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 BC. Jonah predicted the restoration of the northern kingdom’s boundaries. This occurred during the reign of Jeroboam II (ca 793–753 BC). 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 twelve Minor Prophets. All the other books of this collection convey prophecies by genuine, historical prophets.
Third, the miracles in Jonah are not impossible for the God of the Bible. Presuming otherwise, some interpreters allow their antisupernaturalism to drive them to the parable view of Jonah.
Fourth, Jesus in Matthew 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’s statement that “the men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at Jonah’s proclamation” (Mt 12:41; Lk 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.
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’s 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’s burial in the tomb, making Jonah a “type” of Christ.
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 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.
Observe the misconduct of the prophet Jonah. He had a plain command from the Lord, and he knew it to be a command, but he felt that the commission given him would not be pleasant and honoring to himself so he declined to comply with it. We see from his action how some who really know God may act as if they did not know him. Jonah knew that God was everywhere, yet he “got up to flee to Tarshish from the Lord’s presence.” What strange inconsistencies there often are even in good men! Here is one who is favored with a divine commission—one who knows God and fears him—yet, for all that, he ventures on the fool’s errand of endeavoring to escape from the omnipresent One.
1The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because their evil has come up before me.” 3 Jonah got up to flee to Tarshish from the LORD’s presence. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. He paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the LORD’s presence.
QUOTE 1:3-6
Precepts, not providences, are to guide believers.
4 But the LORD threw a great wind onto the sea, and such a great storm arose on the sea that the ship threatened to break apart. 5 The sailors were afraid, and each cried out to his god. They threw the ship’s cargo into the sea to lighten the load. Meanwhile, Jonah had gone down to the lowest part of the vessel and had stretched out and fallen into a deep sleep.
6 The captain approached him and said, “What are you doing sound asleep? Get up! Call to your god. A Maybe this god will consider us, and we won’t perish.”
7 “Come on! ” the sailors said to each other. “Let’s cast lots. Then we’ll know who is to blame for this trouble we’re in.” So they cast lots, and the lot singled out Jonah. 8 Then they said to him, “Tell us who is to blame for this trouble we’re in. What is your business, and where are you from? What is your country, and what people are you from? ”
9 He answered them, “I’m a Hebrew. I worship B the LORD, the God of the heavens, who made the sea and the dry land.”
10 Then the men were seized by a great fear and said to him, “What is this you’ve done? ” The men knew he was fleeing from the LORD’s presence because he had told them. 11 So they said to him, “What should we do to you so that the sea will calm down for us? ” For the sea was getting worse and worse.
12 He answered them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea so that it will calm down for you, for I know that I’m to blame for this great storm that is against you.” 13 Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they couldn’t because the sea was raging against them more and more.
14 So they called out to the LORD: “Please, LORD, don’t let us perish because of this man’s life, and don’t charge us with innocent blood! For you, LORD, have done just as you pleased.” 15 Then they picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea, and the sea stopped its raging. 16 The men were seized by great fear of the LORD, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows.
17 The LORD appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
QUOTE 1:17
Over every motion of the fin of every minnow, predestination presides.
1:3-6 “Jonah got up to flee to Tarshish from the LORD’s presence. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. He paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the LORD’s presence.” Observe the misconduct of the prophet Jonah. He had a plain command from the Lord, and he knew it to be a command, but he felt that the commission given him would not be pleasant and honoring to himself so he declined to comply with it. We see from his action how some who really know God may act as if they did not know him. Jonah knew that God was everywhere, yet he “got up to flee to Tarshish from the Lord’s presence.” What strange inconsistencies there often are even in good men! Here is one who is favored with a divine commission—one who knows God and fears him—yet, for all that, he ventures on the fool’s errand of endeavoring to escape from the omnipresent One.
Learn from this that providence alone is not a sufficient guide for our actions. He may have said, “It was remarkable that a ship was going to Tarshish just when I reached the port. I gather from this that God was not so disinclined for me to go to Tarshish.” Precepts, not providences, are to guide believers. And when Christians quote a providence against a precept—which is to set God against God—they act most strangely. There are devil’s providences as well as divine providences, and there are tempting providences as well as assisting providences, so learn to judge between the one and the other.
1:9 “He answered them, ‘I’m a Hebrew. I worship the LORD, the God of the heavens, who made the sea and the dry land.’” What a blessed occupation it is to fear the Lord! Though Jonah was not properly following his occupation while he was on board that ship, he did not hesitate to assert, “I worship the LORD.” If you test the child of God, even when he gets where he ought not to be, he will stand by his colors. He will confess that he is, after all, a servant of the living God.
1:17 “The LORD appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” God prepared a storm, he prepared a fish, and we afterwards read that he prepared a gourd, and he prepared a worm. In the great things of life and in the little things, God is always present. The swimming of a great fish in the sea is surely not a thing that is subject to law. If there is ever free agency in this world, it must certainly be in the wanderings of such a huge creature that follows its own instincts and plows its way through the great wastes of the wide and open sea. Yet there is a divine predestination concerning all its movements. Over every motion of the fin of every minnow, predestination presides. There is no distinction of little or great in God’s sight. He that wings an angel guides a sparrow.
2Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish:
2I called to the LORD in my distress,
and he answered me.
I cried out for help from deep inside A Sheol;
you heard my voice.
3You threw me into the depths,
into the heart of the seas,
and the current B overcame me.
All your breakers and your billows swept over me.
4But I said, “I have been banished
from your sight,
yet I will look once more C
toward your holy temple.
5The water engulfed me up to the neck; D
the watery depths
overcame me;
seaweed was wrapped around my head.
6I sank to the foundations of the mountains,
the earth’s gates shut behind me forever!
Then you raised my life from the Pit, LORD my God!
