all the wise men of Babylon were threatened with destruction, because they could not discover Nebuchadnezzar's dream, Daniel and his companions prayed, and the dream and its explanation were revealed. Jonah prayed, and was delivered from the power of the fish. It was in answer to the prayer of Zacharias, that the angel Gabriel was sent to inform him of the birth of John the Baptist. It was after a ten ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb

... Spirit." It was beautifully discussed and handled, causing me to think that under these circumstances the Lord would possibly excuse me. In order to find out, I reverently opened my Bible. My eyes fell on one word in big capitals—"JONAH." Oh! I must obey; but how? I waited and watched. Soon came a call for voluntary prayer, and I received my cue when Brother Smith of the Seventh-day Adventists prayed. Testimony was next in order. Following one or two brief testimonies, I mechanically arose, and gave ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts

... an internal sense. In the Old Testament they are the five books of Moses, the book of Joshua, the book of Judges, the two books of Samuel, the two books of Kings, the Psalms of David, the Prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zecharaiah, Malachi; and in the New Testament the four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, ...
— The Gist of Swedenborg • Emanuel Swedenborg

... question. Finally I protested feebly: "But how can it vitally affect a woman's happiness whether or not her husband accepts the doctrine of repentance just as you do? Can he not love and cherish his wife even if he does question the veracity of Jonah's whaling experience?" But when I looked up and saw his face, I was ashamed, and ran and kissed him, and straightened his glasses so that he could see me with both eyes. But, dear Heart, his eyes were too full of tears to fire upon me. And as I sat there upon the arm of his chair, twisting ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More

... to sleep with our heads on the saddles. In the middle of the night something stampeded the horses, and away they went, with the saddles after them. As we jumped to our feet Joe eyed me with an evident suspicion that I was the Jonah of the party, and said: "O Lord! I've never done anything to deserve this. Did you ever do anything to ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... the pulpits to show that plagues are sent by the Almighty to punish sin; and perhaps the most ghastly figure among all those fearful scenes described by De Foe is that of the naked fanatic walking up and down the streets with a pan of fiery coals upon his head, and, after the manner of Jonah at Nineveh, proclaiming woe to the city, and its ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... and foreign wars is varied with a short summary of the life of Jonah, introduced at what, according to the Bible, is its proper chronological place,[1] in the reign of Jeroboam II, king of Israel. The picturesque and miraculous character of the prophet's adventures secured him this distinction, for in general Josephus does not pay much regard to the lives or writings ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich

... also profoundly egotistical, old Johann Wolfgang von Goethe! He was a mighty egotist—I see he was: he thought no more of swallowing up poor Eckermann's existence in his own than the whale thought of swallowing Jonah. ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... certainly would have departed quickly the way I came, but now I must find Nimrod. It was growing dark, and the bear looked a shocking size, as big as a whale. Dear me, perhaps Nimrod was inside—Jonah style. Just then I heard a sepulchral whisper from ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson

... added, "that they all say there isn't a more gallant officer in the service than Lieutenant Foley, and they hope that he'll soon get well and rejoin the ship. They don't speak quite so favourably of her first lieutenant, Jonah Tarwig, who seems as if he had swallowed the mizen-royal-mast as he was looking aloft one stormy night when the ship was taken aback and it was carried away. He is six feet two in height—how he manages ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston

... subsequent period of seclusion, she emerged from her stateroom wearing the same disheveled look that Jonah must have worn when he and the whale parted company, do you think she would confess she had been seasick? Not by any means! She said she had had a raging headache. But she could not fool me. She had the stateroom ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... like we had been in a cradle. We were very much alarmed; for though we were accustomed to feel earthquakes, we were now right in the region which had been torn to pieces by them in 1812, and we thought it might take a notion and swallow us up, like the big fish did Jonah. ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... first he took up was in defence of the Athanasian creed! That would not do. He tried another. That was upon the Inspiration of the Scriptures. He glanced through it—found Moses on a level with St. Paul, and Jonah with St. John, and doubted greatly. There might be a sense—but—! No, he would not meddle with it. He tried a third: that was on the Authority of the Church. It would not do. He had read each of all these sermons, ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald

... amazing disproportion between settled ministers at home, and missionaries abroad, ought never to have existed. To argue so plain a case would be a waste of breath. How then can the fact of having wandered from duty excuse one from the performance of it? To-day, it is the duty of Jonah to go to Nineveh. To-morrow, he has engaged his passage to Tarshish, has paid his fare, has gone down into the sides of the ship, and is quietly at rest. Is he therefore excused? To-day, the command of Christ presses upon ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble

