Prophet · OT
Jonah
A reluctant prophet who fled God's call, was swallowed by a great fish, and preached repentance to Nineveh.
Jonah, son of Amittai, prophesied during the reign of Jeroboam II of Israel (2 Kings 14:25), in the early eighth century BC. Commanded to preach against Nineveh — the capital of cruel and rising Assyria — he instead boarded a ship for Tarshish in the opposite direction. A storm, a confession, and a great fish redirected him.
From the belly of the fish he prayed one of scripture's most musical psalms (Jonah 2). Vomited onto dry land, he walked into Nineveh with a five-word sermon — 'Yet forty days, and Nineveh will be overthrown' (Jonah 3:4) — and the entire city, from king to cattle, repented. Jonah, alone, was furious. The book ends with him sulking under a withered vine while God asks him whether he should not pity the hundred and twenty thousand 'who can't discern between their right hand and their left.'
Jesus invoked the sign of Jonah twice (Matthew 12:39-41; 16:4), comparing his three days in the heart of the earth to the prophet's three days in the fish.
Key moments
Flees to Tarshish
Boards a ship to escape the call to Nineveh (Jonah 1:3).
Swallowed by the fish
Three days and nights in its belly (Jonah 1:17).
Five-word sermon
Nineveh — king, people, and animals — repents (Jonah 3).
Angry under the gourd
God rebukes his lack of pity (Jonah 4).
Key verses
"But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of Jehovah; and he went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of Jehovah."
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"Then Jonah prayed unto Jehovah his God out of the fish’s belly."
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"And the people of Nineveh believed God; and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them."
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"And he prayed unto Jehovah, and said, I pray thee, O Jehovah, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I hasted to flee unto Tarshish; for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness, and repentest thee of the evil."
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"and should not I have regard for Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?"
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Frequently asked
Did Jonah really get swallowed by a fish?
The book presents it as historical, and Jesus refers to it as a real event and a sign of his own death and resurrection (Matthew 12:39-41). Most evangelical interpreters take it historically; others read it as a prophetic parable. In either case, Jesus' use anchors it as authoritative scripture.
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