Topic: Persons Of The Bible - Jonah

The name "Jonah" is from the Hebrew name יוֹנָה (Yonah) meaning "dove."

Jonah was the son of Amittai and was a native of Gath-hepher. (2 Kings 14:25) He was the fifth of the minor prophets of Israel, and predicted the restoration of the ancient boundaries (2 Kings 14:25-27) of the kingdom. Jonah exercised his ministry very early in the reign of Jeroboam II., and thus was contemporary with Hosea and Amos; or possibly Jonah preceded them, and consequently may have been the very oldest of all the prophets whose writings we possess. Jonah's personal history is mainly to be gathered from the book which bears his name. It is chiefly interesting from the two-fold character in which he appears, (1) as a missionary to heathen Nineveh, and (2) as a type of the "Son of man."

The time of Jonah was one of political revival in Israel. The prophet shrank from a commission which he felt sure would result, (Jonah 4:2) in the sparing of the hostile city of Nineveh. Jonah attempted therefore to escape to Tarshish. The providence of God, however, watched over Jonah, first in a storm, and then in his being swallowed by a large fish (a sea monster, probably the white shark) for the space of three days and three nights. After his deliverance, Jonah executed his commission; and the king, "believing him to be a minister from the supreme deity of the nation," and having heard of his miraculous deliverance, ordered a general fast, and averted the threatened judgment. But Jonah, not from personal but national feelings, grudged the mercy shown to a heathen nation. Jonah was therefore taught by the significant lesson of the "gourd," whose growth and decay brought the truth at once home to him, that he was sent to testify by deed, as other prophets would afterward testify by word, the capacity of Gentiles for salvation, and the design of God to make them partakers of it. This was "the sign of the prophet Jonas." (Luke 11:29,30) But the resurrection of Christ itself was also shadowed forth in the history of the prophet Jonah. (Matthew 12:39,41; 16:4) The mission of Jonah was highly symbolical. The facts regarding Jonah contained a concealed prophecy. The old tradition made the burial-place of Jonah to be Gath-hepher; the modern tradition places his burial at Nebi-Yunus, opposite Mosul.

Derived from Easton's and Smith's Bible Dictionaries

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