... "Is he? If motoring with Jonah to Huntercombe, and playing golf all day, is not incompatible with taking a stall on Thursday, I will sell children's underwear and ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates

... a letter from Mr. Douglass," Helen said, softly, when they were alone. "Poor fellow, he is absolutely prostrate in the dust, and asks me to throw him overboard as our Jonah. Put yourself in his place, Hugh, before speaking harshly ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... child," Sir Lionel burst out, "little girls shouldn't do too much independent thinking. It's bad for their health and their guardians' tempers. If my motor had been too full for hilly country, you wouldn't have been the Jonah to cast into the sea. Nick would have been fed to the whales. But ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... again, to-day, experienced the advantage of these open mountain-vehicles, which are quite as 'roomy' and as easy as the traveling-jails called stagecoaches, which always remind me of Jonah's traveling accommodations. Again, to-day, we have been enchanted with the brilliancy of the foliage. It is just at the culminating point of beauty, and I think it does not remain at this point more than three or four days ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... His resurrection and the mode in which post mortem He communicated with them must be left to the untrammelled study of historical students. The religious message of a miraculous happening, like the story of Jonah or of the raising of Lazarus, we can test and prove: disobedience brings disaster, repentance leads to restoration; faith in Christ gives Him the chance to be to us the resurrection and the life. The reported events ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin

... help it? You have a big will of your own, as I always knew. Only don't connect me with the ark unless you spell it, and don't call me Jonah." ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge

... nine months in Col. Israel Shreve's regiment of New Jersey troops under Washington's immediate command. Charles Bowles became an American soldier at the age of sixteen years and served to the end of the Revolution. Seymour Burr and Jeremy Jonah were Negro ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney

... this you, John, holding up old Mr. Gray? or is it old Mr. Gray holding you up! [hiccup.] Blast me! If I can tell which of you is drunk, or which sober. Let me see? hic-hic-cup. Was it the Whale that swallowed Jonah, or Jonah the Whale? Is it old Mr. Gray—hic-cup—that is drunk, or ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... came of that? In five years' time you made yourself the terror and abhorrence of your messmates. The worst hands detested you; your captain - that was me, John Gaunt, the chief of sinners - cast you out for a Jonah. [Who was it stabbed the Portuguese and made off inland with his miserable wife? Who, raging drunk on rum, clapped fire to the baracoons and burned the poor soulless creatures in their chains?] Ay, you were a scandal to the Guinea coast, from Lagos down to Calabar? ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson

... is what punctures the bubble, As JONAH, no doubt, was aware: "A fish" was the cause of the trouble, But the whale is a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 • Various

... in the wilderness, one in the sea, and one in Jerusalem. In the wilderness, as it is written, "They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit" (Num. xvi. 33). In the sea, as it is written, "Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice" (Jonah ii. 3). In Jerusalem, as it is written, "Saith the Lord whose fire is in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem" (Is. xxxi. 9). The school of Rabbi Ishmael teaches that the "fire in Zion" is hell and ...
— Hebrew Literature

... them of the wrath to come The Avenger in His mercy sent Jonah the seer; but,—though he knew The threatening Judge would fain relent Nor wished to strike,—towards Tarshish town The prophet's furtive ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius

... the stores—though cramped by the blockade—began to brush off their dust and show their best for the new customers. Every branch of industry seemed to receive fresh impetus; and houses that had for years plodded on in moldy obscurity shot, with the rapidity of Jonah's ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... spiritual and temporal blessings, and doubtless became a convert to the true faith. Tradition asserts that her boy, whom Elijah saved,—whether by natural or supernatural means, it is alike indifferent,—became in after years the prophet Jonah, who was sent to Nineveh. In all great friendships the favors are reciprocal. A noble-hearted woman was saved from starvation, and the life of a great man was preserved for future usefulness. Austerity and tenderness met together ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord

... strict vegetarian and a follower of all good works. In a vision of the night it was revealed to her that the city and neighbourhood would be destroyed by water, and the sign promised was that when the stone lions in front of the yamen wept tears of blood, then destruction was near at hand. Like Jonah at Nineveh, the woman, known to-day simply as Niang-tzu, walked up and down the streets of the city, warning all of the coming calamity. She was laughed at and looked upon as mad by the careless people. ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner

