The book of Jonah, the fifth of the Minor Prophets, is more like the accounts of the prophets found in the Historical Books in both form and content. The book gives us a brief glimpse into the life of Jonah, the "wrong-way prophet," who ran from God and was swallowed by a fish. Throughout the book, we see evidence of God's grace and His love for all people.
In this relief from Nineveh, the charioteer and archer in an Assyrian chariot are protected from enemy attack by shield bearers. The Assyrians were a military threat to Israel, so Jonah was reluctant to introduce them to his gracious God.
Circumstances of Writing
Author: The book is an anonymous narrative about Jonah.
Background: Jonah appears in 2 Kings 14:25 as a prophet from Gath-hepher in the territory of Zebulun in northern Israel. He was active around the first half of the eighth century b.c. Jonah predicted the restoration of the northern kingdom's boundaries. This occurred during the reign of Jeroboam II (ca 793–753 b.c.). This book about Jonah could have been composed at any time from the eighth century to the end of the OT period.
Jonah preached to the city of Nineveh. Nineveh was a major city of the Assyrians, a cruel and warlike people who were longtime enemies of Israel. Assyrian artwork emphasizes war, including scenes of execution, impalement, flaying the skin off prisoners, and beheadings. This explains Jonah's reluctance to preach to the infamous city of Nineveh.
The key debate about the book of Jonah is the question of its genre. Is Jonah history or parable? The parable view argues that Jonah is a fictional story or fable made up to convey a theological point about God's attitude toward Gentiles. Proponents of the parable view argue that the ironic and fantastic events described by the book (e.g., Jonah living and praying in the stomach of a fish) is the author's way of tipping the reader off that this is not literal history. There are also historical difficulties that the fictional view would resolve: the exaggerated size of Nineveh (3:3) and the lack of extrabiblical, Assyrian evidence to confirm that the city ever repented.
Five considerations suggest taking the book of Jonah as genuine history. First, Jonah was a real historical figure, said to be a prophet in 2 Kings 14:25. The book of Jonah portrays Jonah as a flawed character. Were the book of Jonah a piece of fiction, it would be guilty of slander, saying something derogatory and untrue about a real person who is elsewhere presented positively.
Second, Jonah is part of the collection of 12 Minor Prophets. All the other books of this collection convey prophecies by genuine, historical prophets. By placing Jonah in this collection, the compiler of the Minor Prophets signaled that he considered Jonah to be an historical account.
Third, the miracles in Jonah are not impossible for the God of the Bible. Presuming otherwise, some interpreters allow their antisupernatural presuppositions to drive them to the parable view of Jonah.
Fourth, Jesus in Matt. 12:39-41 and Luke 11:29-32 spoke of Jonah being in the fish and preaching in Nineveh as if these were real events. In particular, Jesus' statement that "the men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas" (Matt, 12:41; Luke 11:32) makes little sense if the people of Nineveh never actually repented due to Jonah's preaching. Unless one is willing to affirm that Jesus was wrong, it is best to say that the book of Jonah is historical.
Finally, the historical difficulties in Jonah can largely be resolved (see note at 3:1-3).
Message and Purpose
God's positive attitude toward Gentiles: In chapter 1, Gentile sailors learn to revere and worship Israel's God. Their reluctance to throw Jonah overboard shows that they were concerned to follow God's ethical demands by not taking innocent human life. In chapter 3, Nineveh's repentance shows that Gentiles can be saved too. God is interested in all people, a concern that anticipates the missionary mandate of the NT.
God's grace: God was "gracious and merciful" (4:2) toward Nineveh, thus showing that the God of the OT is a God of grace.
God's sovereignty over nature: The book of Jonah portrays the sovereign power of God over the natural world. God can hurl a storm at people (1:4), raise up a plant miraculously and as well as a worm to kill it (4:6-7), and use a great fish to swallow and save Jonah (1:17). All this shows God's control over nature.
The futility of running from God: The trouble that Jonah got into when he tried to run from God's calling is a warning to readers that running from God is futile and only invites unnecessary hardship.
Timeline of Jonah
- 900 b.c.
- Shalmaneser III of Assyria defeats Syria and Israel 853
- Assyria exacts tribute from Jehu of Israel 841
- 840 b.c.
- Jonah prophesies the restoration of Israel 800?
- 780 b.c.
- Amos called 760
- Jonah preaches in Nineveh 750?
- Hosea and Micah called 750
- Isaiah called 740
- Sargon II of Assyria conquers Samaria 722
- 720 b.c.
