Community answers are sorted based on votes. The higher the vote, the further up an answer is.
S. Michael Houdmann
Supporter
Proud, stubborn, disobedient, unfaithful, a grumbler, and altogether a bad-tempered, cantankerous old curmudgeon-this was Jonah, whose name means "dove"! Jonah was the son of Amittai, who came from Gath-hepher in Zebulun (called Gittah-hepher in Joshua 19:10-13). He was the earliest of the prophets and close behind Elisha in his place in the Old Testament. Jonah's story is told in the short (just 48 verses) but powerful book of Jonah.
When God called Jonah to go and warn the violent and godless Ninevites of their impending doom, all his pride in being a Hebrew-and therefore uniquely favored by the Almighty (so he thought, no doubt along with many others of his nation)-rose up in rebellion. Pagans, to him, were the worst kind of human garbage, not even fit to pollute the good earth by living on it. They were the "untouchables," and that God should take an interest in them was unthinkable. Therefore, not being one to put up with that which was not to his mind, he fled to Joppa and got himself a passage on a ship bound for Tarshish, which was in the opposite direction from Nineveh.
A human father would probably have shrugged Jonah off in disgust and found someone else more willing to take his message to Nineveh, but not so our Heavenly Father. If God has a purpose for someone, then, the gifts and calling of God being irrevocable, he will either fulfill His purpose, or He will simply roll over him to accomplish what He has foreordained (Isaiah 46:9-10). God rolled over Jonah with a vengeance, causing a violent storm to threaten the safety of his ship and its crew, so that their indignation at his contented snoring through their danger soon put an end to his satisfaction. This unceremonious awakening also awakened Jonah to the fact that, far from being an "artful dodger," he was being followed by the Almighty. There was nothing for it but to confess what he had been up to and tell the sailors that only by dumping him overboard could they be saved. This they did, and the huge fish sent by God (not a whale as commonly supposed, but some sea creature common to that time) promptly swallowed him up (Jonah 1:17). This, and the immediate stilling of the storm, brought the ship's crew to faith and salvation as a result (Jonah 1:16). The Lord is not one to miss out on His opportunities!
At this point Jonah has now found himself in a situation worse than anything he could have imagined, but like Jacob, he has by now awakened to the fact that God is with him wherever he ends up, in obedience or disobedience. The result is a beautiful prayer of faith rising up from the belly of the great fish, but still with a hint of spiritual pride: "Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the LORD" (Jonah 2:8-9).
In response to this prayer of contrition and faith, on his Creator's orders, the fish then vomits up Jonah on what was probably the shores of Palestine. Researchers tell us that it must in all probability have been there because it was a three-day journey on foot from that point to the great city of Nineveh, which is in line with the statement in Jonah 3:3. Ancient cave drawings from this time indicate that Ninevite fishermen lived on the shores of the Mediterranean. This fact is important in illustrating the wonderful way in which God paves the way for His servants to fulfill His commands. The principal goddess worshipped by the Ninevites at that time was Ashtoreth, but they also deferred to the god Dagon who had a man's upper body and a fish's tail. Jonah, so the researchers say, would have been bleached completely white from his head to his toes by the acids present in the belly of the fish, and on the sudden appearance of this ghostly figure from the waves the fishermen may have been convinced that this was Dagon's messenger and fallen flat in worship. These men would have fed and housed Jonah until he was recovered enough from his experience and then, as he was a stranger in those parts, given him directions on how to find their city. Of course, the biblical narrative doesn't give us these details, but it is fascinating to theorize.
In any case, the biblical text is a masterful expression of understatement: "Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: 'Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you'" (Jonah 3:1-2). This time, there is no arguing from Jonah, who, although he may be complying on the outside, is still stubbornly disobeying on the inside. He finally arrives at Nineveh and strides vengefully through the city announcing doom and destruction on the people in forty days because of their wickedness and their ignorance of the Lord and His ways. He then retires to a flimsy shelter he builds for himself, probably on a hill overlooking the city, and waits for the fireworks to start (Jonah 4:5). Result? Utterly and absolutely nothing! To his utter chagrin, he finds not just the people from the king down, but their animals as well, clothed in sackcloth and sprinkled with ashes as an indication of their absolute acceptance of the prophetic word sent to them by God, their deep repentance, and their fervent anxiety to get right with the Lord (Jonah 3:5-10). This does not suit our friend Jonah at all and he flies into a fury at God and lets Him have no small piece of his mind (Jonah 4:1-3). God's answer is to cause a leafy gourd to grow up to help protect Jonah from the blazing sun, for which Jonah is somewhat sullenly grateful, and then to promptly remove it the next day! His reply to Jonah's bitter complaints about this is that if Jonah can have so much compassion on himself for his loss of comfort in spite of being aware of what a faulty child of God he is, then how much more compassion will Almighty God have on a people who are utterly ignorant of right from wrong (Jonah 4:9-11).
So that is Jonah-a very great comfort to all who fall flat at times when it comes to obedience and who run away from what they know God wants them to do. Jonah's story is also an object lesson to those who are possessed of a short fuse and those who are at times guilty of a superior attitude to the spiritually ignorant or immature. Like the Ninevites, many around us are in darkness, and but for the grace of God, so would we be. May we all by that grace read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the Word!