... Sir Jonah Barrington wrote her at this time a complimentary and witty letter, in which he says of her heroine Glorvina, "I believe you stole a spark from heaven to give animation to your idol." He thought the inferiority of Ida was owing to its author's luxurious surroundings. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... for multitudes of draped and undraped human figures. The colouring is kept deliberately low and subordinate to the two main features of the design—architecture, and the plastic forms of men and women. Flesh-tints, varying from the strong red tone of Jonah's athletic manhood, through the glowing browns of the seated Genii, to the delicate carnations of Adam and the paler hues of Eve; orange and bronze in draperies, medallions, decorative nudes, russets like the tints of dead leaves; ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... Jonah," also, "Observations on famous controverted Passages in Josephus and Justin Martyr," are extremely curious, and such perhaps as only he ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant

... Gourd had its uses, moral uses. Modern critics have decided that Jonah's Gourd, "which came up in a night and perished in a night," was not a Gourd, but the Palma Christi, or Castor-oil tree. But our forefathers called it a Gourd, and believing that it was so, they used the Gourd to point many a moral and illustrate many a religious emblem. Thus viewed it was the standing ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe

... there is no need. My father is like the father in the parable: he hath enough and to spare. I did mean to have the money of him again, only as the vaunted horses never came, but were swallowed up of Gloucester, as Jonah of the whale, and have not yet been cast up again, I could not bring my tongue to ask him for it; and so thy neck is bare of ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... competition with the tender plant of commerce and industry in Russia itself. The Slavophils raised an outcry, and the decree went out that the Russian whale should swallow this active and prosperous little Jonah. The former policy was really as stupid, though less cruel, than the latter. Had there been anything like that steady political tradition and wide political experience in Russia which we can draw upon in England, the Imperial Government would have from the first endeavoured ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,

... an ill temper makes every condition of life unhappy; a cheerful disposition will throw a gleam of sunshine over the scenery of a November day. Some people, very foolishly, make themselves uneasy because they are bound. Sir Jonah Barrington seems to think it a natural propensity. He says,—"The moment any two animals, however fond before, are fastened together by a chain they cannot break, they begin to quarrel without any apparent reason, and ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... diamond-merchant of Trebizond, and his son Simeon, the bald bill-broker of Bagdad, each putting in a claim for their cousin. Ben Minories came from London and knelt at her feet; Ben Jochanan arrived from Paris, and thought to dazzle her with the latest waistcoats from the Palais Royal; and Ben Jonah brought her a present of Dutch herrings, and besought her to come back and be Mrs. ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... value of L. 300 a year. Abbot was a conscientious prelate, though narrow in view and often harsh towards both separatists and Romanists. He wrote a large number of works, the most interesting being his discursive Exposition on the Prophet Jonah (1600), which was reprinted in 1845. His Geography, or a Brief Description of the Whole World (1599), passed through numerous ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... may, there stands the vast arched bone of the whale's jaw, so wide, a coach might almost drive beneath it. Within are shabby shelves, ranged round with old decanters, bottles, flasks; and in those jaws of swift destruction, like another cursed Jonah (by which name indeed they called him), bustles a little withered old man, who, for their money, dearly sells the sailors ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... more in that strain, just now, Reade," whispered Jim. "If you do, and things go badly, the boys will think you've been the camp's Jonah." ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock

... times the size, that is, about twice the height, of those at the lower part of the fresco. The figures on the ceiling of the same chapel are studied not only according to their height from the pavement, which is 60 ft., but to suit the arched form of it. For instance, the head of the figure of Jonah at the end over the altar is thrown back in the design, but owing to the curvature in the architecture is actually more forward than the feet. Then again, the prophets and sybils seated round the ceiling, which are perhaps the grandest figures in ...
— The Theory and Practice of Perspective • George Adolphus Storey

... not help matters to be angry, Bessie. I was angry once for two years. I said at the time like Jonah that I did well, but I see now that I ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley

