Jonah 1 (ESV) · OmniBible

1Chapter

Jonah Flees the Presence of the Lord

¹Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, ²“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” ³But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.
⁴But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. ⁵Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his god. And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep. ⁶So the captain came and said to him, “What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your god! Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we may not perish.”

Jonah Is Thrown into the Sea

⁷And they said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. ⁸Then they said to him, “Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?” ⁹And he said to them, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” ¹⁰Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, “What is this that you have done!” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.
¹¹Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?” For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. ¹²He said to them, “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.” ¹³Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. ¹⁴Therefore they called out to the Lord, “O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.” ¹⁵So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. ¹⁶Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.

A Great Fish Swallows Jonah

¹⁷And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

2Chapter

Jonah's Prayer

¹Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, ²“I called out to the Lord, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice.
³For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me.
⁴Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.’
⁵The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about my head
⁶at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever; yet you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God.
⁷When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple.
⁸Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.
⁹But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord!”
¹⁰And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

3Chapter

Jonah Goes to Nineveh

¹Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, ²“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.” ³So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days' journey in breadth. ⁴Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” ⁵And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.

The People of Nineveh Repent

⁶The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. ⁷And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, ⁸but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. ⁹Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.”
¹⁰When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.

4Chapter

Jonah's Anger and the Lord's Compassion

¹But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. ²And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. ³Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” ⁴And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?”
⁵Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city. ⁶Now the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. ⁷But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. ⁸When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” ⁹But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” ¹⁰And the Lord said, “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. ¹¹And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”

Study

Chapter 1

ESV

Jonah’s Grateful Prayer. Jonah’s prayer (2:2b–9) is framed by an introduction (1:17–2:2a) and a conclusion (2:10), both of which mention the “fish.”

ESV

Jonah’s Commissioning and Flight. This episode records Jonah’s call to prophesy and his flight from that call. Two questions drive the plot: (1) What will happen to the Ninevites? and (2) What will happen to Jonah? (See diagram.)

ESV

Jonah prophesied prosperity for Israel during the reign of Jeroboam II (2 Kings 14:23–28). Jonah means “dove,” a symbol for Israel as silly and senseless (Hos. 7:11); Jonah will be true to his name. Son of Amittai means “son of my faithfulness”; Jonah will remain the object of God’s faithful love.

ESV

Nineveh sat on the east bank of the Tigris River about 220 miles (354 km) north of present-day Baghdad and over 500 miles (805 km) northeast of Israel. Great (Hb. gadol) is used 14 times in Jonah. Nineveh was an important (“great”) city (see 3:3). evil. As the esv footnote indicates, the same Hebrew term (Hb. ra‘ah; used 9 times in Jonah [see chart]) can mean “evil” or “disaster.” The Ninevites were evil, and they were in line for disaster.

CSB

It may seem unusual that a prophet of God, called to be his spokesman, would ever presume to run away from the Lord. The story of Jonah shows that the prophet had a good deal to learn about the extent of the Lord’s mercy; his narrow view of that mercy may be a clue to why he thought he could escape God. Perhaps he did not expect his presence to be easily encountered outside the land of Israel. God “made the sea and the dry land” (v. 9), but would he really dwell among people who were outside his covenant with Israel?

ESV

To Tarshish is repeated three times in this verse to underscore that Jonah is not going to Nineveh. Tarshish, an unknown locale associated with distant coastlands, was somewhere in the western Mediterranean—the opposite direction from Nineveh. From the presence of the LORD is repeated at the end of this verse to underscore Jonah’s purpose in going to Tarshish. Went down (twice in this verse; see also v. 5; 2:6) is also a euphemism for death (e.g., Gen. 37:35). The suggestion is that each step away from the presence of the Lord is one step closer to “going down” to death (see notes on Jonah 1:4–5; 2:6).

ESV

Jonah and the Pagan Sailors. This episode highlights Jonah’s encounter with pagan sailors and raises the question, Who fears the Lord—Jonah or the pagans? The key repeated word is “fear”: at the beginning and end the sailors “fear” (vv. 5, 16); in the middle Jonah claims to “fear” the Lord (v. 9) while the sailors actually fear (v. 10a).

