#tarshish

Where Was Tarshish Located?

By Author Eli Kittim

In Second Chronicles 9.21, the Septuagint (LXX L.C.L. Brenton) translates the Hebrew “Tarshish” (תַּרְשִׁ֔ישׁ BHS) as Θαρσεῖς. The location of Θαρσεῖς——according to Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities (LCL 242: 62-63)——was in Tarsus Cilicia (the birth place of Saul of Tarsus, aka Paul the Apostle; Acts 22.3) in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), near the Mediterranean Sea. Greeks comprised a large portion of the population. It was a Greek colony. So, Tarshish does not appear to be in Spain as some commenters have suggested:

https://www.loebclassics.com/view/josephus-jewish_antiquities/1930/pb_LCL242.63.xml

In Jonah 1.3 (LXX), the term “Tarshish” is spelled Tharsis and translated in the Greek as Θαρσὶς. In the Bible, Tarshish is said to comprise a cluster of islands: “For the coastlands shall wait for me, the ships of Tarshish first” (Isa. 60.9 NRSV cf. Isa. 23.6). The great ships of Tarshish are also mentioned in Isa. 2.16. Then, as now, Greece controlled one of the largest merchant fleets in the world. Moreover, according to Gen. 10.4, Tarshish was one of “The descendants of Javan [Greece]: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim [Cyprus], and Rodanim [Rhodes]” (cf. 1 Chr 1.7)!

Conclusion

Thus, both the internal and external evidence strongly suggest that Tarshish was located on the southern part of Anatolia, and that the region had undergone Greek ‘colonization’ by Greek and Aegean settlers:

https://research-bulletin.chs.harvard.edu/2017/08/02/rough-cilicia/

After all, Ionia itself——located on the western coast of Anatolia in present-day Turkey——comprised the territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements. As far back as 600–480 BCE, Greeks had settled on the shores and islands of the eastern Aegean Sea.

Do not show yourselves scoffers, in order that your bands may not grow strong, for there is an extermination, even something decided upon, that I have heard of from the Sovereign Lord, Jehovah of armies, for all the land... 

“And the word of Jehovah continued to occur to me, saying: “Son of man, set your face against Gog [of] the land of Ma’gog, the head chieftain of Me’shech and Tu’bal, and prophesy against him. And you must say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said: “Here I am against you, O Gog, you head chieftain of Me’shech and Tu’bal. And I shall certainly turn you around and put hooks in your jaws and bring you forth with all your military force, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in perfect taste, a numerous congregation, with large shield and buckler, all of them handling swords; Persia, E·thi·o’pi·a and Put with them, all of them with buckler and helmet; Go’mer and all its bands, the house of To·gar’mah, [of] the remotest parts of the north, and all its bands, many peoples with you.

“‘“Be ready, and let there be preparation on your part, you with all your congregation, those congregated alongside you, and you must become their guard.

“‘“After many days you will be given attention. In the final part of the years you will come to the land [of people] brought back from the sword, collected together out of many peoples, onto the mountains of Israel, that have proved to be a constantly devastated place; even [a land] that has been brought forth from the peoples, [where] they have dwelt in security, all of them. And you will be bound to come up. Like a storm you will come in. Like clouds to cover the land you will become, you and all your bands and many peoples with you.”’

“This is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said, ‘And it must occur in that day that things will come up into your heart, and you will certainly think up an injurious scheme; and you must say: “I shall go up against the land of open rural country. I shall come in upon those having no disturbance, dwelling in security, all of them dwelling without wall, and they do not have even bar and doors.” It will be to get a big spoil and to do much plundering, in order to turn your hand back upon devastated places reinhabited and upon a people gathered together out of the nations, [one] that is accumulating wealth and property, [those] who are dwelling in the center of the earth.

“‘She’ba and De’dan and the merchants of Tar’shish and all its maned young lions—they will say to you: “Is it to get a big spoil that you are coming in? Is it to do much plundering that you have congregated your congregation, in order to carry off silver and gold, to take wealth and property, to get a very great spoil?”’

“Therefore prophesy, O son of man, and you must say to Gog, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said: “Will it not be in that day when my people Israel are dwelling in security that you will know [it]? And you will certainly come from your place, from the remotest parts of the north, you and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great congregation, even a numerous military force. And you will be bound to come up against my people Israel, like clouds to cover the land. In the final part of the days it will occur, and I shall certainly bring you against my land, for the purpose that the nations may know me when I sanctify myself in you before their eyes, O Gog.”’