... deprives Of such support! But for myself alone, May all the winds of Heaven howl down the Gulf, 140 And tear the vessel, till the mariners, Appalled, turn their despairing eyes on me, As the Phenicians did on Jonah, then Cast me out from amongst them, as an offering To appease the waves. The billow which destroys me Will be more merciful than man, and bear me Dead, but still bear me to a native grave, From fishers' hands, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... because it's well enough to use again." To another, "How is the wife, Frank, better? Good, that's fine." Again it was, "You fellows on number six machine made a record this week." Again, "Who's the hoodoo on number seven furnace?—four accidents in six days is going some—better look around for your Jonah." And again, "I heard about that stunt of yours, Bill; the kid would have been killed sure if you hadn't kept your head and nerve. It was great work, old man." And to a lad farther down the line, "You'll ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright

... time, I think, no newspaper taken west of the river. We reached the river. The ice had gone out, and the boat was on the other side. We agreed to draw cuts and decide who should swim the river and get the boat. The lot fell upon Jonah, and I have had chills ever since. I am not quite certain that the cuts ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various

... miles three quarters) in length, and ninety stadia (or eleven miles and one quarter) in breadth; and consequently was an oblong square. Its circumference was four hundred and eighty stadia, or sixty miles. For this reason we find it said in the prophet Jonah, "That Nineveh was an exceeding great city, of three days' journey;"(974) which is to be understood of the whole circuit, or compass of the city.(975) The walls of it were a hundred feet high, and of so considerable ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... the Assyrian period, just as Jeremiah is in the second, i.e., the Babylonian. With Isaiah are connected in the kingdom of Judah: Joel, Obadiah, and Micah; in the kingdom of Israel: Hosea, Amos, and Jonah. ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg

... we hae an Ahchan i' the camp—a Jonah intil the ship!" said Jean to Janet, as she turned, bottle and glass in her hands, to carry them from ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... was a man o' Adam's race, Wha had a certain dwellin' place; It was neither in heaven, earth, nor hell, Tell me where this man did dwell. [Jonah in the whale's belly.] ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford

... favourite game all through the winter, and a continuous record of the scores was kept. Two medals were struck: a neat little thing for the highest scorer and a huge affair as large as a plate, slung on a piece of three-and-a-half-inch rope, with "Jonah" inscribed on it, to be worn by the player at the foot of ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... important facts of the lesson. Some teachers might prefer to omit from the Old Testament lessons, some of the following in order to complete the course in a year. Lesson XXVIII David and Absalom; XXX The Temple; XXXVI Elisha and Jonah; XXXVIII, XXXIX The Kings of Judah; XLIV Queen Esther. These are suggested for omission not because they are unimportant or uninteresting, but in case some lessons must be omitted. In order to complete the course in one year in the New Testament lessons, the following might be ...
— Hurlbut's Bible Lessons - For Boys and Girls • Rev. Jesse Lyman Hurlbut

... back of them to God. Partly that was because the original writers were ignorant of some of those secondary causes; partly that they knew them, but wanted to go farther back. Take the most outstanding instance, that of the Book of Jonah. All its facts, without exception, can be told without mention of God, if one cared to do it. But there could not be anything like so great a story if it is told that way. One of his biographers says of Lincoln ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee

... lot: Nick Jones, master, Stee Jenkin, Bobby Poole, and Mr. Ferrars. A perfect Jonah that man is, and disaster follows wherever he goes," said Oily Dave, with a ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant

... was', said Marse Johnnie,' 'cause on one of de ribs under de belly was some tatooin'.' 'What was de tatooin'?' ask old mistress, just as innocent as a baby. 'De word Nenivah', say Marse little John. 'Why it might have been de whale dat swallowed Jonah', say Miss Katie. 'It was', say my young marster, 'for just under Nenivah was de name Jonah.' After a good laugh old marster say: 'Your name is changed from John Mobley McCrorey to John Munchawsome McCrorey.' Kin folks call him Barron after dat. Him lak dat but when they got ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... was my partner, on more than one occasion, when we were discussing the wretched state of business, he would call himself a "Jonah," and in the light of later developments it really looked as ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell

