JONAH יונה

The book of Jonah is the 5th of 12 Bible books that bears the name of the Minor Prophets, embraced in a single book. Unlike other Bible prophetic books, Jonah is not a collection of the prophet’s oracles but primarily a narrative about the man.

Jonah is portrayed as a recalcitrant prophet who flees from God’s summons to prophesy against the wickedness of the city of Nineveh. According to the opening verse, Jonah is the son of Amittai. This lineage identifies him with the Jonah mentioned in II Kings 14:25 who prophesied during the reign of Jeroboam II.

The prophet Jonah, like the Jews of the day, abhors even the idea of salvation for the Gentiles. God chastises him for his attitude, and the book affirms that God’s mercy extends even to the inhabitants of a hated foreign city. The incident of the great fish, recalling Leviathan, the monster of the deep used elsewhere in the Bible as the embodiment of evil, symbolizes the nation’s exile and return.

As the story is related in the Book of Jonah, the prophet Jonah is called by God to go to Nineveh (a great Assyrian city) and prophesy disaster because of the city’s excessive wickedness. Jonah, in the story, feels about Nineveh, that it must inevitably fall because of God’s judgment against it. Thus Jonah does not want to prophesy, because Nineveh might repent and thereby be saved.

Jonah 1:3 – “But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish…”

Jonah 1:7 – “Then the sailors said to each other, ‘Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.’ They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah”

Jonah 1:11 – “The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, ‘What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?’”

Jonah 1:17 – “But the LORD provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.”

Jonah 2:2 – “In my distress, I called to the LORD, and He answered me. From the depths of the grave I called for help, and you listened to my cry.”

Jonah 3:6 – “For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.”

Jonah 3:10 – “When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, He had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.”

The city of Nineveh is first mentioned in Genesis 10:11: “Ashur left that land, and built Nineveh.” It was the flourishing capital of the Assyrian Empire and was the home of King Sennacherib, King of Assyria, during the Biblical reign of King Hezekiah and the lifetime of Judean prophet Isaiah. It was also the place where Sennacherib died at the hands of his two sons, who then fled to the vassal land of `rrt (Urartu).

The book of the prophet Nahum is almost exclusively taken up with prophetic denunciations against Nineveh. Its ruin and utter desolation are foretold. Its end was strange, sudden, and tragic. According to the Bible, it was God’s doing, his judgment on Assyria’s pride. In fulfillment of the prophecy, God made “an utter end of the place.” It became a “desolation.” The prophet Zephaniah also predicts its destruction along with the fall of the empire of which it was the capital. Nineveh is also the setting of the Book of Tobit.

The book of Jonah, set in the days of the Assyrian Empire, describes it as an “exceedingly great city of three days’ journey in breadth”, whose population at that time is given as “more than 120,000”. Genesis 10:11–12 lists four cities “Nineveh, Rehoboth, Calah, and Resen”, ambiguously stating that either Resen or Calah is “the great city”. The ruins of Kuyunjiq, Nimrud, Karamlesh, and Khorsabad form the four corners of an irregular quadrilateral.

When Jonah rushes down to Joppa and takes passage in a ship that will carry him in the opposite direction of Nineveh, thinking to escape God. A storm of unprecedented severity strikes the ship, and in spite of all that the master and crew can do, it shows signs of breaking up and foundering. Lots are cast, and Jonah confesses that it is his presence on board that is causing the storm. At his request, he is thrown overboard, and the storm subsides.

A “great fish,” appointed by God, swallows Jonah, and he stays within the fish’s maw for three days and nights. He prays for deliverance and is “vomited out” on dry land (ch. 2). Again the command is heard, “Arise, go to Nineveh.” Jonah goes to Nineveh and prophesies against the city, causing the King and all the inhabitants to repent.

Jonah then becomes angry. Hoping for disaster, he sits outside the city to await its destruction. A plant springs up overnight, providing him welcome shelter from the heat, but it is destroyed by a great worm.

Jonah is bitter at the destruction of the plant, but God speaks and thrusts home the final point of the story: “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night, and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?” (ch. 4).

Jonah’s fear and pride cause him to run from God. He does not wish to go to Nineveh to preach repentance to the people, as God has commanded because he feels they are his enemies, and he is convinced that God will not carry out his threat to destroy the city. Instead, he boards a ship for Tarshish, which is in the opposite direction.

Soon a raging storm causes the crew to cast lots and determine that Jonah is the problem. They throw him overboard, and he is swallowed by a great fish. In its belly for 3 days and 3 nights, Jonah repents of his sin to God, and the fish vomits him up on dry land.

Jonah then makes the 500-mile trip to Nineveh and leads the city in a great revival. But the prophet is displeased (actually pouts) instead of being thankful when Nineveh repents. Jonah learns his lesson, however, when God uses the wind, a gourd, and a worm to teach him that He is merciful.

Nineveh is compared to Sodom because of its depiction in the book of Jonah. There, Nineveh is described as huge (taking three days to walk across) and thoroughly evil. But Jonah gives no specifics about the city’s evil beyond the king’s command that citizens turn away “from the violence that is in their hands” (Jonah 3:8).

Jonah’s Nineveh is thematically connected to Sodom, another biblical city of evil (Gen 18-19). God tells Abraham that the outcry against Sodom is such that he “must go down” to investigate (Gen 18:21). Similarly, God sends Jonah to Nineveh, “the great city,” telling him that its evil “has come up” before him (Jonah 1:2). Gen 19:25 describes God’s destruction of Sodom using the same term that Jonah uses in his prophetic preaching to Nineveh (Jonah 3:4).

The other biblical depiction of Nineveh is one of the most prominent foreign cities. Its portrayal is a complex blend of historical reality, symbolic force, and legendary embellishment. It was the capital of the neo-Assyrian empire. There was no love lost between the ancient Israelites and Nineveh. The city’s king, Sennacherib, laid siege to Jerusalem (2Kgs 18:13-19:37, Isa 36-37).

The prophetic book of Nahum is an Israelite taunt-song over Nineveh’s destruction by the Babylonians. For Nahum, Nineveh is a “city of bloodshed” (Nah 3:1). The Assyrians’ ruthless military tactics are also pictured in reliefs from the king’s palace in Nineveh.