Jonah and the big fish

The book of Jonah is one of the twelve short prophetic books near the end of the Old Testament, and the only one that is mostly a story about the prophet. In four chapters it tells of a prophet who runs from God’s call, a storm and a great fish, a city that turns from violence, and a God whose mercy reaches further than the prophet wants.

The story in brief

God told Jonah son of Amittai, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city” (Jonah 1:2), and speak against its wickedness. Jonah boarded a ship for Tarshish, the opposite direction. God sent a great wind, and the sailors cried to their gods while Jonah slept in the hold. Jonah told the sailors he worshiped “the LORD, the God of heaven, who has made the sea and the dry land” (Jonah 1:9) and asked them to throw him overboard. They rowed hard for land, then prayed to the LORD and threw him in, and the sea grew calm.

“The LORD prepared a huge fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights” (Jonah 1:17). From inside the fish Jonah prayed a psalm of thanks, and God spoke to the fish, which put him out on dry land.

God’s word came to Jonah a second time, and this time he went. His whole sermon was five words in Hebrew: “In forty days, Nineveh will be overthrown!” (Jonah 3:4). The people fasted, from the king down to the cattle, and turned from their violence, and God relented. Jonah was furious, and he told God why he had fled.

I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and you relent of doing harm.

Jonah 4:2

God made a vine grow to shade Jonah, then sent a worm to wither it, and Jonah grieved for the plant. The book ends with God’s question about the city’s “more than one hundred twenty thousand persons … and also many animals” (Jonah 4:11).

The setting and background

The prophet Jonah son of Amittai appears in 2 Kings 14:25, in the eighth century BCE. Nineveh, on the Tigris River near modern Mosul in Iraq, later became the capital of Assyria, the empire that conquered the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BCE. Tarshish was a port far to the west, as far from Nineveh as a ship could go.

The storyteller makes Jonah go down again and again: down to Joppa, down into the ship, down into its hold, and in his prayer down to “the bottoms of the mountains” (Jonah 2:6).

Jewish congregations read the whole book on the afternoon of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, as a model of repentance and a reminder of God’s mercy.

What the story means

Jonah is a story about the reach of God’s mercy. Jonah’s complaint in chapter 4 repeats the words Israel used again and again for God’s character: “a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness” (Exodus 34:6). Valerie Bridgeman calls the book a commentary on that creed. Jonah believes it, and he is angry that it covers his enemies.

God keeps coming after the runaway prophet through the storm, the fish, a second call, and a gentle question. The psalmist asks, “Where could I flee from your presence?” (Psalm 139:7), and Jonah’s story answers.

The book ends with God’s question unanswered, so every reader has to answer it. Jesus called his own death and resurrection “the sign of Jonah the prophet” (Matthew 12:39–40).

How the early church read it

The first Christians loved Jonah as a picture of resurrection. The Visual Commentary on Scripture notes that in the Roman catacombs and on early Christian stone coffins, Jonah appears more often than any other figure except the Good Shepherd: thrown to the sea monster, cast up on the shore, and resting under his vine, a hope of rising and rest for the dead.

Ordinary worshipers knew the book well. In 403, Augustine told Jerome that a congregation in Oea, in North Africa, broke into an uproar when their bishop read Jerome’s new Latin Jonah, which called Jonah’s gourd an ivy, and the bishop had to change it. In the Orthodox churches, Jonah’s prayer from the fish is still sung as the sixth of the nine biblical odes on which the canon at morning prayer is built.

What modern scholars notice

Many scholars read Jonah as a short story with a teaching purpose. Henry Sun calls it a novella, and Bridgeman notes that the Hebrew word for great, used again and again for the city, the wind, and the fish, marks it as a folktale or satire. Its Hebrew points to a time after the exile, though the date is debated. Its humor is gentle: the shortest sermon in the prophets wins the greatest response, and the prophet sulks over a plant.

Questions for reflection or discussion

1. Who or where is your Nineveh, the place you would rather not be sent?
2. Why do you think the sailors and the people of Nineveh turn to God faster than Jonah does?
3. Jonah prays from inside the fish. When have you prayed from a dark or narrow place?
4. When is God’s mercy toward someone else hard for you to accept?
5. The book ends with God’s question. How would you answer it?

A prayer

Gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness, you follow us when we run and hear us from the depths. Give us hearts as wide as your mercy, and send us gladly wherever you will. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

For kids

God said to Jonah, “Go to the big city of Nineveh. Tell the people to stop being cruel.” Jonah did not want to go. So he got on a ship going the other way!

God sent a big wind. The ship rocked. The sailors were scared. And Jonah was fast asleep!

The sailors woke him up. Jonah said, “This storm is because of me. I ran away from God. Throw me into the sea.” The sailors did not want to. They rowed hard. At last they put Jonah into the sea. Right away, the sea was calm.

Then God sent a big fish. Gulp! The fish swallowed Jonah. For three days and three nights, Jonah was inside the fish. And there he prayed. “God, you heard me! Thank you!”

God told the fish to spit Jonah out. Splat! Jonah landed on the beach.

God said again, “Go to Nineveh.” This time Jonah went. The people listened. They said, “We are sorry,” and they changed their ways. God forgave them.

Jonah was grumpy. He wanted something bad to happen to Nineveh. God said, “I care about all those people. I care about their animals too. Shouldn’t I love them?”

The story of Jonah shows that God loves everyone. When we run away, God comes after us. God gives second chances to Jonah, to Nineveh, and to you.