... is only one which can even be thought to point to luxury as a cause of her downfall; and that is a passage of very doubtful interpretation. In general it is her violence, her treachery, and her pride that are denounced. When Nineveh repented in the time of Jonah, it was by each man "turning from his evil way and from the violence which was in their hands." When Nahum announces the final destruction, it is on "the bloody city, full of lies and robbery." In the emblematic language of prophecy, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... man said he had them, it would be the best proof that he did not possess them and did not know himself. 'I am the way and the truth and the life.' 'I am the light of the world'—a 'greater than the temple,' a greater than Jonah, a 'greater than Solomon,' and then withal 'I am meek and lowly of heart.' And the world believes Him, and says, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... through the breakers with the aid of planks and spars, made for the same spot. All were saved except three lads, one of whom had been to sea on three or four voyages and was wrecked on every occasion. "He had bewailed himself through the night as the persecuted Jonah who carried misfortune wherever he went. He launched himself upon a broken spar with his captain; but, having lost his hold in the breakers, was ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... the limits of the most scrupulous truthfulness would appear a monstrous exaggeration." Lally in despair wrote to his friends in France, "Hell vomited me into this land of iniquities, and I am waiting, like Jonah, for the whale that shall ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... of God, of whom as yet you are ignorant." Honorius then related the story of Jonah, and showed him how the escape from the bowels of the fish reminded the Christian of his deliverance from the darkness of the tomb. "This glorious hope of the resurrection is an unspeakable comfort," said he, "and ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous

... shrilling of the crickets that have climbed into the osiers and poplars all along by the water's edge. Now and again there is a great splash in the middle of the stream, which makes one think that a fish large enough to swallow some unsuspecting Jonah of Perigord must be there in a playful mood; but this is merely the effect upon the imagination of a sudden noise breaking in upon the monotonous sounds of the night which are so much ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... subdued, that no clerical gentleman should be looked upon with favour as a passenger. The boycott was sometimes carried out against him during the voyage with unrelenting cruelty. Ever since the Lord commanded Jonah, the son of Amittai, to arise and go to Nineveh, and the Hebrew preacher took passage aboard the ship of Tarshish instead, there has been trouble. The senseless antipathy has been handed down the ages, and the legacy comes from a shameless gang who were cowardly assassins, from the ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman

... for pure Christian women to know, so they expend their prayers and pelf on the "poor heathen" who have never heard that Adam ate an apple, or that the whale swallowed Jonah. Christianity feeds and fattens on the sentiment and the credulity of women. It slanders the women of India, of China and of Japan that it may rob the woman of Europe and of America. Dr. Simmons, of the National Hospital at Yokohama, ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... the wall," counseled Elfreda gruffly. "It's beautiful, but it gives me the creeps. It upsets you more than anything else in this house. Every time you come here, I've noticed you go straight to it. I can see that it's a Jonah. Do you give me leave to do the reversing act?" Elfreda grinned boyishly, yet her round blue eyes were purposeful. It would have given her infinite pleasure to summarily bundle the offending painting into Upton Wood, leaving it to ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower

... Christ; and when thus welded, it becomes one with him. There is hope for a returning backslider in a complete Saviour; he combines the evidence of two men, the coming and the returning sinner; he has been, like Jonah, in the belly of hell; his sins, like talking devils, have driven him back to the Saviour. Sin brings its own punishment, from which we escape by keeping in the narrow path. Good works save us from temporal miseries, which ever follow ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... subject; and 1. The Scriptural theory; according to which all mythological legends are derived from the narratives of Scripture, though the real facts have been disguised and altered. Thus Deucalion is only another name for Noah, Hercules for Samson, Arion for Jonah, etc. Sir Walter Raleigh, in his "History of the World," says, "Jubal, Tubal, and Tubal-Cain were Mercury, Vulcan, and Apollo, inventors of Pasturage, Smithing, and Music. The Dragon which kept the golden apples ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... beauty is like the Apostle Jonah. While he was aboard ship there wasn't any sort of luck, and at last the crew took and hove him overboard, and served him right. There's a mighty lot of wisdom in the Scriptures if you only take hold of 'em in the right way. My dad was ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various

... his connection with Punch, Douglas Jerrold met Vizetelly, and acquainted him with the turn of the tide. "Punch is getting on all right now," he said; and added, in his saturnine way, "It began to do so immediately we threw that engraving Jonah overboard!" Yet Jerrold was glad enough to take advantage of the engraving Jonah's influence the following year, when Landells, with Herbert Ingram, N. Cooke, T. Roberts, W. Little, and R. Palmer started the "Illuminated Magazine," and installed him as editor ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... use to be conjoined, and if they be not always expressed, we may lawfully understand them. We may join a consolation to a conviction, and close a threatening with a promise, if we take with a threatening. Jonah's preaching expressed no more but a threatening and denunciation of judgment, but the people understood it according to God's meaning and made it a rule of direction, and so a ground of consolation. How inexcusable are we, who have all these expressed unto ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... scourges in their sides, and thorns in their eyes!" It is quaintly but truthfully said by an old writer, "The candle will never burn clear, while there is a thief in it. Sin indulged, in the conscience, is like Jonah in the ship, which causeth such a tempest, that the conscience is like a troubled sea, ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff

