Jonah remains there for three days as the fish descends down, down, even entering the abode of the dead, which the Bible calls Sheol. These strike me as the kinds of details a writer, including an ancient one, would put into a story to ensure that his readers knew they were dealing with something other than history. The book of Jonah isn’t a history lesson. It’s a parable to challenge its readers to reimagine a God bigger than the one they were familiar with.
