Jonah

1Chapter

Jonah’s Flight

1The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2“Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because their evil has come up before me.” 3Jonah got up to flee to Tarshish from the Lord’s presence. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. He paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the Lord’s presence.
4But the Lord threw a great wind onto the sea, and such a great storm arose on the sea that the ship threatened to break apart. 5The sailors were afraid, and each cried out to his god. They threw the ship’s cargo into the sea to lighten the load. Meanwhile, Jonah had gone down to the lowest part of the vessel and had stretched out and fallen into a deep sleep.
6The captain approached him and said, “What are you doing sound asleep? Get up! Call to your god. Maybe this god will consider us, and we won’t perish.”
7“Come on!” the sailors said to each other. “Let’s cast lots. Then we’ll know who is to blame for this trouble we’re in.” So they cast lots, and the lot singled out Jonah. 8Then they said to him, “Tell us who is to blame for this trouble we’re in. What is your business, and where are you from? What is your country, and what people are you from?”
9He answered them, “I’m a Hebrew. I worship the Lord, the God of the heavens, who made the sea and the dry land.”
10Then the men were seized by a great fear and said to him, “What have you done?” The men knew he was fleeing from the Lord’s presence because he had told them. 11So they said to him, “What should we do to you so that the sea will calm down for us?” For the sea was getting worse and worse.
12He answered them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea so that it will calm down for you, for I know that I’m to blame for this great storm that is against you.” 13Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they couldn’t because the sea was raging against them more and more.
14So they called out to the Lord, “Please, Lord, don’t let us perish because of this man’s life, and don’t charge us with innocent blood! For you, Lord, have done just as you pleased.” 15Then they picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea, and the sea stopped its raging. 16The men were seized by great fear of the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.
17The Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
2Chapter

Jonah’s Prayer

1Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish:
2I called to the Lord in my distress, and he answered me. I cried out for help from deep inside Sheol; you heard my voice. 3When you threw me into the depths, into the heart of the seas, the current overcame me. All your breakers and your billows swept over me. 4And I said, “I have been banished from your sight, yet I will look once more toward your holy temple.” 5The water engulfed me up to the neck; the watery depths overcame me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. 6I sank to the foundations of the mountains, the earth’s gates shut behind me forever! Then you raised my life from the Pit, Lord my God! 7As my life was fading away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you, to your holy temple. 8Those who cherish worthless idols abandon their faithful love, 9but as for me, I will sacrifice to you with a voice of thanksgiving. I will fulfill what I have vowed. Salvation belongs to the Lord.
10Then the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
3Chapter

Jonah’s Preaching

1The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 2“Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach the message that I tell you.” 3Jonah got up and went to Nineveh according to the Lord’s command. Now Nineveh was an extremely great city, a three-day walk. 4Jonah set out on the first day of his walk in the city and proclaimed, “In forty days Nineveh will be demolished!” 5Then the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and dressed in sackcloth—from the greatest of them to the least.
6When word reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7Then he issued a decree in Nineveh: By order of the king and his nobles: No person or animal, herd or flock, is to taste anything at all. They must not eat or drink water. 8Furthermore, both people and animals must be covered with sackcloth, and everyone must call out earnestly to God. Each must turn from his evil ways and from his wrongdoing. 9Who knows? God may turn and relent; he may turn from his burning anger so that we will not perish.
10God saw their actions—that they had turned from their evil ways —so God relented from the disaster he had threatened them with. And he did not do it.
4Chapter

Jonah’s Anger

1Jonah was greatly displeased and became furious. 2He prayed to the Lord, “Please, Lord, isn’t this what I said while I was still in my own country? That’s why I fled toward Tarshish in the first place. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and one who relents from sending disaster. 3And now, Lord, take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
4The Lord asked, “Is it right for you to be angry?”
5Jonah left the city and found a place east of it. He made himself a shelter there and sat in its shade to see what would happen to the city. 6Then the Lord God appointed a plant, and it grew over Jonah to provide shade for his head to rescue him from his trouble. Jonah was greatly pleased with the plant. 7When dawn came the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, and it withered.
8As the sun was rising, God appointed a scorching east wind. The sun beat down on Jonah’s head so much that he almost fainted, and he wanted to die. He said, “It’s better for me to die than to live.”
9Then God asked Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?” “Yes, it’s right!” he replied. “I’m angry enough to die!”
10And the Lord said, “You cared about the plant, which you did not labor over and did not grow. It appeared in a night and perished in a night. 11So may I not care about the great city of Nineveh, which has more than a hundred twenty thousand people who cannot distinguish between their right and their left, as well as many animals?”
Study
Chapter 2
CSB

Was Jonah Really Swallowed by a Big Fish?