... subject is often asked about. The whale is represented as a great green monster with a large black patch for the open mouth. Jonah is shown in a recumbent position on the ground. At the back is part of a ship, while in the extreme background may ...
— A Short Account of King's College Chapel • Walter Poole Littlechild

... especially ponderous where it was weak, the yard was at last ready. The next process was to induce Christmas to enter it. We had another horse, Jonah, the nervous, stupid, vexatious skew-ball. In the absence of saddle and bridle, Tom deemed it wise not to attempt to round up Christmas. I admired his wisdom without exactly committing myself, and we resorted ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... stranger, comfortingly, "ye see instead of sending bears the Lord sent me along to fish ye out, just the same as He sent the whale to swallow Jonah when he was acting contrary! Looks like He meant to let ye off with a scare this time. Come now, my lass, there 's salt water enough aboard and if ye cry into the boat, ye 'll have to bail her out. Besides," he added whimsically, looking up at the ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... poyem on Jonah and the Whale, which I wrote at the age of seven. Most of it consisted of a conversation between them, while Jonah was in the Whale's stomach, which I think showed agility on the ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... that when conscience thus comes down, as it were, with "a power of attorney," it is powerful indeed—"recalcitrat undique tutus." There are many such big swelling consciences, that grow up and cover the whole man—like the gourd of Jonah, up in a night and down in a night—a fine shelter for a time from the too-searching sun; but there is a worm in it, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various

... with the Small Stock of merchindize I had taken with me were not able to precure more blubber than about 300 wt. and a fiew gallons of oil; Small as this Stock is I prise it highly; and thank providence for directing the whale to us; and think him much more kind to us than he was to jonah, having Sent this monster to be Swallowed by us in Sted of Swallowing of us as jonah's did. I recrossed E co la Creek and Encamped on the bank at which place we observed an ebundance of fine wood the Indian men followed me for the purpose of Smokeing. I enquired ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... teaching or explanation, he will understand it all simply. Do you suppose that the peasants don't understand? Try reading them the touching story of the fair Esther and the haughty Vashti; or the miraculous story of Jonah in the whale. Don't forget either the parables of Our Lord, choose especially from the Gospel of St. Luke (that is what I did), and then from the Acts of the Apostles the conversion of St. Paul (that ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... resurrection. Of all the subjects of pictures in the catacombs, the one, perhaps, more frequently repeated than any other, and under a greater variety of forms and types, is that of the Resurrection. The figure of Jonah thrown out from the body of the whale, as the type that had been used by our Lord himself in regard to his resurrection, is met with constantly; and the raising of Lazarus is one of the commonest scenes chosen for representation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... the Flood came and destroyed them all. [4] If He would put His finger on a fact in past Jewish history which, by its admitted reality, would warrant belief in His own coming Resurrection, He points to Jonah's being three days and three nights in the whale's ...
— The Lights of the Church and the Light of Science - Essay #6 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley

... Jacob deign to bestow upon this medicament such and such virtues." To extract a piece of bone sticking in the throat, the physician should call out loudly: "As Jesus Christ drew Lazarus from the grave, and as Jonah came out of the whale, thus Blasius, the martyr and servant of God, commands, 'Bone, come ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott

... what you say, Aunt Ruey. When her mother was called away, I thought that was a warning I never should forget; but now I seem to be like Jonah,—I'm restin' in the shadow of my gourd, and my heart is glad because of it. I kind o' trembled at the prayer meetin' when we ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... fate would have it, the first lesson happened to be the story of Jonah and the whale. Half a dozen shocked faces turned suddenly towards her told Joan that at some point in the thrilling history she must unconsciously have laughed. Fortunately she was alone in the pew, and feeling herself scarlet, ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome

... gravity, and that I never should go on a steady perpendicular again." "Upon my word, Curran," said I, "the mastiff may have left you your centre, but he could not have left much gravity behind him, among the bystanders."—Sir Jonah Barrington. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 558, July 21, 1832 • Various

