Who was Jonah in the Bible?
Jonah is one of the few people in the Old Testament whose whole story is about running away from God, and he is the only prophet Jesus later pointed to as a sign of His own death and resurrection. Everything we know about him comes from the short book that carries his name, plus one line in the history books — yet that little book raises the biggest question of all: will God show mercy to people outside Israel?
A Real Man With a Real Address
Jonah was not a legend. Writers point to a record outside his own book that fixes him in history.
Arend RemmersThe prophet Jonah (meaning "a dove") is already mentioned in 2 Kings 14:25. He was the son of Amittai and was from 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.
A Prophetic Book Without a Prophecy
Read the other prophets and you get sermons. Read Jonah and you get a biography.
Edward DennettThe book of the prophet Jonah stands alone. Its peculiarity is that it does not contain a single prophecy... its instruction lies in Jonah's personal history, or rather in his conduct, when commissioned by the Lord to go and cry against Nineveh, because its wickedness had come up before Him.
The Prophet Who Went the Wrong Direction
Told to go to Nineveh, the great city of Assyria in the east, Jonah booked passage west. Commentators refuse to treat this as strange behaviour for a holy man.
William KellyTo some this seems unaccountable in a prophet; to the rationalist it is incredible, and casts doubt on the historical character of the entire book. But we have to learn that flesh is no better in a prophet than in ourselves. For the real difference between men is not that the flesh of some is better than that of others, but that some have learned to distrust themselves altogether, and to live another life which is by faith, not by flesh.
The Turning Point Inside the Fish
Jonah's prayer from inside the great fish runs through his own affliction, his own vows, his own thanksgiving. Then something else escapes his lips.
W. T. TurpinWhen you come to the last part of this verse, you find this escapes his lips: "Salvation belongs to the LORD." He has given up himself now, and he is delivered. God spoke to the fish, and Jonah is vomited out on dry ground.
Eight Words That Emptied a Throne
His whole recorded sermon is one sentence long, and the response began where you would least expect it.
W. T. P. WolstonThere never was a sermon in the world's history that produced such an effect as Jonah's eight words. The whole people of Nineveh, from the king and his nobles downward, repented. The Book of Jonah tells us they "believed God," and the Lord Jesus Christ tells us in the New Testament that they "repented."
Furious That God Forgave
The story does not end with success. Jonah sulked outside the spared city, and God taught him with a plant that grew and died overnight.
William KellyThis even now Jonah resented (Jonah 4), and he wished to die rather than have his word fail and Nineveh survive... Then the LORD said, "You pity the plant... and should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left?" Yes, He is the God of all grace, the God not of Jews only but of Gentiles also.
Jonah as a Picture of His Own Nation
Several writers read Jonah's private failure as a portrait of Israel's public one — sent to make God known to the nations, and unwilling to go.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinJonah is a type of the Jewish Nation. In the Jewish synagogue ritual the book of Jonah is read on the Day of Atonement. The writer is indebted to an old orthodox Jew for the information why this story is read on their great day of fasting and prayer. He said, "We are the Jonah." Like Jonah, the nation was called to bear witness to the Gentiles.
The Sign of Jonah
Jesus refused to give His critics a miracle on demand and offered them Jonah instead. One writer notes that the Lord uses the comparison in two directions.
J. G. BellettOur blessed Lord has claimed His likeness to Jonah also, saying, "For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." He thus found His type in our prophet, as the one who died and was buried, and rose again the third day. But He dwells much more on Jonah being a sign to others than on his being a type of Himself.
That comparison always ends the same way — with Jonah outranked.
J. T. MawsonNo prophet in the world's history had ever descended to such depths as Jonah, nor been raised to such heights of success as he had. But a greater than Jonah is here.
Summary
- Sent — Jonah, son of Amittai, from Gath-hepher, a real prophet of Israel named in 2 Kings 14:25, was commissioned to cry against Nineveh.
- Sunk — He ran the opposite way, and commentators refuse to excuse it: a prophet's flesh is no better than anyone else's.
- Saved — In the depths he stopped pleading his own prayers and vows and said, "Salvation belongs to the LORD" — and deliverance followed at once.
- Spared — One eight-word sermon brought a whole city, king included, to repentance, and God did not destroy it.
- Surpassed — Jonah resented the mercy he preached; Christ, "a greater than Jonah," went into the depths willingly and rose to give that mercy to the world.