Jonah 1:1

In this little book, Jonah is never called a "prophet." The Holy Spirit uses the writer of 2 Kings to give him that title. What does the word "prophet" mean in Scripture? Perhaps we will find God's own definition by comparing Exodus 4:16 and 7:1. In the first Scripture God says of Aaron, "He shall be your spokesman to the people"; and in the second, God says, "Aaron your brother shall be your prophet." Perhaps this gives us the clearest definition of a prophet according to the Word of God: he is God's "spokesman to the people." Very often God speaks of judgment or blessing to come, and then the spokesman speaks of what will happen in the future. But his first duty is to be God's spokesman.

Jonah was born in Gath-hepher, in the northern part of Palestine. He probably lived at the same time as Elisha, or followed him soon after. We learn this from 2 Kings 14:25-27. It tells us that Israel won back its coastlands from the Syrians, just as Jonah had predicted earlier. That fact, and the character and contents of the book itself, let us date this prophecy very early indeed. It is a prophecy of judgment on proud and haughty Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian kingdom and the ruling city of the earth. It is perhaps the earliest prophetical book we have.

People say the name "Jonah" means "a dove." A dove is the symbol of peace, and the book is in reality an offer of peace from the Lord Himself… They also say the name "Amittai" (Jonah's father) means "Truth." Could it be that in these two names we have the same precious message as John 1:17, "grace and truth came through Jesus Christ"? Truth is the light that shows our sins. Grace provides the means to cover our sins.

What makes this book unusual is that it does not contain a single prophecy. There is the message to Nineveh — if that can be called a prophecy — but beyond this we have no record of what God used Jonah to communicate… When we examine the book, we discover that its teaching lies in Jonah's own history. Or rather, it lies in how he behaved when the Lord sent him to go and cry against Nineveh, because its wickedness had come up before Him. The book therefore has, we might say, a parable-like character.

Jonah himself might have been strongly Jewish in his feeling. Still, God used him for a final Old Testament testimony to the Gentiles. Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian kingdom, was the great power of the world at that time… The whole history of Jonah is a sign. It is not simply what he said but what he did, and the ways of God with him.

In Jonah 3 we come to another point. The word of the Lord comes to Jonah again. How persistent is His goodness, and how useless for His servant to think of escaping!