Journey
Jonah the reluctant prophet
Jonah is sent to Nineveh and runs the other way. Follow him through the storm, the fish, a city that turns and a question that stays open.
People in this journey
Opening stop: The other way, Jonah 1:1
Jonah appears once elsewhere in the Old Testament, as the prophet who foretold Israel's borders restored under Jeroboam the son of Joash (2 Kings 14:23-25). Sennacherib king of Assyria dwelt at Nineveh (2 Kings 19:36), a king of Assyria carried Israel away captive (2 Kings 17:6), and Nahum calls Nineveh the bloody city (Nahum 3:1). Isaiah 66:19 lists Tarshish with the isles afar off that have not heard the Lord's fame. Notice the words went down, twice in one verse. Jonah's flight is a long descent.
Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,
King James Version
"Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai," telling him to go to Nineveh "and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me." Jonah instead rises "to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord," goes down to Joppa, pays the fare and goes down into a ship. The Lord sends a great wind and the ship "was like to be broken." The mariners are afraid, each cries to his god and they throw the wares overboard, while Jonah lies "fast asleep" in the sides of the ship. The shipmaster wakes him: "What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God." They cast lots "that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us," and the lot falls on Jonah. They ask his occupation, country and people, and he answers, "I am an Hebrew; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land." The men are exceedingly afraid, because he had told them he fled from the Lord's presence. Asked what to do, he says, "Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea." They row hard for land and cannot make it, then pray, "lay not upon us innocent blood," and throw him in; the sea stops raging. The men fear the Lord, sacrifice and make vows. The Lord prepares "a great fish" that swallows Jonah, and he is in its belly "three days and three nights."
Continue the journey
This journey has 9 stops. The opening stop is free. Premium opens the rest of the guided path, and every Scripture chapter stays free to read.