Minor Prophets · Old Testament
Jonah
c. 760 BC
- Section
- Minor Prophets · Old Testament
- Events span
- c. 760 BC
- Written
- c. 760 BC
- Author
- Jonah son of Amittai
Jonah, a prophet of Israel, is sent to preach to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, but flees the other way. Swallowed by a great fish and delivered, he finally warns the city, then resents God for sparing it when it repents.
Historical setting: During the northern kingdom's era, with the prophet sent to Nineveh, the great city of rising Assyria.
Chronological placement: Dated to the reign of Jeroboam II (c. 760 BC), when 2 Kings 14:25 places Jonah's ministry, early among the writing prophets.
Key themes
- God's mercy to outsiders
- Running from God
- Repentance
- God's sovereignty over nature
- Compassion versus resentment
Key events
- God commands Jonah to preach against Nineveh, but he boards a ship for Tarshish to flee the LORD
- A violent storm rises; the sailors cast lots, and at his word throw Jonah overboard, and the sea grows calm
- A great fish swallows Jonah, and he stays inside it three days and three nights
- From inside the fish Jonah prays a psalm of thanksgiving, and the fish vomits him onto dry land
- "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown" — Jonah finally delivers his warning to the city
- The king and all Nineveh repent in sackcloth, and God relents from the destruction he had threatened
- Angry that God spared the city, Jonah sulks outside it and wishes to die
- God appoints a plant, a worm, and a scorching wind to teach Jonah about his compassion for Nineveh
Key lessons
- No one can outrun God; Jonah flees “from the presence of the LORD” and finds him waiting in the storm and the sea. Jonah 1:3
- God’s compassion is not Israel’s private possession: he spares repentant Nineveh, a brutal enemy, and calls that mercy good. Jonah 3:10
- The book ends with God’s question to a sulking prophet, holding up a mirror to anyone who wants grace for themselves but resents it for those they despise. Jonah 4:10–11
“Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.”
Critical scholarship view
Where mainstream critical scholarship dates or attributes this book differently from the traditional view above.
- Written
- c. 5th–4th century BC (post-exilic)
- Author
- An anonymous post-exilic author