When was Jonah written?

Jonah (dove). It was probably because of the Gentile mission to which Jonah was separated, and which he so disliked, that the ecclesiastical leaders of Judah conveniently forgot that a prophet had arisen out of Galilee (John 7:52). Jonah was born in Gath-hepher, in the northern part of Palestine, and was probably a contemporary of Elisha, or at least immediately succeeded him. This piece of information we glean from 2 Kings 14:25-27, where we are told that the enlargement of Israel's sea coasts wrested from the Syrians was according to a previous prediction by Jonah. This consideration, as also the internal character and contents of the book itself, warrant us in assigning a very early date indeed to this prophecy of judgment upon proud and haughty Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian kingdom and the mistress of the earth. It is perhaps the earliest prophetical book we have.

The personal history of the prophet occupies the larger portion of the book, while the remainder affords a highly instructive narrative of the Lord's governmental ways with nations as exemplified in the threatened judgment at Nineveh, its repentance, and the suspension of the stroke for a lengthened period. The book was probably written about 826 B.C., and either in Palestine or near Nineveh. Some Jewish writers absurdly suppose Jonah to have been the son of the widow of Sarepta.

Obadiah seems to have his date the least defined by internal marks. What has been employed to prove a late date is invalid, from forgetting that the prophetic vision presents things future as already seen. For present time with a prophet is when a prophecy is accomplished, not when it is given. I believe he was early, not late. Obadiah naturally brings in Jonah, who may have been placed exceptionally as already referred to. Jonah is usually set earlier, but there is a good deal tending to show that his visit to Nineveh was under the reign of Pul (=Vul-lush or Iva-lush of the Assyrian monuments), which would reduce the date by more than a half a century, and place Jonah regularly in the order of time among the prophetic books. Then he has such a very peculiar place of witness that it would not at all have suited this glorious constellation of twelve stars if he had been put at their beginning; it would have seemed to give prominence to what was by the way, so to speak. Hence it appears to me that Jonah is ranged, if not chronologically, at least with moral beauty, exactly in the proper place. Micah was a contemporary of Isaiah; but the less yields to the greater. And so they are classed in the Bible. Nahum, with Nineveh as the object of judgment, naturally precedes Habakkuk, who looks at the Chaldee; and Zephaniah is the last of those lesser lights before the captivity of Babylon.

The prophet Jonah (= a dove) is already mentioned in 2 Kings 14:25. He was the son of Amittai and was of Gath-hepher in Galilee north of Nazareth. In 2 Kings 14 we also read that he was a servant of God and a prophet who had prophesied that the borders of Israel from Hamath in Syria down to the Dead Sea would be restored. This took place during king Jeroboam’s II time of reign (793 – 753 BC). Jonah therefore must have ministered during Jeroboam’s time or shortly before it. He thus was one of the first writing prophets after Joel and next to Hosea and Amos.

Assyria was the mightiest empire of the East at the time of Jonah. The capital of Assyria was the old Nineveh which had already been built by Nimrod together with Rehoboth, Resen and Calah ( Calah is the only town to be called the great city in Scriptures). It is possible that the expression “that great city” in Jonah 1:2 is to be understood in the same way. In this case the three days’ journey in Jonah 3:3 would be of no difficulty.

Just so it appears to me that Jonah in the same way, although personally he might be eminently Jewish in his feeling, nevertheless was used of God for a final Old Testament testimony to the Gentiles. Nineveh, the capital of the then Assyrian kingdom, was at that time the great power of the world. It was before the days when Babylon aspired to supreme empire, and was permitted to acquire it; for Babylon was of itself a most ancient city probably before Nineveh; but it was not allowed to rise up into supremacy until the complete trial of Israel, and the proved failure even of Judah and David's house. Jonah was an early prophet. He lived in or before the days of Jeroboam II. I believe that modern speculation has put him a hundred years perhaps too late. However, this is a small matter. The grand point is the bearing of his prophecy. There is another difference too that is worthy of note in Jonah, and that is, that the book differs from others of the minor prophets by being for the most part prophecy in fact and not so much in word. 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; and this it will be my business to endeavour to expound.