“This is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said, ‘Are you the same one of whom I spoke in the former days by the hand of my servants the prophets of Israel, who were prophesying in those days—years—as to bringing you in upon them?’

“‘And it must occur in that day, in the day when Gog comes in upon the soil of Israel,’ is the utterance of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah, ‘that my rage will come up into my nose. And in my ardor, in the fire of my fury, I shall have to speak. Surely in that day a great quaking will occur in the soil of Israel. And because of me the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and the wild beasts of the field and all the creeping things that are creeping on the ground and all mankind that are upon the surface of the ground will be bound to shiver, and the mountains will actually be thrown down and the steep ways will have to fall, and to the earth even every wall will fall.’

“‘And I will call forth against him throughout all my mountainous region a sword,’ is the utterance of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah. ‘Against his own brother the sword of each one will come to be. And I will bring myself into judgment with him, with pestilence and with blood; and a flooding downpour and hailstones, fire and sulphur I shall rain down upon him and upon his bands and upon the many peoples that will be with him. And I shall certainly magnify myself and sanctify myself and make myself known before the eyes of many nations; and they will have to know that I am Jehovah.’

“And as regards you, O son of man, prophesy against Gog, and you must say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said: “Here I am against you, O Gog, you head chieftain of Me’shech and Tu’bal. And I will turn you around and lead you on and cause you to come up from the remotest parts of the north and bring you in upon the mountains of Israel. And I will strike your bow out of your left hand, and your arrows I shall cause to fall out of your own right hand. On the mountains of Israel you will fall, you and all your bands and the peoples that will be with you. To birds of prey, birds of every sort of wing, and the wild beasts of the field I will give you for food.”’

“‘Upon the surface of the field you will fall, for I myself have spoken,’ is the utterance of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah.

“‘And I will send fire upon Ma’gog and upon those who are inhabiting the islands in security; and people will have to know that I am Jehovah. And my holy name I shall make known in the midst of my people Israel, and I shall no more let my holy name be profaned; and the nations will have to know that I am Jehovah, the Holy One in Israel.’

“‘Look! It must come and it must be brought to be,’ is the utterance of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah. ‘This is the day of which I have spoken. And the inhabitants of the cities of Israel will certainly go forth and burn and build fires with the armor and bucklers and large shields,—with the bows and with the arrows and with the handstaves and with the lances; and with them they will have to light fires seven years. And they will not carry sticks of wood from the field, nor will they gather firewood out of the forests, for with the armor they will light fires.’ “‘And they will certainly make spoil of those who had been making spoil of them, and plunder those who had been plundering them,’ is the utterance of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah.

“‘And it must occur in that day that I shall give to Gog a place there, a burial place in Israel, the valley of those passing through on the east of the sea, and it will be stopping up those passing through. And there they will have to bury Gog and all his crowd, and they will be certain to call [it] the Valley of Gog’s Crowd. And those of the house of Israel will have to bury them for the purpose of cleansing the land, for seven months. And all the people of the land will have to do the burying, and it will certainly become for them a matter of fame in the day that I glorify myself,’ is the utterance of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah.

“‘And there will be men for continual [employment] whom they will divide off, passing along through the land, burying, with those passing through, those left remaining on the surface of the earth, in order to cleanse it. To the end of seven months they will keep making search. And those passing through must pass along through the land, and should one actually see the bone of a man he must also build beside it a marker, until those who do the burying will have buried it in the Valley of Gog’s Crowd. And the name of [the] city will also be Ha·mo’nah. And they will have to cleanse the land.’

“And as regards you, O son of man, this is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said, ‘Say to the birds of every sort of wing and to all the wild beasts of the field: “Collect yourselves together and come. Gather yourselves together all around to my sacrifice, which I am sacrificing for YOU, a great sacrifice on the mountains of Israel. And YOU will certainly eat flesh and drink blood. The flesh of mighty ones YOU will eat, and the blood of the chieftains of the earth YOU will drink, rams, young male sheep, and he-goats, young bulls, the fatlings of Ba’shan all of them. And YOU will be certain to eat fat to satisfaction and to drink blood to drunkenness, from my sacrifice that I will sacrifice for YOU.”’

