Two Kingdoms · c. 780 BC
Chapter 14
Jonah
God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way. God relented of the disaster which he said he would do to them, and he didn’t do it.
For parents
Jonah is thrown into a stormy sea at his own request, and a huge fish swallows him (Jonah 1:12–17). Later, angry that God has spared Nineveh, he asks God to take his life and says more than once that it is better for him to die than to live (4:3, 8–9). Nothing is told in frightening detail.
There was a named son of Amittai, from . He was the Lord’s servant. When King won back Israel’s old borders, it happened as the Lord, the God of Israel, had said through Jonah.
The Lord’s word came to Jonah: “Get up and go to , that great city, and preach against it. The wickedness of its people has reached me.”
But Jonah got up to run away to , away from the Lord. He went down to , found a ship going to Tarshish, and paid his fare. Then he went down into the ship, to sail with the crew to Tarshish, away from the Lord’s presence.
But the Lord sent a great wind over the sea. A mighty storm rose on the sea, and the ship was close to breaking up.
The sailors were afraid, and each of them cried out to his god. They threw the cargo into the sea to make the ship lighter. But Jonah had gone down deep inside the ship. He was lying there, fast asleep.
The captain came to him. “What are you doing asleep?” he said. “Get up! Call on your God! Maybe your God will notice us, and we won’t die.”
The sailors all said to each other, “Come on, let’s cast and find out whose fault this disaster is.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.
“Tell us, please,” they said to him, “who has brought this disaster on us? What is your work? Where do you come from? What is your country? Who are your people?”
“I am a ,” he said. “I , the God of heaven, who has made the sea and the dry land.”
Then the men were terrified. “What have you done?” they said to him. They knew he was trying to get away from the Lord, because he had told them.
“What should we do to you,” they asked, “so that the sea will be calm for us?” The sea was getting stormier and stormier.
“Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” Jonah told them, “and the sea will calm down for you. I know that this great storm has come on you because of me.”
Instead, the men rowed hard to get back to land, but they couldn’t. The sea grew stormier and stormier against them.
So they cried out to the Lord. “We beg you, Lord,” they said, “we beg you, don’t let us die for this man’s life. Don’t blame us for the death of an innocent man, because you, Lord, have done as you pleased.”
Then they took hold of Jonah and threw him into the sea. The sea stopped raging.
And the men feared the Lord greatly. They offered a to the Lord and made .
The Lord sent a huge fish to swallow Jonah up. Jonah was in the fish’s belly three days and three nights.
Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God, there in the fish’s belly. He said:
“I called to the Lord in my trouble,and he answered me.From the belly of I cried out,and you heard my voice.You threw me into the depths,in the heart of the seas.The flood was all around me;all your waves and swells rolled over me.I said, ‘I have been driven out of your sight;but I will look again toward your holy temple.’
The waters closed around me, right up to my soul.The deep was all around me.Seaweed was tangled around my head.I went down to the bottoms of the mountains.The earth locked me in forever.But you brought my life up from the pit, Lord my God.When my soul grew faint inside me, I remembered the Lord,and my prayer reached you in your holy temple.
Those who look to worthless idolsabandon their own mercy.But I will sacrifice to youwith a voice full of thanks.I will keep the vows I made.Salvation belongs to the Lord.”
Then the Lord spoke to the fish, and the fish vomited Jonah out onto dry land.
The Lord’s word came to Jonah for the second time: “Get up and go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message I give you.”
So Jonah got up and went to Nineveh, as the Lord had said. Nineveh was an enormous city. Going through it took three days.
Jonah started into the city and traveled for a day. He called out, “In forty days, Nineveh will be overthrown!”
The people of Nineveh believed God. They declared a fast, a time of going without food, and all of them put on , from the greatest to the least.
The news reached the king of Nineveh, and he got up from his throne. He took off his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
Then he had an order announced all through Nineveh, an order from the king and his nobles: “No person or animal, no herd or flock, may taste anything: nothing to eat, and no water to drink. Every person and every animal must be covered with sackcloth, and they must cry out to God with all their might. Everyone must turn from their evil ways and from the violence they have done.
“Who knows? Perhaps God will turn and relent, and turn away from his fierce anger, so that we won’t die.”
God saw what they did: they turned from their evil ways. And God relented. He didn’t bring on them the disaster he had said he would.
But Jonah was deeply displeased, and he grew angry.
He prayed to the Lord. “Please, Lord, wasn’t this what I said when I was still in my own country? This is why I was so quick to run away to Tarshish. I knew you are a God who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and full of loving kindness, and that you relent from doing harm. So now, Lord, I beg you, take my life from me. It is better for me to die than to live.”
The Lord said, “Is it right for you to be angry?”
Then Jonah left the city and sat down on its east side. There he made himself a shelter and sat under it in the shade, watching to see what would become of the city.
The Lord God made a vine come up over Jonah, to shade his head and take away his discomfort. Jonah was very glad about the vine.
But the next day at dawn, God sent a worm. It chewed on the vine, and the vine withered.
When the sun came up, God sent a hot, stifling east wind. The sun beat on Jonah’s head until he felt faint, and he asked to die. “It is better for me to die than to live,” he said.
God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the vine?”
“I am right to be angry,” Jonah said, “angry enough to die.”
The Lord said, “You cared about the vine. You didn’t work for it or make it grow. It came up in a night and died in a night.
“Shouldn’t I care about Nineveh, that great city, with more than a hundred and twenty thousand people in it who can’t tell their right hand from their left hand, and also many animals?”