Jonah

Jonah (Heb. Yonah, “dove”) is the son of Amittai and a prophet of the northern kingdom in the first half of the eighth century BC. 2 Kings 14.25 names him as the prophet who foretold Jeroboam II’s recovery of the borders of Israel — a real historical figure of Galilean origin, from Gath-hepher near Nazareth, ministering perhaps around 780 BC. The book that bears his name records a single mission: the LORD sends him to preach to Nineveh, capital of the Assyrian empire that would later destroy Israel itself. Jonah refuses, takes ship at Joppa for Tarshish (likely western Spain), and is hurled overboard in a storm to be swallowed by a great fish prepared by the LORD. From the belly of the fish he prays, is delivered after three days and three nights, and at the second call walks the streets of Nineveh with a single sentence: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown” (Jon.3.4). To his own dismay the king and the people repent in sackcloth and ashes, and God relents. The book closes with Jonah sulking under a withered gourd and the LORD asking whether he should not have pity on more than 120,000 souls who do not know their right hand from their left. Jesus treats Jonah as a real prophet and his three days in the fish as a sign of his own resurrection (Mat.12.39–41).