- Assyria invades Judah 701
- 660 b.c.
- Zephaniah prophesies the fall of Nineveh 625?
- Babylon defeats Egypt and Assyria at Carchemish 605
- 600 b.c.
Contribution to the Bible
The book of Jonah shows God's gracious concern for the whole world, His power over nature, and the futility of running from Him. In addition, it foreshadows Jesus' burial and resurrection. Matthew 12:38-45 and Luke 11:24-32 compare the ministry of Jesus with that of Jonah, Jesus being the greater. Both texts see Jonah's great fish as a foreshadowing of Jesus' burial in the tomb, making Jonah a "type" of Christ. If Jonah actually died in the fish (see note at Jon. 2:2), then his resurrection further parallels the resurrection of Jesus.
Structure
The book of Jonah exhibits a high degree of Hebrew literary excellence. Its style is rich and varied. It is considered by many as a masterpiece of rhetoric. There is symmetry and balance in the book, and it can be divided into two sections of two chapters each. The peak of the first discourse is marked by its poetic form, which has a higher prominence in narrative than prose. The peak in the second discourse is marked by the dialogue exchange between Jonah and God. The Lord and Jonah are indicated as the two main characters of the story by being the only ones who are named; the other characters are anonymous.
Phenomena of nature also serve in each half as props: wind, storm, sea, dry land, and fish in the first half; herd and flock, plant, worm, sun, and wind in the second half. When placed side by side, chapters 1 and 3 and chapters 2 and 4 can be seen as parallel. Finally, both chapters 1 and 3 begin with Jonah receiving a word from the Lord consisting of a call to go to Nineveh.
Jonah Study Notes
1:1 Jonah in Hebrew means "dove." His father's name Amittai means "faithful [is Jehovah?]."
1:2 Nineveh, on the east bank of the Tigris River, became the Assyrian capital after 705 b.c., well after Jonah's day. Its ruins are found in the northern part of modern Iraq, opposite the city of Mosul 220 miles northwest of Baghdad. For Jonah, Nineveh was an arduous journey of over 500 miles to the northeast of Samaria. His probable route—first traveling north and then east—would have made the trip closer to 600 miles. God's holiness is offended by sin. He showed Himself judge of the world by holding these distant pagans accountable for their wickedness, though He also showed His mercy by commanding His prophet to warn them.
1:3 To flee . . . from the presence of the Lord is to attempt the impossible since God is everywhere, though people still try. (See 4:2 for why he fled.) Joppa on the Mediterranean coast just south of modern Tel Aviv was one of Israel's few natural seaports. The location of Tarshish is uncertain. Its association with ships (1 Kings 10:22) suggests it was near the sea. The "ships of Tarshish" used by King Jehoshaphat on the Red Sea were probably merchant ships of design similar to those used by sailors from Tarshish on the Mediterranean Sea. Tarshish has sometimes been identified with Paul's home of Tarsus in Cilicia or the city of Tharros on the island of Sardinia west of Italy. But the most probable identification of Tarshish is the Phoenician colony of Tartessus, located on the Guadalquivir River on the southwestern coast of Spain about 2,000 miles west of Israel. This is about as far in the opposite direction from Nineveh that Jonah could have gone.
1:5-6 Jonah's spiritual decline is depicted in parallel with the descriptions of his response to God's call. He was told to "arise" (v. 2) to go to Nineveh, but instead he "went down to Joppa" (v. 3), "went down" to the ship (v. 3) and finally went down into the lowest part of the ship. Eventually he will be swallowed by a fish and sink down to the foundations of the mountains at the bottom of the sea (2:6). Only then did he hit bottom and begin to go back up. His deep sleep in the midst of a storm also symbolizes his spiritual condition.
Restored gate at the site of the ancient city of Nineveh, located today on the left bank of the Tigris River. From 612 b.c. to the a.d. 1800s, Nineveh was lost in accumulating layers of dust.
1:9 Fear of God in the OT is the respect that a person has for God, causing him to turn from evil and obey God's commandments (Gen. 22:12; Job 1:8; 28:28; Prov. 8:13). Ironically God's prophet Jonah showed no such fear by his disobedience. It is also ironic that Jonah fled to avoid preaching to Gentiles in Nineveh, but now found himself preaching to Gentiles in the ship. The Lord, which in Hebrew is Yahweh or Jehovah, means "He is [present]" and is God's personal name in the OT. The substitution in translation of the title Lord for the personal name Yahweh goes back to postexilic Jewish reluctance to pronounce the divine name. Neither Jonah nor these sailors (v. 14) had any qualms about using the term Yahweh at this time.