7As my life was fading away,
I remembered the LORD,
and my prayer came to you,
to your holy temple.
8Those who
cherish worthless idols
abandon their faithful love,
QUOTE 2:8-9
Most of the grand truths of God have to be learned by trouble. They must be burned into us with the hot iron of affliction; otherwise we will not truly receive them.
9but as for me, I will sacrifice to you
with a voice of thanksgiving.
I will fulfill what I have vowed.
Salvation A belongs to the LORD.”
10 Then the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
2:1 “Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish.” What a strange place for prayer! Surely this is the only prayer that ever went up to God out of a fish’s belly. Jonah found himself alive—that was the surprising thing—and because he was alive, he began to pray. If we live with death so near and in so great peril, and yet do not pray, what is to become of us? This prayer of Jonah is remarkable because it is not a prayer at all in the sense in which we usually apply the word to petition and supplication. It is almost all thanksgiving, and the best prayer in all the world is a prayer that is full of thankfulness. We praise the Lord for what he has done for us, and thus we do, in effect, ask him to perfect the work he has begun. He has delivered us, so we bless his holy name, and by implication we request him to deliver us. Notice that it says here, “Jonah prayed to the LORD his God.” He was a runaway. He had tried to escape from the presence of God, yet the Lord was still his God. God will not lose any of his people—even if, like Jonah, they are in the belly of a fish, Jehovah is still their God.
2:8-9 “Those who cherish worthless idols abandon their faithful love, but as for me, I will sacrifice to you with a voice of thanksgiving. I will fulfill what I have vowed. Salvation belongs to the LORD.’” Jonah learned this sentence of good theology in a strange college. He learned it in the whale’s belly, at the bottom of the mountains, with the weeds wrapped about his head. Most of the grand truths of God have to be learned by trouble. They must be burned into us with the hot iron of affliction; otherwise we will not truly receive them. No man is competent to judge in matters of the kingdom of God until he first has been tried—since there are many things to be learned in the depths that we can never know in the heights. We discover many secrets in the caverns of the ocean, which, though we had soared to heaven, we could never have known. He will best meet the needs of God’s people as a preacher who has had those needs himself. He will best comfort God’s Israel who has needed comfort. And he will best preach salvation who has felt his own need of it. When Jonah was delivered from his great danger, he was then capable of judging. And this was the result of his experience under his trouble: “Salvation belongs to the LORD.”
3The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach the message that I tell you.” 3 Jonah got up and went to Nineveh according to the LORD’s command.
Now Nineveh was an extremely great city, B a three-day walk. 4 Jonah set out on the first day of his walk in the city and proclaimed, “In forty days Nineveh will be demolished! ” 5 Then the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and dressed in sackcloth — from the greatest of them to the least.
6 When word reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, put on sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 Then he issued a decree in Nineveh:
By order of the king and his nobles: No person or animal, herd or flock, is to taste anything at all. They must not eat or drink water. 8 Furthermore, both people and animals must be covered with sackcloth, and everyone must call out earnestly to God. Each must turn from his evil ways and from his wrongdoing. C 9 Who knows? God may turn and relent; he may turn from his burning anger so that we will not perish.
10 God saw their actions — that they had turned from their evil ways — so God relented from the disaster he had threatened them with. And he did not do it.
4Jonah was greatly displeased and became furious. 2 He prayed to the LORD: “Please, LORD, isn’t this what I thought while I was still in my own country? That’s why I fled toward Tarshish in the first place. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and one who relents from sending disaster. 3 And now, LORD, take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
QUOTE 4:1-2
God still has a great many unwise children. You can easily find one if you look in the right place—I mean, in a mirror
4 The LORD asked, “Is it right for you to be angry? ”
5 Jonah left the city and found a place east of it. He made himself a shelter there and sat in its shade to see what would happen to the city. 6 Then the LORD God appointed a plant, and it grew over Jonah to provide shade for his head to rescue him from his trouble. A Jonah was greatly pleased with the plant. 7 When dawn came the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, and it withered.
8 As the sun was rising, God appointed a scorching east wind. The sun beat down on Jonah’s head so much that he almost fainted, and he wanted to die. He said, “It’s better for me to die than to live.”
9 Then God asked Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant? ”
“Yes, it’s right! ” he replied. “I’m angry enough to die! ”
10 So the LORD said, “You cared about the plant, which you did not labor over and did not grow. It appeared in a night and perished in a night. 11 But may I not care about the great city of Nineveh, which has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot distinguish between their right and their left, as well as many animals? ”
4:1-2 “Jonah was greatly displeased and became furious. He prayed to the LORD: ‘Please, LORD, isn’t this what I thought while I was still in my own country? That’s why I fled toward Tarshish in the first place. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and one who relents from sending disaster.’” This was as much as if he had said to the Lord, “I went and did your bidding and told the Ninevites they would be destroyed. But I knew in my heart that if they repented, you would not carry out your threat, and now you are too gracious, too kind to these wicked people.” It is a strange thing, is it not, that Jonah was angry because his message blessed his hearers? Some men quit preaching because they do not succeed. But here was one who was ready to give up because he did succeed!
It is strange that such a good man as Jonah should fall into such a foolish state of mind. But God still has a great many unwise children. You can easily find one if you look in the right place—I mean, in a mirror. We are all foolish at times, and it should be remembered that although Jonah was foolish and wrong in certain respects, there is this redeeming trait in his character—we might never have known the story of his folly if he had not written it himself. It shows what a truehearted man the prophet was, that he unveiled his real character in this book. Biographies of men are seldom truthful because the writers cannot read the hearts of those whom they describe. But if they could read them, they would not like to print what they would see there. But here is a man, inspired of God to write his own biography, and he tells us of this sad piece of folly—and does not attempt in the least degree to mitigate the evil of it.