We may hope that Jonah humbled himself ere being used by the Spirit to write his own history — a history which shows what the heart of even a servant of God was, and the means employed by God to teach him. Jonah is once spoken of elsewhere as having prophesied of events which came to pass in the days of Jeroboam 2. This places Jonah as one of the earliest of the Minor Prophets. 2 Kings 14:25. He is called JONAS in the N.T. where a contrast is drawn between the Ninevites repenting at the preaching of Jonah, and the Jews not repenting though a greater than Jonah was then among them. Allusion is also made to Jonah being in the fish's belly as a type of the Lord's burial 'in the heart of the earth.' Matt. 12:39-41; Matt. 16:4; Luke 11:29-32.

As to its authorship, who else could have written it but the man who had been converted by the experiences recorded in it? That he was an historical character and a prophet of God our Lord quietly asserts, giving at the same time all the august weight of His word to the two most extraordinary happenings recorded in the book.

As to Jonah himself, we know his father's name, his home, his profession, his success therein, and the times when he lived.

The son of Amittai, living in Gath-hepher, a town of Galilee, was a successful prophet known and undoubtedly honoured by his contemporaries in Israel. He prophesied in the reign of Jeroboam II., who reigned roughly seven centuries before Christ, when Isaiah and Micah and Amos were living.

Hamath, at the extreme N.W. of Palestine, had been allied with Judah, and the Kingdom of Israel accordingly suffered; but Jonah prophesied that God would restore the full border to it again, and Jeroboam II., an able but idolatrous king, won it back and raised the Kingdom of Israel to its height, yet fifty years later it fell away into the Captivity to Assyria, owing to its idolatry and rebellion against God. But this fixes, approximately, the date of Jonah's story.

Apart from the inspiration of the Spirit of God, the very existence of the Book of Jonah is difficult to understand. That a highly conservative people, who were accustomed to look down with contempt upon the uncircumcised, should admit such a book as Jonah's into the Sacred Canon is proof that it was given by God. However distasteful its contents might be to their prejudiced minds. Israel regarded the book as divinely authoritative.

No one could have written the Book of Jonah but the prophet whose name it bears. Another might conceivably have told of his mission to Nineveh and its amazing results; but who but himself could have told of his conversation aboard ship, or who could have given the very words of his prayer to Jehovah in the fish's belly, and of his peevish complaints afterwards, and the gracious remonstrances of God with him? In some later period in his life, when he had learned his lesson, Jonah was guided by the Holy Spirit to write his most interesting story, which reflects the deepest discredit upon the prophet himself, while containing the most wholesome instruction for all who seek to witness for God in any age. Surely no more frank confession of grievous faults was ever published!

Everyone shines brightly in the book of Jonah but the writer. The heathen mariners were reluctant to deliver him up to death (Israel's leaders had no such scruples concerning the Lord Jesus) and they turned with sacrifices to the one true God when the storm so abruptly ceased. The King of Nineveh, with his nobles and people, trembled at the word of God, and humbled themselves before Him, thus averting the threatened judgement. The fish was obedient to its Creator, for when Jehovah spake to it, "It vomited out Jonah upon the dry land" (Jonah 2:10).

The brief record of the reign of Jeroboam II concludes this chapter. The Prophet Jonah, the son of Amittai is here mentioned. This same Jonah made later the experience which the book of Jonah relates and to which our Lord refers as a historic fact. Hosea and Amos also prophesied at that time in Israel.

The question as to the reality of the person of Jonah is answered by 2 Kings 14:25. In this passage we find him mentioned as the prophet who prophesied during the reign of Jeroboam II. His name means "dove," and his father's name Amittai means "the truth of the Lord." He was from "Gath-Hepher"--the winepress of the well is the meaning of these two words. Thus Jonah also belongs to the earlier prophets and the book bearing his name, written by himself, occupies the right place in the Old Testament. A Jewish tradition states that Jonah was the son of the widow at Zarephath, whom Elijah raised to life; but this is only an invention with no evidence whatever.