1:12-15 Rather than submitting to God, Jonah asked these men to kill him by throwing him overboard. Yet despite Jonah's confession of guilt, these pagan Gentiles had moral scruples about sending a man to his death and tried to row ashore instead. Only after they saw no other option and had prayed that Jehovah would not hold them accountable for taking a human life did they throw Jonah into the sea. The integrity and spiritual sensitivity of these Gentiles would have shocked Israelite readers of this book, confronting their belief that non-Hebrews were unworthy of God's mercy. Certainly this is a lesson Jonah himself needed.
1:16 When the sea calmed, these Gentile sailors feared the Lord in the sense of revering and worshipping Him (see note at 1:9). Jonah, who was fleeing from a mission to Gentiles, had unintentionally converted an entire crew of Gentile sailors.
1:17 The great fish that swallowed Jonah was not necessarily a whale. Yarns of a sailor surviving Jonah-like in a whale have been widely repeated in recent centuries, but no account has ever been authenticated. Three days and three nights parallels Christ's resurrection on the third day (Matt. 12:40).
2:2 Hell (Hb she'ol) is the realm of the dead, often the grave. The fish's stomach is metaphorically like a tomb. Jonah thought he was dead, and perhaps he literally was at some point. If so, the parallel with Christ's resurrection (Matt. 12:40) is even stronger. But God was present in hell to receive Jonah's prayer. Indeed, God is everywhere we go (Ps. 139:8).
2:3-5 Verses 3 and 5 depict Jonah's dire circumstances. He sees both the billows and the waves as judgment tools of God. But verse 4 sounds a note of faith and hope. Though he had been cast out of God's sight, he expected to look again toward His holy temple, which means he expected he would live to pray again and perhaps even worship in the Jerusalem temple. Soul (Hb nephesh) in verse 5 can also be rendered "throat."
2:6 Imagery for bottoms of the mountains was provided by Israel's own Mount Carmel, whose base extends into the Mediterranean Sea, ending in unseen depths below. As the earth (or corruption, lit "pit") permanently imprisons the dead, so Jonah thought the fish's body would trap him, but unexpectedly God was rescuing him. Both "earth" (Hb 'erets) and "pit" could refer here to the underworld (cp. Ezek. 26:20; 32:18).
2:7 Reminiscent of thanksgiving songs in the Psalms (Pss. 18; 30), Jonah tells the story of answered prayer (see also Jonah 2:2).
2:8-9 Jehovah's miraculous deliverance shows that Jehovah exists, unlike pagan idols. What he had vowed refers to a promised gift to God if He should answer prayer (Num. 21:2; 1 Sam. 1:11). A fellowship offering was used to worship God at the completion of a vow (Num. 6:21; 2 Sam. 15:7-8; Prov. 7:14).
2:10 Vomited, an ignoble means of exiting the fish, perhaps symbolizes God's disgust at Jonah's prior disobedience or even his continued bad attitude, which the subsequent narrative unfolds.
3:3 Exceeding great city (lit "a great city to God") may have a double meaning: great in size (where "God," Hb elohim, is used as a superlative for "extremely") and a city "important to God" even though inhabited by Gentiles. Three days' journey could refer to greater Nineveh that included the region around Nineveh proper, including modern Kuyunjik, Khorsabad, and Nimrud with a 60-mile perimeter. More likely, however, it refers to how long it would take to preach throughout Nineveh itself, street corner by street corner.
3:4 Jonah preached only a day's journey of his three-day task (see note at 3:1-3), showing his half-hearted obedience. Forty often refers to a period of testing or judgment in the Bible (Luke 4:2; Heb. 3:9), serving here to give Nineveh time to repent. Overthrown (Hb haphak) has a secondary meaning of "changed," which is not the sense Jonah meant, but ironically that is how the prophecy was fulfilled.
3:5-8 After recounting that Nineveh repented and believed the deity whom Jonah represented (v. 5 uses the impersonal term God, not the personal name Jehovah), the text then explains that this overwhelming response was a result of a royal decree. The king led by example. Sackcloth was worn during times of mourning and repentance, usually while sitting atop ashes (Gen. 37:34; 1 Kings 21:27; Matt. 11:21). Man and beast means even the animals fasted, bellowing miserably to heaven along with the people.