“‘And YOU must get satisfied at my table on horses and charioteers, mighty persons and all sorts of warriors,’ is the utterance of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah.

“‘And I will set my glory among the nations; and all the nations will have to see my judgment that I have executed and my hand that I have placed among them. And those of the house of Israel will have to know that I am Jehovah their God from that day and forward. And the nations will have to know that it was because of their error that they, the house of Israel, went into exile, on account of the fact that they behaved unfaithfully toward me, so that I concealed my face from them and gave them into the hand of their adversaries, and they kept falling, all of them, by the sword. According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions I did with them, and I kept concealing my face from them.’

“Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said, ‘Now is when I shall bring back the captive ones of Jacob and actually have mercy upon all the house of Israel; and I will show exclusive devotion for my holy name. And they will have borne their humiliation and all their unfaithfulness with which they have acted toward me, when they dwell on their soil in security, with no one to make [them] tremble. When I bring them back from the peoples and I actually collect them together out of the lands of their enemies, I will also sanctify myself among them before the eyes of many nations.’

“‘And they will have to know that I am Jehovah their God, when I send them in exile to the nations and actually bring them together upon their soil, so that I shall leave none of them remaining there any longer. And I shall no longer conceal my face from them, because I will pour out my spirit upon the house of Israel,’ is the utterance of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah.”

-Ezekiel 38 & 39, NWT

by Rev. Thomas De Witt Talmage

"But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep" - Jonah 1:5

Learn how soundly men will sleep in the midst of danger. The worst sinner on shipboard, considering the light he had, was Jonah. He was a member of the chosen people, while they were heathen. The sailors were engaged in their lawful calling, following the sea. The merchants on board, I suppose, were going down to Tarshish to barter; but Jonah, notwithstanding his profession of faith, was flying from duty. He was sound asleep in the cabin. He has been motionless for hours—his arms and feet in the same posture as when he lay down—his breast heaving with deep respiration. Oh! how could the sinner sleep? What if the ship struck a rock! What if it sprang a leak! What if the clumsy oriental craft should capsize! What would become of Jonah?

So men sleep soundly now amid perils infinite. In almost every place, I suppose, the Mediterranean might be sounded, but no line is long enough to fathom the profound abyss beneath every impenitent man. Plunging a thousand fathoms down, you cannot touch bottom. Eternity beneath him, before him, around him! Rocks close by, and whirlpools, and hot-breathed levanters [easterly Mediterranean winds]; yet sound asleep! We try to wake him up, but fail. The great surges of warning break over the hurricane-deck—the gong of warning sounds through the cabin—the bell in the wheel-houserings. “Awake!” cry a hundred voices; yet sound asleep in the cabin.

The Sign of Jonah: Christ’s Death at Sea

By Eli Kittim

Jonah is the English form of the Hebrew name Yona, which is rendered as Ionas in the Greek. The Ionians were the ancient Greeks (see Josephus Antiquities I, 6). So Ionia means Greece, and an ancient citizen of Ion was called Ionas. So Jonah (Ionas), who is a type of Christ, is depicted as a Greek figure. Let us not forget that Jonah was going to Tarshish, which has been identified as Ancient Greece (see the undermentioned article).

What is more, it seems as if the sign of Jonah is a typological metaphor for Christ’s death and resurrection that is employed by the evangelists in order to demonstrate that Jesus is the Messiah. But, as I will show, it also represents an event in prophetic history, although this has not as yet taken place. In the gospel narrative, Matthew connects Jesus’ death to that of Jonah, after the latter’s body was cast into the sea. Matthew 12:39-40 (NASB) reads thusly:

“An evil and adulterous generation craves a

sign; and so no sign will be given to it except

the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as

Jonah was in the stomach of the sea

monster for three days and three nights, so

will the Son of Man be in the heart of the

earth for three days and three nights.”

We find analogous parallels and motifs in the Psalms as well. For example, Psalm 69:1-2 reads:

“Save me, God, For the waters have

threatened my life. I have sunk in deep mud,

and there is no foothold; I have come into

deep waters, and a flood overflows me.”

Similarly, Psalm 18:16 says:

“He sent from on high, He took me;

He drew me out of many waters.”

