Now you know

It is quite possible that the fish was a cosmic sea monster of the kind we have considered above. It is interesting to note that when the Hebrew text was translated into Greek the word chosen to translate dāg was not ichthus (fish), nor enalion (sea creature), but kētos, meaning gargantuan fish or sea monster. This was a word with dark and scary connotations. When Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel speaks of the beast that swallowed Jonah it is, of course, a kētos (Matt 12:39–40), a vast and lethal sea monster. This is not the friendly whale of modern children’s Bibles, smiling sweetly as it rescues Jonah.— The Biblical Cosmos, page 42

<idle musing>
Now you know! If they put that picture in a children's Bible, it probably wouldn't be published. But far scarier covers can be found on kid's books...can you say dichotomy?

We tame down God and make him a nice, easily controllable deity—who can't really help us. But all the while, we magnify the evil, the scary.
</idle musing>