One of the greatest prophets during the time of Jeroboam II was Jonah the son of Amitai, who, as a prophet disciple, had anointed Jehu and who, therefore, enjoyed the king's benevolence. Once G‑d commanded Jonah to go to Nineveh, one of the largest cities of that time and foretell its destruction, because the evil of its inhabitants had reached the limit. The mission, however, was not to Jonah's liking. Nineveh was a bitter enemy of Israel, and Jonah would have liked to see its destruction. If he should succeed in his mission and Nineveh would be spared, it would remain a constant threat to Israel. Jonah therefore decided to seek escape. He boarded a ship that sailed for Tarshish, hoping to forget about his mission. Once the prophet was on the high seas, G‑d caused a storm to break that threatened to tear the ship asunder. The sailors were frightened and each one prayed to his god. Jonah, however, lay down to sleep. The captain of the ship, seeing the sleeping man, went over to him and reprimanded him for sleeping in that fateful hour, instead of praying to G‑d. Meanwhile the sailors drew lots to find out whose fault it was that this misfortune had been brought upon them. The lot fell upon Jonah. When the sailors questioned him as to who he was, whence he had come, and what his business was, he told them that he was a Jew and a servant of G‑d, the Creator of heaven and earth. Then the sailors asked what they should do in order to quiet the raging sea and save their ship with all aboard. Jonah replied that all they had to do was to throw him overboard, and the storm would immediately die down, since it had been caused by his refusal to obey G‑d's command. At first the sailors did not want to do as Jonah asked. But the storm grew fiercer and the end was seemingly unavoidable. Very reluctantly, the sailors threw Jonah into the water and the storm ceased at once.
As soon as Jonah was in the water, G‑d sent a large fish to swallow Jonah alive. Three days and three nights Jonah stayed within the fish. In distress, he prayed to G‑d to save him, and G‑d ordered the fish to eject Jonah and set him on dry land.
Again G‑d ordered Jonah to go to Nineveh to convey the Divine message. This time the prophet traveled to Nineveh to carry out his mission. Upon his arrival in the city, Jonah stepped right into the middle of the busy thoroughfare and announced that the city would perish in forty days. The prophet's solemn warning electrified the city. The residents believed the prophecy and repented. They fasted and wore sackcloth; even the king himself took off his royal robes and put on the garbs of mourning. Everyone in the city honestly and sincerely decided to abandon his evil past. All the people truly tried to mend their ways. Possessions unjustly acquired were returned to their rightful owners, and false judgments were revised. G‑d saw that they were sincere in their repentance and accepted it. Nineveh was saved.
Jonah was displeased at this change of events. He had hoped that the doom of Nineveh, had the inhabitants of that city not repented, would forever rid his people Israel of one of its bitter enemies. He built himself a hut outside the city in which to live the life of a recluse. Jonah was anxious to know what the fate of the city would be. It was a very hot day, and G‑d made a plant grow to give Jonah shade and protect him from the sting of the hot sun. Jonah was overjoyed with the plant. Then G‑d sent a worm that stung the plant and made it wither. When the protection of the plant had been withdrawn, the sun beat mercilessly upon Jonah's head until he became faint, and wished to die. Then the weary prophet heard G‑d's words: "You are sorry for the plant for which you have neither labored, nor made it grow; which came up in one night and perished in the next; shall I not then, spare Nineveh, the great city, wherein more than twelve times ten thousand people live who do not know how to discern between their right and their left hand (i.e. children), and many animals in addition.Book of Jonah, also spelled Jonas, the fifth of 12 Old Testament books that bear the names of the Minor Prophets, embraced in a single book, The Twelve, in the Jewish canon. Unlike other Old Testament prophetic books, Jonah is not a collection of the prophet’s oracles but primarily a narrative about the man.Jonah is portrayed as a recalcitrant prophet who flees from God’s summons to prophesy against the wickedness of the city of Nineveh. According to the opening verse, Jonah is the son of Amittai. This lineage identifies him with the Jonah mentioned in II Kings 14:25 who prophesied during the reign of Jeroboam II, about 785 BC. It is possible that some of the traditional materials taken over by the book were associated with Jonah at an early date, but the book in its present form reflects a much later composition. It was written after the Babylonian Exile (6th century BC), probably in the 5th or 4th century and certainly no later than the 3rd, since Jonah is listed among the Minor Prophets in the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus, composed about 190. Like the Book of Ruth, which was written at about the same period, it opposes the narrow Jewish nationalism characteristic of the period following the reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah with their emphasis on Jewish exclusivity. Thus the prophet Jonah, like the Jews of the day, abhors even the idea of salvation for the Gentiles. God chastises him for his attitude, and the book affirms that God’s mercy extends even to the inhabitants of a hated foreign city. The incident of the great fish, recalling Leviathan, the monster of the deep used elsewhere in the Old Testament as the embodiment of evil, symbolizes the nation’s exile and return.
As the story is related in the Book of Jonah, the prophet Jonah is called by God to go to Nineveh (a great Assyrian city) and prophesy disaster because of the city’s excessive wickedness. Jonah, in the story, feels about Nineveh as does the author of the Book of Nahum—that the city must inevitably fall because of God’s judgment against it. Thus Jonah does not want to prophesy, because Nineveh might repent and thereby be saved. So he rushes down to Joppa and takes passage in a ship that will carry him in the opposite direction, thinking to escape God. A storm of unprecedented severity strikes the ship, and in spite of all that the master and crew can do, it shows signs of breaking up and foundering. Lots are cast, and Jonah confesses that it is his presence on board that is causing the storm. At his request, he is thrown overboard, and the storm subsides.A “great fish,” appointed by God, swallows Jonah, and he stays within the fish’s maw for three days and nights. He prays for deliverance and is “vomited out” on dry land (ch. 2). Again the command is heard, “Arise, go to Nineveh.” Jonah goes to Nineveh and prophesies against the city, causing the King and all the inhabitants to repent.Jonah then becomes angry. Hoping for disaster, he sits outside the city to await its destruction. A plant springs up overnight, providing him welcome shelter from the heat, but it is destroyed by a great worm. Jonah is bitter at the destruction of the plant, but God speaks and thrusts home the final point of the story: “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night, and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?” (ch. 4).
Jonah has been the subject of works by such artists as John Bernard Flannagan and Albert Pinkham Ryder. Chapter nine of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick is a sermon and hymn about Jonah.