Is the story of Jonah being swallowed by a big fish real history or just a fish story? Jonah is often treated like a story so full of exaggeration and imagination that you can’t tell how much truth is left in it. The people who see Jonah like this think the story is an allegory, parable, or a story that was used to illustrate a biblical truth.

However, the reason these people reject Jonah as real history isn’t because the book appears to be allegory, parable, or commentary. The reason is that they don’t believe miracles can happen. They reject all supernatural claims. So when they note the fact that surviving three days after being swallowed by a fish isn’t something that can naturally happen, they feel justified in thinking Jonah is a made up story.

The first problem with this is that miracles are not common things, so we shouldn’t expect to find too many other people (if any) surviving being fish food. And just because something happens rarely or only once in history is no reason to reject that it ever happened. After all, how many times was Abraham Lincoln assassinated? Exactly as many times as we know of people being swallowed by a fish and surviving!

Another problem with rejecting Jonah as history is that 2 Kings 14:25, which is clearly a history book, mentions Jonah as a prophet who really existed. Since there are no reasons to think 2 Kings mixes real history with characters from fanciful tales, we have good reason to think Jonah was a real person.

The best reason for thinking Jonah really was swallowed by a big fish is because Jesus believed it was true. In fact, Matthew 12:39-41 shows that Jesus used Jonah’s entombment in the fish as a way of verifying his own authority and teaching. “For as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights” (v. 40). If Jesus’s genuine bodily resurrection is to be understood in light of Jonah, then Jonah’s experience must have also been genuinely historical. If Jonah’s story is not real history then Jesus’s reference to it makes no sense. Of course, those who reject Jonah as real history also reject the bodily resurrection of Jesus for the same anti-supernatural reasons. But the evidence for Jesus’s bodily resurrection powerfully supports it as real history. So for Jesus’s parallel to work, Jonah’s experience must also be real history.

Also, Jesus says that the men of Nineveh, who repented at Jonah’s message, will stand up and judge the current generation for not repenting at Jesus’s proclamation (Lk 11:32). This is an empty threat unless the people of Nineveh did in fact repent. Here again, the nonhistorical view falls apart.

So, we have good reasons to accept Jonah being swallowed by a big fish as real history. And we have good reasons to see the rejection of Jonah as actual history as the real fish story.

ESV

Finally, Jonah prayed. He did not pray for God to save the pagan sailors, but he did thank God for saving him.

ESV

Jonah’s prayer is not a request to be saved from the fish but is thanksgiving for being saved by the fish. Verse 2 summarizes the prayer: Jonah called for help and God answered. Verses 3–6a expand on Jonah’s call for help; vv. 6b–10 expand on God’s answer.

ESV

Sheol refers to the realm of the dead, which one would enter by going through a gate made of “bars” (see v. 6 and Job 17:16; 38:17; Ps. 9:13). Jonah did not literally pray from Sheol but describes his near-death experience (see Ps. 30:2–3).

ESV

you cast me. Though it was the sailors who had hurled Jonah into the sea (1:15), he knows that God was working sovereignly through them, and so he can say that God cast him into the sea. Look upon, or “look toward,” refers to the ancient practice of praying toward the temple (see 2:7; 1 Kings 8:30, 35, 38, 42; Dan. 6:10).

ESV

I went down (see notes on 1:3; 1:4–5). Jonah’s descent to death is almost complete as he reaches the roots of the mountains at the bottom of the seas, where the gates of Sheol are located. Since the bars refer to the gates of Sheol (see note on 2:2), the land refers to the realm of the dead (see Ps. 63:9; Ezek. 26:20; 32:18, 24), as does pit (see Job 33:22–24; Ps. 49:9; 103:4). you brought. Jonah had done nothing to deserve being rescued; his salvation was by grace alone.

ESV

Those who pay regard to vain idols refers to the pagan sailors, who prayed each to his own god (1:5), but it is also a message to Jonah’s idolatrous fellow Israelites. Ironically, these sailors ended up experiencing God’s steadfast love, while Jonah ended up in the sea. Sacrifice … vowed recalls the actions of the sailors (1:16), whom Jonah is now like. Salvation belongs to the LORD is Jonah’s confession that God is the sovereign source of salvation, though the rest of the story will show that Jonah believes God is free to save any, as long as they are “us” and not “them” (see 4:1–4).

ESV

Vomited can express disgust (Job 20:15; Prov. 23:8; 25:16), and some interpreters see here an indication that God was still displeased with the hostility toward the Ninevites that was still in Jonah’s heart (as revealed in Jonah 4), in spite of the obvious gratitude of his prayer. Nevertheless, the fish’s action brought deliverance to Jonah, an indication of God’s favor.