Jonah
“O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.” — Jonah 4:2 (KJV)
Overview
- Testament: Old
- Author: Anonymous — tradition attributes authorship to Jonah himself; Jonah son of Amittai was a historical prophet from Gath-hepher (2 Kings 14:25) in the northern kingdom during Jeroboam II’s reign (~793–753 BC)
- Date Written: ~760 BC if written by Jonah; some scholars propose a later date (~500 BC) based on the third-person narration and linguistic features
- Key Themes: The breadth of God’s mercy, prophetic reluctance and nationalism, genuine repentance, God’s sovereign use of unlikely instruments, the question of whether Israel wants God’s compassion extended to her enemies
- Chapters: 4
Summary
Everyone knows the fish — but the great fish is not the point of Jonah. The fish takes up five verses (1:17–2:10); the real drama occupies the rest of the book. Jonah is the most ironic of all the prophetic books: a prophet who runs from God’s mission, whose audience repents while he sulks, who is angrier about a withered plant than about the fate of 120,000 people. The book ends not with resolution but with a question — “Shouldest not I spare Nineveh?” — that hangs over every subsequent reader.
Chapter 1: God commissions Jonah to preach to Nineveh (the capital of Assyria, Israel’s worst enemy). Jonah immediately boards a ship in the opposite direction — to Tarshish, which is approximately as far west as Nineveh is east. God sends a storm. The pagan sailors pray to their gods and then reluctantly throw Jonah overboard at his own request. The storm ceases. The sailors offer sacrifices to Yahweh. The irony begins: pagan sailors respond to God better than the prophet does.
Chapter 2: Inside the great fish, Jonah prays — a psalm of thanksgiving, not repentance. He acknowledges deliverance and vows to fulfill what he has promised. The fish vomits him out.
Chapter 3: The second commission. This time Jonah goes. He walks a single day’s journey into the city and delivers the shortest sermon in prophetic history: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown” (3:4). The entire city — from king to livestock — repents in sackcloth and ashes. The king’s decree is remarkable (3:9): “Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we not perish?” God does relent. The greatest revival in the OT occurs at the preaching of a man who didn’t want to preach it.
Chapter 4: Jonah is furious. “It displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry” (4:1). His explanation (4:2) is theologically astonishing: he already knew God was gracious and merciful — that’s why he fled. He quotes Exodus 34:6, the core declaration of God’s character, as a complaint. He wanted Nineveh destroyed. He sits east of the city watching, perhaps hoping God will still destroy it. God provides a gourd for shade; Jonah rejoices excessively. God provides a worm that kills the gourd; Jonah is bereft. God’s closing question (4:10–11) is the book’s point: Jonah pitied the plant (which cost him nothing) — shouldn’t God pity 120,000 people who do not know their right hand from their left?
The book never tells us how Jonah answered.
Key Characters
| Character | Role | Key Passages |
|---|---|---|
| Jonah son of Amittai | The reluctant prophet; nationalist; angrier at mercy than at sin | 1:1–3; 4:1–11 |
| The LORD (Yahweh) | Pursuer, redeemer, questioner; sovereign over creation and nations | 1:4; 1:17; 2:10; 4:6–11 |
| The Sailors | Pagan men who fear God and respond better than the prophet | 1:5–16 |
| The King of Nineveh | Leads national repentance; humble decree | 3:6–9 |
| The Ninevites | Entire city repents at minimal preaching — greatest revival in Scripture | 3:5–10 |
| The Great Fish | Divine instrument of rescue, not punishment | 1:17; 2:10 |
| The Gourd (and Worm) | Object lesson in misplaced compassion | 4:6–8 |
Key Events
| Event | Reference | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Jonah’s Flight and Storm | 1:1–16 | Tarshish-bound; storm; lots; thrown overboard; sailors worship Yahweh |
| Nineveh’s Repentance | 3:1–10 | ”Yet forty days”; city-wide fast from king to cattle; greatest revival in the OT; God relents |
| Jonah’s Anger and God’s Question | 4:1–11 | Furious at mercy; gourd and worm; “shouldest not I spare Nineveh?” — unanswered |
| The great fish | 1:17–2:10 | Three days; Jonah’s psalm of deliverance; fish vomits him on dry land |
| Second commission | 3:1–3 | ”Arise, go to Nineveh” — the commission repeated; Jonah obeys |
| God’s question | 4:10–11 | ”Should I not spare Nineveh?” — the book ends unanswered |
Chapter Outline
| Chapter | Section | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Flight | Commission; Tarshish; storm; cast overboard; sailors converted |
| 2 | The Fish | Three days; psalm of thanksgiving; vomited out |
| 3 | The Mission | Second commission; brief sermon; greatest revival in Scripture |
| 4 | The Anger | Furious at mercy; gourd and worm; God’s unanswered question |
Cross-References
Old Testament:
- 2 Kings 14:25 — Jonah son of Amittai mentioned as a historical prophet; confirms he is a real person
- Exodus 34:6 — “Gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness” — Jonah quotes this as his reason for fleeing; it is the great self-declaration of God’s character
- Psalm 139:7–12 — “Where can I flee from your presence?” — Jonah tried
- Nahum — Nahum’s oracle against Nineveh (~130 years after Jonah); Nineveh repented, but the repentance did not last
New Testament:
- Matthew 12:38–41 — “The sign of Jonah”: Jesus cites Jonah’s three days in the fish as a sign of his own death and resurrection; “A greater than Jonah is here”
- Luke 11:29–32 — Same reference; “the men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation and shall condemn it”
- Romans 10:12 — “The same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him” (theological root in Jonah’s witness to Gentile inclusion)
Key Verses
“Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish’s belly, And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.” — Jonah 2:1–2
“So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.” — Jonah 3:5
“And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.” — Jonah 3:10
“Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?” — Jonah 4:10–11
Notes & Reflections
- Jonah is unique among the prophets: he flees his commission, prays inside a fish, delivers the barest possible sermon, and then sulks when it succeeds; he is the anti-model prophet, which makes the book a meditation on the gap between the prophet’s limitations and God’s sovereign purpose
- Jesus’s use of “the sign of Jonah” (Matt. 12:40) links Jonah’s three days in the fish to his own three days in the tomb — not merely an illustration but a typological fulfillment; Jesus is the greater Jonah, willingly offered, not thrown overboard
- The Ninevites’ repentance is genuine — sackcloth, fasting, the king’s decree — and God honors it; but Nahum ~130 years later shows it did not persist; the book demonstrates that repentance has to be sustained, not just initiated
- Jonah quotes Exodus 34:6 (God’s own self-declaration) as a complaint — this is one of the Bible’s darkest ironies; the very character of God that Israel celebrated became, for Jonah, the reason for resentment when applied to enemies
- The book’s ending is unresolved — Jonah never answers God’s question; the reader is left to answer it; this is probably intentional; are you as angry as Jonah when God is merciful to people you consider enemies?
Sequential Connections
- Preceded by: Obadiah in canonical order
- Historical period: Northern kingdom under Jeroboam II (~793–753 BC) — the same era as Amos and Hosea
- Companion to: Nahum — Two bookends on Nineveh; Jonah = mercy; Nahum = judgment
- Typological fulfillment: Matthew 12:38–41 — Jesus as the greater Jonah
- Followed by: Micah
Tags
OldTestament MinorProphets Jonah Mercy Repentance Nineveh Reluctance SignOfJonah Compassion Gentiles Divine Sovereignty