Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

CHAPTER XLIITHE FISH OF MOSES—JONAH—SOLOMON'S RINGThe many versions of " the fishof Moses " are but delightfulexplanations of the fiat fish having more meat on one side thananother, or being white or colourless on one side and darkishcoloured on the other.In one story the Almighty, annoyed with Moses for answeringsome one's query " Who was the most knowing of men? "with a simple " I,"instead of accrediting his wisdom to God,revealed unto him, " verily, I have a servant at a place wherethe two seas meet, and he is more knowing than thou." Thelegend, with the direction to Moses to take a fish and put itin a measure, and the fish's escape by God's aid, etc., is too wellknown for recital.But the conclusion of Hamid of Andalusia as to the natureof the fish is not, and may be added. " The fish of Moseswhich I saw in the Mediterranean is of the breed of that friedfish, a half of which Moses and Joshua ate, and the other halfGod revived. It is about a span long. On one side it hasbristles and its belly is covered with a thin skin. It has but oneeye and half a head. Looking at it on one side you woulddeem it dead, but the other side is perfect in all its parts." ^To account for the :— difference in colour the legend of theArabs 2 runs thuswise " Moses was once cooking a fish,and when it had been broiled till it was brown on one side, thefire or oil gave out, and Moses angrily threw the fish into thesea, when, although it had been half broiled, it came to fife^ Robinson, op. cit., p. 40. In S. Bochart's Hierozoicon (Leipzig, 1796),p. 869, Abuhamed Hispanus gives quite a different account.^ In Klunzinger's Upper Egypt, London, 1878.438