3:9 Who can tell indicates that Jonah had not explicitly stated that judgment against the city could be averted by repentance. The king of Nineveh took a shot in the dark.
3:10 Prophecies of doom are often conditional warnings—if people turn from their wickedness, God will relent (Jer. 18:8-10; see notes at Exod. 32:9-14; Amos 7:3).
4:1-2 The unexpected and overwhelming success of Jonah's preaching resulted in Nineveh's escape from calamity. However, this brought emotional calamity to the angry and self-pitying prophet, who wished he were dead. Jonah had initially fled from preaching to Nineveh because he feared that God, being excessively gracious and merciful (see Exod. 34:6-7), would find some excuse to forgive these pagan, warlike Gentiles. Now his fears had come true.
4:3 Take . . . my life echoes the words of the prophet Elijah (1 Kings 19:4), who despaired over the failure of his mission, just as Jonah despaired over the success of his.
4:5-8 Another factor behind Jonah's death wish was the blisteringly hot weather and the dry east wind, making him extremely uncomfortable as he sat watching to see what God would do to Nineveh. He was also upset over the withering of a gourd that had sprung up to give him temporary relief from the sun.
4:9-11 God used Jonah's emotional reaction to the death of the gourd as an object lesson to rebuke him for being more concerned about a plant than the destruction of 120,000 people who did not know right from left. This probably does not mean there were 120,000 small children in Nineveh, but rather that the people themselves were immature and uninformed morally and spiritually. God took their immaturity into consideration in His judgment. And also much cattle was a final rebuke. If Jonah could not feel compassion for Gentile people, he should at least feel sorry for the hungry livestock that were bellowing their misery (see 3:7-8). The only evidence we have that Jonah responded positively to the Lord's closing reprimand was that he made this story known.
A relief from the palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh shows Assyrian soldiers subjecting captives to a series of tortures. In spite of the ruthlessness of the Assyrians, God sent His servant Jonah to offer them mercy (4:11).
Jonah Cross-References
a 1:1 2 Kings 14:25
b 1:2 ch. 3:2-3; 4:11; Gen. 10:11-12
cGen. 18:20-21; Ezra 9:6; James 5:4; Rev. 18:5
d 1:3 ch. 4:2
eJosh. 19:46; 2 Chron. 2:16; Acts 9:36
fGen. 4:16; Job 1:12; 2:7
g 1:4 Ps. 107:25
h 1:5 So Acts 27:18-19,38
i1 Sam. 24:3
j 1:6 Ps. 107:28
kJoel 2:14
l 1:7 Josh. 7:14,16; 1 Sam. 10:20-21; 14:41-42; Prov. 16:33; Acts 1:26
a 1:8 Josh. 7:19; 1 Sam. 14:43
b 1:9 Ps. 146:6; Acts 17:24
c 1:12 John 11:50
d 1:13 Prov. 21:30
e 1:14 Deut. 21:8
fPs. 115:3
g 1:15 Ps. 89:9; Luke 8:24
h 1:16 Mark 4:41; Acts 5:11
i 1:17 Matt. 12:40; 16:4; Luke 11:30
j 2:2 Ps. 120:1; 130; 142:1; Lam. 3:55-56
kPs. 65:2
l 2:3 Ps. 88:6
mPs. 42:7
n 2:4 Ps. 31:22
o1 Kings 8:38
p 2:5 Ps. 69:1; Lam. 3:54
a 2:6 Ps. 16:10
b 2:7 Ps. 18:6
c 2:8 2 Kings 17:15; Ps. 31:6; Jer. 10:8; 16:19
d 2:9 Ps. 50:14,23; 116:17-18; Hos. 14:2; Heb. 13:15
ePs. 3:8
f 3:4 See Deut. 18:22
g 3:5 Matt. 12:41; Luke 11:32
h 3:6 Job 2:8
i 3:7 2 Chron. 20:3; Joel 2:15
j 3:8 Isa. 58:6
kIsa. 59:6
l 3:9 2 Sam. 12:22; Joel 2:14
m 3:10 Jer. 18:8; Amos 7:3,6
n 4:2 ch. 1:3
oExod. 34:6; Ps. 86:5; Joel 2:13
p 4:3 1 Kings 19:4
a 4:3 ver. 8
b 4:8 ver. 3
c 4:11 ch. 1:2; 3:2-3
dDeut. 1:39
ePs. 36:6; 145:9