Jonah

1Chapter

Running Away from God

1-2One day long ago, God’s Word came to Jonah, Amittai’s son: “Up on your feet and on your way to the big city of Nineveh! Preach to them. They’re in a bad way and I can’t ignore it any longer.”
3But Jonah got up and went the other direction to Tarshish, running away from God. He went down to the port of Joppa and found a ship headed for Tarshish. He paid the fare and went on board, joining those going to Tarshish—as far away from God as he could get.
4-6But God sent a huge storm at sea, the waves towering. The ship was about to break into pieces. The sailors were terrified. They called out in desperation to their gods. They threw everything they were carrying overboard to lighten the ship. Meanwhile, Jonah had gone down into the hold of the ship to take a nap. He was sound asleep. The captain came to him and said, “What’s this? Sleeping! Get up! Pray to your god! Maybe your god will see we’re in trouble and rescue us.”
7Then the sailors said to one another, “Let’s get to the bottom of this. Let’s draw straws to identify the culprit on this ship who’s responsible for this disaster.” So they drew straws. Jonah got the short straw.
8Then they grilled him: “Confess. Why this disaster? What is your work? Where do you come from? What country? What family?”
9He told them, “I’m a Hebrew. I worship God, the God of heaven who made sea and land.”
10At that, the men were frightened, really frightened, and said, “What on earth have you done!” As Jonah talked, the sailors realized that he was running away from God.
11They said to him, “What are we going to do with you—to get rid of this storm?” By this time the sea was wild, totally out of control.
12Jonah said, “Throw me overboard, into the sea. Then the storm will stop. It’s all my fault. I’m the cause of the storm. Get rid of me and you’ll get rid of the storm.”
13But no. The men tried rowing back to shore. They made no headway. The storm only got worse and worse, wild and raging.
14Then they prayed to God, “O God! Don’t let us drown because of this man’s life, and don’t blame us for his death. You are God. Do what you think is best.”
15They took Jonah and threw him overboard. Immediately the sea was quieted down.
16The sailors were impressed, no longer terrified by the sea, but in awe of God. They worshiped God, offered a sacrifice, and made vows.
17Then God assigned a huge fish to swallow Jonah. Jonah was in the fish’s belly three days and nights.
2Chapter

At the Bottom of the Sea

1-9“In trouble, deep trouble, I prayed to God. He answered me. From the belly of the grave I cried, ‘Help!’ You heard my cry. You threw me into ocean’s depths, into a watery grave, With ocean waves, ocean breakers crashing over me. I said, ‘I’ve been thrown away, thrown out, out of your sight. I’ll never again lay eyes on your Holy Temple.’ Ocean gripped me by the throat. The ancient Abyss grabbed me and held tight. My head was all tangled in seaweed at the bottom of the sea where the mountains take root. I was as far down as a body can go, and the gates were slamming shut behind me forever— Yet you pulled me up from that grave alive, O God, my God! When my life was slipping away, I remembered God, And my prayer got through to you, made it all the way to your Holy Temple. Those who worship hollow gods, god-frauds, walk away from their only true love. But I’m worshiping you, God, calling out in thanksgiving! And I’ll do what I promised I’d do! Salvation belongs to God!”
10Then God spoke to the fish, and it vomited up Jonah on the seashore.
3Chapter

Maybe God Will Change His Mind

1-2Next, God spoke to Jonah a second time: “Up on your feet and on your way to the big city of Nineveh! Preach to them. They’re in a bad way and I can’t ignore it any longer.”
3This time Jonah started off straight for Nineveh, obeying God’s orders to the letter. Nineveh was a big city, very big—it took three days to walk across it.
4Jonah entered the city, went one day’s walk and preached, “In forty days Nineveh will be smashed.”
5The people of Nineveh listened, and trusted God. They proclaimed a citywide fast and dressed in burlap to show their repentance. Everyone did it—rich and poor, famous and obscure, leaders and followers.
6-9When the message reached the king of Nineveh, he got up off his throne, threw down his royal robes, dressed in burlap, and sat down in the dirt. Then he issued a public proclamation throughout Nineveh, authorized by him and his leaders: “Not one drop of water, not one bite of food for man, woman, or animal, including your herds and flocks! Dress them all, both people and animals, in burlap, and send up a cry for help to God. Everyone must turn around, turn back from an evil life and the violent ways that stain their hands. Who knows? Maybe God will turn around and change his mind about us, quit being angry with us and let us live!”
10God saw what they had done, that they had turned away from their evil lives. He did change his mind about them. What he said he would do to them he didn’t do.
4Chapter

“I Knew This Was Going to Happen!”

1-2Jonah was furious. He lost his temper. He yelled at God, “God! I knew it—when I was back home, I knew this was going to happen! That’s why I ran off to Tarshish! I knew you were sheer grace and mercy, not easily angered, rich in love, and ready at the drop of a hat to turn your plans of punishment into a program of forgiveness!
3“So, God, if you won’t kill them, kill me! I’m better off dead!”
4God said, “What do you have to be angry about?”
5But Jonah just left. He went out of the city to the east and sat down in a sulk. He put together a makeshift shelter of leafy branches and sat there in the shade to see what would happen to the city.
6God arranged for a broad-leafed tree to spring up. It grew over Jonah to cool him off and get him out of his angry sulk. Jonah was pleased and enjoyed the shade. Life was looking up.
7-8But then God sent a worm. By dawn of the next day, the worm had bored into the shade tree and it withered away. The sun came up and God sent a hot, blistering wind from the east. The sun beat down on Jonah’s head and he started to faint. He prayed to die: “I’m better off dead!”
9Then God said to Jonah, “What right do you have to get angry about this shade tree?” Jonah said, “Plenty of right. It’s made me angry enough to die!”
10-11God said, “What’s this? How is it that you can change your feelings from pleasure to anger overnight about a mere shade tree that you did nothing to get? You neither planted nor watered it. It grew up one night and died the next night. So, why can’t I likewise change what I feel about Nineveh from anger to pleasure, this big city of more than 120,000 childlike people who don’t yet know right from wrong, to say nothing of all the innocent 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.