ESV

Hurled is used four times in this episode (vv. 4, 5, 12, 15). Just as God hurled the great wind, the sailors hurled the cargo. cried out. The sailors pray, evidently believing that a divine being could come to their aid. had gone down. In contrast to the sailors, Jonah goes down below deck, taking yet another step closer to death (see note on v. 3).

ESV

Arise, call out echoes God’s commission in v. 2. Ironically, the Israelite prophet has to be summoned to prayer by a pagan sailor. not perish. “Perish” is repeated in v. 14; 3:9; 4:10. Ironically, a pagan, not Jonah, is concerned that people not perish.

ESV

cast lots. Casting lots was used in the ancient world to discern the divine will (e.g., Num. 26:55; Josh. 18:6). Israelites believed that God controlled the outcome (Prov. 16:33). Evil (Hb. ra‘ah) may here suggest “disaster” (see chart).

ESV

Hebrew is an ethnic term used to identify Israelites in international contexts (e.g., Gen. 40:15; Ex. 1:19; 1 Sam. 4:6). Jonah claims to fear the LORD, but his actions contradict his confession. God of heaven refers to the universal and supreme God (see Ezra 1:2; Neh. 2:20; Dan. 2:37). made the sea. Ironically, Jonah confesses to fear the God who controls the sea, which Jonah is crossing to escape from the presence of God (Jonah 1:3). The sailors who were “afraid” (v. 5) are now exceedingly afraid.

ESV

hurl. See note on vv. 4–5. rowed hard. It would have been natural for these pagans to hurl Jonah overboard immediately, but they did not. The sea grew more and more tempestuous, for God was not ready to have Jonah delivered to dry land.

ESV

called out. Whereas each of the sailors had prayed to his god (v. 5), they now pray to the LORD. The pagan sailors, not Jonah, are concerned that people not perish (see note on v. 6). Have done as it pleased you echoes the liturgical language of Ps. 115:3 and 135:6, and is thus the sailors’ confession of faith in the absolute sovereignty of God. The sailors’ actions are in harmony with God’s: as God had hurled the wind onto the sea (see note on Jonah 1:4–5) to start the storm, the sailors now hurl Jonah to stop the storm (see v. 12).

ESV

feared the LORD exceedingly. What started as a general fear (v. 5) grew into an intense fear (v. 10) and matured into the fear—that is, the reverent worship—of the Lord (v. 16). sacrifice … vows. The exact response expected from people who fear the Lord (2 Kings 17:32–36; Ps. 22:5; 61:5; 76:11).

CSB

Was Jonah swallowed by a fish or a whale? Traditionally dag gadol has been translated “a whale” (e.g., Mt 12:40, KJV). Ancient taxonomy of the animal kingdom did not follow the modern Linnaean system, so perhaps any swimming sea creature might be considered a “fish.” The author of Jonah was not concerned with phylogenic distinctions but with the Lord’s involvement in Jonah’s life. When Jesus speaks of the “huge fish” (Mt 12:40), the text uses the same word found in the Septuagint at Jnh 1:17. If Jesus was speaking Aramaic, or possibly Hebrew, when he made his pronouncement, Matthew—or the source he was using—simply chose the Greek word already available to render Jesus’s words into Greek. Whether it was a fish or a whale in which Jonah was kept alive is less important than the fact that God provided a miraculous means to redirect the wayward prophet to his original task, preaching repentance to Nineveh. God’s plans will not be thwarted by the schemes disobedient people devise to get around them.

ESV

appointed. This is the first of four uses of “appoint” that underscore God’s sovereign control over creation (cf. 4:6–8). Fish (Hb. dag) is not limited to what is called “fish” today (generally cold-blooded vertebrate sea creatures with fins and gills) but is a general word for an aquatic beast, which cannot be identified further. However, a large whale such as a sperm whale could easily swallow a man whole. three days and three nights. Though this may be a symbolic expression for a time of dying and rising (cf. Hos. 6:2), it more likely describes the actual number of days, or parts of three days, according to accepted reckoning of days at that time (cf. 1 Sam. 30:12; 2 Kings 20:5, 8). In either case it has associations with return from death or near-death—which perhaps is why Jesus likened the time between his own death and resurrection to Jonah’s time in the fish (Matt. 12:40).