... was deep, DEEP. It was an abyss, gorgeously illuminated of velvet softness, in which I floated. The sound was fluid like water about me. I closed my eyes. Where was I? Had some prodigious monster swallowed me, and, like another Jonah, had I "gone down beneath the bottoms of the mountains"? I escaped from that perilous womb of sound, and ascended still higher. There was the mystery of that nocturnal minstrelsy. Seventy-three bells in chromatic diapason—with their tinkling, ringing, ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... appeared in gazetteer or census report. This remark should not cause any depreciation of the faithfulness of public and private statisticians, for Happy Rest belonged to a class of settlements which sprang up about as suddenly as did Jonah's Gourd, and, after a short existence, disappeared so quickly that the last inhabitant generally found himself alone before he knew that anything unusual was ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton

... I was sitting in Central Park, under a tree no bigger than Jonah's gourd, broiling nicely brown, and seasoning the process by reading what the lesser weeklies said about me, I saw at the Park gate a great phantasm, like a distended sausage, swaying to and fro as if striving to burst, and directly the horrible thing blew upwards, ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... of Jim Boone broke in: "Shut up, the whole gang of you. We've had luck for the six years Pierre has been with us. Who calls him a Jonah?" ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand

... busy with a new romance treating of JONAH and the whale, in which, for the sake of verisimilitude, JONAH will himself recount his strange adventure to a few personal friends. As the narrative runs to over a hundred thousand words the reader may be sure that no detail of realism ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 19, 1919 • Various

... crickets that have climbed into the osiers and poplars all along by the water's edge. Now and again there is a great splash in the middle of the stream, which makes one think that a fish large enough to swallow some unsuspecting Jonah of Prigord must be there in a playful mood; but this is merely the effect upon the imagination of a sudden noise breaking in upon the monotonous sounds of the night which are so ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... you'd never guess! I went—I went to—do you give it up? I went right straight into the lion's jaws—not only into the very clutches, but into the very teeth, and down the very throat of the lion, and have come out as safe as Jonah from the whale's belly! In a word, I have been up to the county seat where the court is now in session, and sold cigar cases, snuff boxes and smoking caps to the grand and petit jury, and a pair of gold spectacles to ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... own deserts, And partly that you were my civil head, And chiefly you were born for something great, In which I might your fellow-worker be, When time should serve; and thus a noble scheme Grew up from seed we two long since had sown; In us true growth, in her a Jonah's gourd, Up in one night and due to sudden sun: We took this palace; but even from the first You stood in your own light and darkened mine. What student came but that you planed her path To Lady Psyche, younger, not so wise, A foreigner, and I your countrywoman, I your old friend and ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... as a bishop, any anarchist as a judge, any despot as a Whig, any sentimental socialist as a Tory, any philtre-monger or witch-finder as a man of science, any phrase-maker as a statesman. Those who did not believe the story of Jonah and the great fish were all the readier to believe that metals can be transmuted and all diseases cured by radium, and that men can live for two hundred years by drinking sour milk. Even these ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw

... Adkin had or had not a call to preach, is more than we can say. Enough, that he considered it his duty to "hold forth" occasionally on the Sabbath; and when "Brother Adkin" saw, in any possible line of action, his duty, he never took counsel of Jonah. ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur

... college built him a furnace in their garden, and he there produced the finest specimen of seventeenth century glass that Oxford can show. Even for those who are not students of glass, the Wadham windows are attractive with their two Jonahs and two whales, "The big one that swallowed Jonah, and the little one that Jonah swallowed" (to quote an ...
— The Charm of Oxford • J. Wells

... good"! Would he say to his child: "How dare you! Go away, and be good, and then come to me?" And shall we dare to think God would send us away if we came thus, and would not be pleased that we came, even if we were angry as Jonah? Would we not let all the tenderness of our nature flow forth upon such a child? And shall we dare to think that if we being evil know how to give good gifts to our children, God will not give us his own spirit when we come to ask him? Will not some heavenly dew descend cool upon the hot anger? ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald

... time another prophet, named Jonah, was giving the word of the Lord to the Israelites. To Jonah ...
— The Wonder Book of Bible Stories • Compiled by Logan Marshall

