Answers about…
whales and the Bible

Is there a Hebrew or Greek word in the Bible’s original text for “whale”?

No, there is not a specific Hebrew or Greek word in the Bible that corresponds precisely and exclusively to the modern English word “whale.”

Hebrew language Scripture

In the Book of Jonah, the creature is called דָּג גָּדוֹל (dag gadol), which simply means “great fish” or “large fish” (Jonah 1:17). Ancient Hebrew has no dedicated technical term for “whale.”

Ancient Hebrew vocabulary for marine life was relatively limited and used general terms for swimming creatures. “Fish” (dag) was applied broadly and did not distinguish mammals from fish in the modern scientific sense.

Related broader terms include:

• Hebrew: tannin (תַּנִּין)

  The King James Version sometimes renders this word as “whale” (e.g., Genesis 1:21 KJV “great whales”), but most modern translations prefer “great sea creatures,” “sea monsters,” or similar. The word covers whales, but is not specific to cetaceans (whales).

  The word tannin or tanninim 1st appears in the book of Genesis and next in the book of Job.

  And God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind… —Genesis 1:21 excerpt

  “Am I the sea or the sea monster,
  That You set a guard over me? —Job 7:12 LSB

  “Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has devoured me a…
  He has swallowed me like a sea monster… —Jeremiah 51:34 LSB excerpt

  You divided the sea by Your strength;
  You broke the heads of the sea monsters in the waters. —Psalms 74:13 LSB

  In that day Yahweh will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent,
  With His fierce and great and mighty sword,
  Even Leviathan the twisted serpent;
  And he will kill the dragon who lives in the sea. —Isaiah 27:1 LSB

• Hebrew: livyatan (לִוְיָתָן) —transliteration: leviathan

  This refers to a large sea creature.

  In modern Hebrew this word is used for “whale,” but that is a later development and is not how it functioned as a precise term in the biblical text.

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  Q & A

  • What is the leviathan mentioned in the Bible?
  • Leviathan in the Bible

Greek language Scripture

The Septuagint translation of the Old Testament (from Hebrew to Greek) translates Jonah’s “great fish” as κῆτος μέγας (kētos megas — “huge sea creature” or “great fish”).

Jesus used the same word in Matthew 12:40: κήτους (kētous, genitive of κῆτος / kētos). Although the King James Version translated this as “whale’s belly,” the word actually means a large sea creature, sea monster, or huge fish.

for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. —Matthew 12:40 LSB

In classical Greek (including Aristotle) it could refer to whales among other large marine animals, and it is the root of the modern scientific term “cetacean.” It is not limited to whales.