Old Testament

Jonah

Jonah tells of a prophet who ran from God's call to preach to Nineveh, the great city of Assyria, was swallowed by a great fish, was spat out on dry land, preached, and then sulked when Nineveh repented and God relented. Pagan sailors and Assyrians respond to God better than His own prophet, and the book ends with God's unanswered question about His compassion for a city of more than 120,000 people (). It belongs in the Bible because it shows the LORD's mercy reaching Israel's enemies, and because Jesus named 'the sign of the prophet Jonah' as the sign of His own death and resurrection.

Author: The book is about Jonah son of Amittai but does not name its writer and speaks of Jonah in the third person. Jewish tradition and many Christians have linked it to Jonah himself; many scholars think another writer composed it later.
Audience: Israelites who knew Assyria as a cruel enemy and who needed to face God's freedom to show mercy to outsiders, and their own resentment of it.
When: Jonah prophesied under Jeroboam II in the eighth century BC (2 Kings 14:25). Dates proposed for the writing of the book range from that century to after the exile.
Where: Jonah starts in Israel (his home was Gath-hepher, 2 Kings 14:25), flees from Joppa toward Tarshish in the far west, and ends east of Nineveh on the Tigris River, near modern Mosul.
Genre: Unlike other prophetic books, Jonah is almost entirely a story about a prophet, with one psalm-like prayer (2:2-9) and a single five-word message in Hebrew (3:4). It is told with irony, repeated key words and a deliberately open ending. Readers understand its genre in different ways. Many, from the early church onward, read it as historical narrative, pointing to 2 Kings 14:25 and to Jesus' treatment of Jonah and the Ninevites alongside the queen of the South (Matthew 12:41-42); others read it as an inspired parable or teaching story. Both approaches take its message about God's mercy as true and authoritative.

Shape of the book

Flight and Storm · ch 1Jonah runs toward Tarshish, the LORD hurls a storm, the sailors pray and finally fear the LORD, and a great fish swallows the prophet.
A Prayer from the Deep · ch 2From inside the fish Jonah thanks God for rescue from drowning, confesses 'Salvation is from the LORD!' and is spat out on dry land.
Nineveh Repents · ch 3Called a second time, Jonah preaches; king, people and animals fast in sackcloth, and God relents from the disaster He threatened.
The Angry Prophet and God's Question · ch 4Jonah resents God's mercy; a plant, a worm and a scorching wind teach him, and the book ends with God's question about pity for Nineveh.

Themes

God's Mercy to Outsiders. Jonah fled because he knew the LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and ready to relent (, quoting ). The book insists that this character extends to Israel's enemies and even to their cattle ().
The Disobedient Prophet. The prophet runs, sleeps through the storm, condemns idol worshippers while pagans pray, and is angry enough to die over a plant. The outsiders, sailors and Ninevites, respond to God more readily than the insider.
The LORD Who Appoints. God hurls a storm and appoints a fish, a plant, a worm and a wind (, 17; ). He rules sea and land, as Jonah himself confesses (), and uses creation to teach His servant.
Repentance and Relenting. Nineveh's turning brings God's relenting (), showing that warnings of judgment carry an unstated condition, as explains. The king's 'Who knows?' () hopes without presuming.

Where Christ is

Jesus Himself makes Jonah a sign: as Jonah was three days and three nights in the great fish, so the Son of Man would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. He adds that the Ninevites who repented will condemn a generation that rejects One greater than Jonah. The book's concern for a Gentile city also anticipates repentance preached in Jesus' name to all nations.

The Sign of Jonah. Type, named by Jesus. Jonah's descent into the fish and return to land foreshadow Jesus' burial and resurrection. What was rescue from near death for Jonah becomes, in Christ, a real death and a real rising. (; ; ; )
One Greater Than Jonah. Fulfillment and contrast. The men of Nineveh repented at Jonah's preaching, and Jesus says they will rise at the judgment and condemn His generation, because One greater than Jonah is here. Jonah preached reluctantly; Jesus came willingly to call sinners to repentance. (; ; )
Asleep in the Storm. Echo. Jonah sleeps in a storm caused by his disobedience and is thrown overboard to calm it. Jesus sleeps in a storm, then rises and calms the sea by His word, and the disciples, like the sailors, are left in great fear. (; )
Mercy for the Nations. Echo. God's pity for Nineveh points forward to the risen Jesus sending repentance and forgiveness to be preached to all nations, and Jesus' parable of the older brother echoes Jonah's resentment of mercy. (; ; )

Voices

Augustine. Answering pagan mockery of Jonah and the fish, he defended the account as something God could do and stressed that its main meaning is as a sign of Christ's death and resurrection, as Jesus said. More from Augustine at CCEL ↗
Jerome. In his Latin translation he rendered Jonah's plant as ivy instead of the familiar gourd, and Augustine reported to him that the change caused an uproar in a North African congregation. More from Jerome at CCEL ↗

Reading well, key terms and common misreadings

Read it well

Read the book in one sitting; it is a single story with a carefully built ending.
Watch the word 'great': a great city, a great wind, a great storm, a great fish, great fear, and Jonah's great displeasure.
Follow Jonah's downward path in chapter 1: down to Joppa, down into the ship, down into the hold, down into the sea.
Compare 4:2 with Exodus 34:6-7 and Joel 2:13 to see how Jonah turns Israel's creed about God into a complaint.
Notice that the book ends with a question. The reader, beginning with Israel, is left to answer it.

Key terms

Evil, disaster, displeasure רָעָה (ra'ah) — One word with a range of meanings that the book plays on: Nineveh's evil (1:2), the disaster God threatened (3:10), and the 'great evil' Jonah felt when God spared the city (4:1).
Appointed מָנָה (manah) — The verb used for the fish, the plant, the worm and the east wind (1:17; 4:6-8). God directs every detail of the lesson.
Relent נָחַם (nacham) — God changing course from a threatened judgment when people turn (3:9-10; 4:2). It describes His response to repentance, not a lack of foresight.
Loving devotion חֶסֶד (chesed) — Covenant love and kindness. Jonah names it among God's attributes as a complaint (4:2), and condemns idolaters for forsaking it (2:8).

Easy to misread

Making the fish the main subject. It appears in three verses; the book is about God's mercy and His prophet's heart.
Assuming Jonah fled because he was afraid of Nineveh. He says he fled because he knew God would be merciful (4:2).
Concluding that Jonah was a false prophet because Nineveh was not overturned in forty days. Warnings of judgment invite repentance, and when a nation turns, God may relent (Jeremiah 18:7-8).
Treating the historical question as the only question. Readers who hold the book to be history and readers who see a teaching story both need to face its point: whether God's people share His compassion for outsiders.

Further reading: David Guzik, Enduring Word · Matthew Henry on CCEL · BibleProject overview video