Ephesians 4:9 says that Jesus “descended into the lower parts of the earth.” That is, he descended to the ocean floor. The average depth of the ocean floor is approximately 12,000 feet. So, Matthew is drawing comparative conclusions between Jonah’s and Jesus's death at sea. Let’s see what happened to Jonah. Jonah 1:15-17 says:

“So they picked up Jonah and hurled him

into the sea, and the sea stopped its raging.

… And the Lord designated a great fish to

swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the

stomach of the fish for three days and three

nights.”

The typological sign of the resurrection is suggested in Jonah 2:10:

“Then the Lord commanded the fish, and it

vomited Jonah up onto the dry land.”

This, then, is the sign of Jonah——which says in effect that God literally “drew … [him] out of many waters”——that Matthew applies to Jesus (cf. Isaiah 43:2)! This is reminiscent of another messianic type who was named “Moses” by Pharaoh's daughter “because … [she] drew him out of the water” (Exod. 2:10). It is also the sign of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. I will not focus on the phrase “three days and three nights” because it will divert us from the topic at hand. Suffice it to say that it need not refer to a literal three-day period. It seems to be a figure of speech that may signify the three-year great tribulation period.

At any rate, the so-called “sign of Jonah” is not simply a metaphor or a unique sign that would establish the deity of Christ, but it is also a factual event! And although I agree with C.S. Lewis who held that Jonah is ahistorical, nevertheless, I believe that the sign of Jonah, as a type, represents the literal, actual death of its antitype: the Messiah! We know that Jonah did not survive. The Book of Jonah 2:2-6 explicitly says that Jonah, after being hurled into the sea, cried out to God “from the depth of Sheol”:

“I called out of my distress to the Lord, And

He answered me. I called for help from the

depth of Sheol; You heard my voice. For You

threw me into the deep, Into the heart of the

seas, And the current flowed around me. All

Your breakers and waves passed over me.

So I said, ‘I have been cast out of Your

sight.’ … Water encompassed me to the

point of death. The deep flowed around me,

Seaweed was wrapped around my head. …

But You have brought up my life from the

pit, Lord my God.”

It’s important to note that the terms “pit” and “Sheol,” in the Hebrew Bible, are references to the realm of the dead (see e.g. Job 7:9; Ps. 49:14-15; 89:48). The resurrection is depicted in Jonah’s own words: “You have brought up my life from the pit, Lord my God.”

So it appears as if the sign of Jonah is also the sign of Christ’s death. Just as Tim Mackie (co-founder of the Bibleproject) explains in one of his sessions that there is a literary redundancy of the word “hurled” in the Jonah text, especially regarding its main character Jonah who is literally “hurled” into the water, I believe that Christ is similarly “hurled” into the water and eaten by a shark. Hence the symbolism of being born in a manger or a feeding trough. This, of course, is closely related to the last supper (i.e. the sacrament of the Eucharist), the idea that Jesus is literally consumed. There are also overtones of Noah's flood in this parallel (cf. Matthew 24:37), as well as of Osiris, who also drowned and whose coffin (like the Ark) floated in the sea (cf. the story of Perseus who was also cast into the sea in a wooden chest). See also the Dhul-Qarnayn story in the Quran in which a dead fish came back to life and swam away!

Another key point is that, according to the Hebrew text, Jonah's fish is not a whale but rather some kind of “great fish". Through special revelation, this appears to be a shark. And the term “swallow”——in the clause, “the Lord designated a great fish to swallow Jonah”——is a euphemism for a great fish feasting on Jonah and consequently fatally injuring him. This, of course, ties in with the idea that we die and are reborn by going under water (Immersion baptism), a symbolic ritual that is unique to Christianity! Hence why Immersion baptism is not only tied to Jonah but is also symbolic of Christ’s death, being re-enacted in the New Testament through the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist!

This study of Jonah takes us back to the origin of the Christian fish symbol, the so-called “ichthys” (ἰχθύς), which is now known as the Jesus fish. And despite the acrostic use of this word: Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Θεοῦ Υἱός, Σωτήρ (i.e. Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour)—— nevertheless, the fish symbolism has a variety of other theological overtones in the New Testament, such as the Feeding of the 5,000 with 2 fishes and 5 loaves, as well as the Feeding of the 4,000 with seven loaves of bread and a few small fish, not to mention that Jesus calls his disciples "fishers of men." That is precisely why Immersion baptism in the early church signified a parallel between fish and converts (i.e. born again Christians). The early Christian theologian Tertullian explained it thusly:

“we, little fishes, after the image of our