... too loud Elijah Rowe, for speaking too low Gregory Meek, for refusing to speak Hannibal Hartz, for throwing paper darts Horace Poole, for whistling in school Hubert Shore, for slamming the door Jesse Blane, for hiding the cane Jonah Platts, for hiding boys' hats Aaron Esk, for cutting the desk Abner Rule, for sleeping in school Adam Street, for changing his seat Albert Mayne, for splitting the teacher's cane Alexander Tressons, for reading during other ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... hold, raging like a maniac, cursing the weather, the provisions, and everything else that he could think of, including myself, whom he denounced as a Jonah, his ill-luck having commenced, according to his assertion, with the sparing of my life and my reception on board the Francesca. As for the calm, he declared that it should detain him no longer; and, having searched the sky and examined the barometer in vain for any ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... from which I was long in recovering. I lost all respect for whales; and began to be a little dubious about the story of Jonah; for how could Jonah reside in such an insignificant tenement; how could he have had elbow-room there? But perhaps, thought I, the whale which according to Rabbinical traditions was a female one, might have ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... evenings of the early Ohio bar could be collected, there would be materials in rich abundance from which a sympathetic and facile pen could compile a volume of equal piquancy and sentimental refinement of patriotic detail and humor, that alternate the pages of Sir Jonah Barrington, or any other winsome work of the kind. This will not be questioned for a moment when it is remembered that Henry Clay, Lewis Cass, Philip Doddridge, Willis Silliman, David K. Este, and Charles Hammond were frequent participants; that ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... his auditors.—"He speaks like a King's officer in chase of a smuggler!" cried one.—"Ay, he's a bold'un in a calm," said a second.—"He's a Jonah, that has slipp'd into the cabin windows!" cried a third; "and, while he stays in the 'Dolphin,' luck will keep upon our weather-beam"—"Into the sea with him! overboard with the upstart! into the sea with him! where he'll find that a bolder ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... ground! They pray, they fight, they murder, and they weep,- Wolves in their vengeance, in their manners sheep; Too well they act the prophet's fatal part, Denouncing evil with a zealous heart; And each, like Jonah, is displeased if God Repent his anger, or withhold his rod. But here the dormant fury rests unsought, And Zeal sleeps soundly by the foes she fought; Here all the rage of controversy ends, And rival zealots rest ...
— The Library • George Crabbe

... aisle, and the chancel was more than half filled with the lofty "closet" of the Great House family. Hither the Delavie family betook themselves, and on her way Betty was startled by the recognition, in the seat reserved for the servants, of a broad back and curled wig that could belong to no one but Jonah Dove. She did her utmost to keep her mind from dwelling on what this might portend, though she followed the universal custom by exchanging nods and curtsies with the Duckworth family as she sailed up the aisle at the head ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... good for food flourishes. Nothing can keep under the redundancy of nature in Kona; everything is profuse, fervid, passionate, vivified and pervaded by sunshine. The earth is restless in her productiveness, and forces up her hothouse growth perpetually, so that the miracle of Jonah's gourd is almost repeated nightly. All decay is hurried out of sight, and through the glowing year flowers blossom and fruits ripen; ferns are always uncurling their young fronds and bananas unfolding their great shining leaves, and spring blends her ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... sayest, 'The Lord is righteous.'" With that he let him drop into the depths of the sea, and there he tortured him for fifty days, to make the power of God known to him. At the end of the time he installed him as king of the great city of Nineveh, and after the lapse of many centuries, when Jonah came to Nineveh, and prophesied the overthrow of the city on account of the evil done by the people, it was Pharaoh who, seized by fear and terror, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes, and with his own mouth made proclamation and published this decree through Nineveh: ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... par'lize the brains of every science society in this yer country to know, an' drive the whole world o' physic dealers barkin' like a pack o' mangy coyotes wi' their bellies flappin' in a nor'-east blizzard. Gosh-dang it, you misfortunate offspring of Jonah parents, we're settin' out to raise kids. We ain't startin' a patent manure fact'ry, nor runnin' a ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... His anointed, young man. Even as Jonah abode in the belly of the whale, so doth the water bear me onward as the ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... when the multitudes were gathering together unto him, he began to say, This generation is an evil generation: it seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of Jonah. 30 For even as Jonah became a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be to this generation. 31 The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation, and shall condemn them: for she came from the ends of the earth ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman

... up, each carrying a precious seal extended on two tiny hands or reposing in apron. They are all bursting with importance.... Of course, the small Jonah of the flock tumbles up the stairs, bumps his nose, and breaks his treasure.... There is an agonized wail.... "I bust my seal!"... Some one springs to the rescue.... The seal is patched, tears are dried, and harmony is ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin



Words linked to "Jonah" :   prophet, Prophets, book, unfortunate person, Nebiim, Old Testament, unfortunate



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