They That Dance Must Pay The Fiddler

In the Old Testament story of "Jonah And The Whale," Jonah refuses the Lord's request to spread the "Word" in the corrupt city of Nineveh.

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Instead, Jonah skips town, taking to the high seas. God, of course, gets angry, as he is wont to do, and conjures up a terrible storm that threatens to sink the ship.

Jonah's shipmates are somehow aware that the storm is God's wrath targeted at Jonah, and, rather than be taken down with him, attempt to appease the Lord by throwing Jonah overboard.

Once in the water, Jonah is gobbled up by a whale, or other large fish. Fortunately for Jonah, the whale was a filter feeder or kind enough not to chew on its recent meal, large enough for Jonah to fit inside and held an adequate supply of oxygen to support human life.

So there he was trapped for days. If the consumptive whale didn't feed for those days (because if the whale opened its mouth, water would have poured in and Jonah would have surely drowned), Jonah would have had nothing to eat and would have been Starving In The Belly Of A Whale.

Probably because he got so hungry, Jonah repents and the whale spits out its passenger. Jonah goes on to fulfill the Lord's mandate that he spread the "Word."