See http://www.gotquestions.org/life-Jonah.html
Chris Eleam
Many would think of Jonah as a disobedient prophet, if looked at superficially one may easily draw that conclusion. However God did not appoint Jonah as a prophet because he was disobedient, he was chosen as a prophet because of his desirable qualities. When considering his record as God’s prophet you can see the kind of person he was. Before we discuss Jonah’s fleeing away from his commission, we will first look at his career as a prophet in Israel. Jonah was a prophet to a very unreceptive territory, nonetheless he labored faithfully in Israel, and the prophet Amos who was a contemporary of Jonah described the Israelites of the day as materialistic and pleasure lovers. Certainly detestable practices were taking place in Israel but the Israelites were totally indifferent to them. It was under these circumstances that Jonah had to carry out his commission to preach to the Israelites, day after day he faithfully carried out his commission, it is easy to look at Jonah's weaknesses but we should not overlook his qualities of faithfulness and endurance as he preached to the faithless Israelites. Jonah’s career as a prophet began in the northern Kingdom of Israel during the ruler ship of King Jeroboam ll Son of King Jehoash (2 Kings 14:23-25). Jonah was directed by Jehovah God to travel a great distance, to the capital of the notorious city of the mighty Assyrian Empire. Jonah was to warn the inhabitants that their city was going to be wiped out. Jonah however did not follow God’s instructions; he boarded a ship and fled in the opposite direction to Tarshish which is very far away from Nineveh. This mission was not easy because Tarshish was about 500 miles on foot that would take about a month. Imagine if you had to preach to a people who were known for their cruelty, how would you feel? Included in their warfare, sadistic torture was common; Nineveh was called the city of bloodshed because boasting about their savagery was common. Whale of a Story Jonah displayed outstanding qualities of courage humility and love, we can say this by how he acted on the vessel he took to escape his assignment, likely a Phoenician cargo ship... Disobeying Jehovah's commandment Jonah boarded a vessel that carried him very far away from Nineveh. Here we learn something about Jehovah; he did not give up on the prophet or arrange for someone to replace him. God wanted Jonah to come to his senses and he did this in a most unusual way. A violent storm came up at sea, Jonah and the rest of the sailors were tossed about by waves, Jonah was very worried about the innocent sailors that were about to die on his account. Jonah acted in a dignified and responsible manner, he requested of the sailors to “Lift me up and hurl me into the sea, and the sea will become still for you.” (Jonah 1:12) He may have thought that his God would rescue him at this point, however he had no reason to think that but still he was willing to give his life so that the sailors would not perish. Jehovah God rescued Jonah from the sea in a Most Unusual Way;, that the Bible simply states: “Jehovah appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah,” the kind of fish not being specified. (Jon 1:17) So it cannot be determined just what “fish” might have been involved. Some think a sperm whale may have been the culprit due to its large head and gullet certainly capable of swallowing a man whole. While in the belly of the fish Jonah had much to think about, Jonah prayed to Jehovah, glorifying him as Savior and promising to pay what he had vowed, Jonah’s prayer is recorded for us in the second chapter of Jonah. On the third day the prophet was vomited out onto dry land.—Jon 1:17–2:10. God showed he still values Jonah by renewing the prophet’s commission to preach to the Ninevites. Jonah finally arrives at his destination Nineveh, and the courageous prophet informs the inhabitants that their wickedness has come to the attention of God and that the city will be devastated and 40 days. Jonah no doubt prepared himself for a hostile and violent response. To Jonah's dismay the city is spared because everyone in the city began to put faith in God and “proceeded to proclaim a fast and to put on sackcloth from the greatest one of them even to the least one of them”. The biblical account of Jonah and the Whale is an object lesson well learned by Jonah that God sees what is in the heart. Jonah later wrote: “The true God got to see their works that they had turned back from their bad way; and so the true God felt regret over the calamity that he had spoken of causing to them; and he did not cause it.” The Lesson Taught Jonah left Nineveh and is very despondent, he may have clung to the hope that Nineveh would still be destroyed; it was time for God to teach Jonah a lesson about being merciful, because he was very hardhearted. Jehovah God caused the bottle-gourd plant to sprout up. The tree was luxuriant, it had very broad leaves and provided more shade from the sun than the flimsy shelter he erected. Jonah rejoiced over the plant perhaps feeling that this was a blessing from God. Jehovah had other intentions for him, he wanted to reach Jonah's heart. Causing a worm to attack and kill the plant, and then sending a parching east wind, this caused Jonah's heart to plummet and he asked God to die. Notice how Jonah respond to the question God asked him, Jehovah asked Jonah if he was rightly angry, this time over the death of the bottle-gourd plant. Instead of repenting, Jonah justified himself, saying: “I have rightly become hot with anger, to the point of death.” The stage was now set for Jehovah to drive home the lesson. God helps Jonah to reason on the matter saying that he was feeling sorry over the death of the mere plant that had grown up overnight; Jonah had no hand in the planting or the growth. Notice how Jehovah reasoned on the matter: “For my part, ought I not to feel sorry for Nineveh the great city, in which there exist more than one hundred and twenty thousand men who do not at all know the difference between their right hand and their left, besides many domestic animals?”—Jonah 4:10, 11. The object lesson once again, Jonah was helped to see that he placed more value on a single plant than on the lives of 120,000 humans as well as their livestock. Consider Jonah's thinking for a moment would you not agree that it was selfish, he feels sorry for the plant only because he gained some benefit from it, it shaded him. Jonah's anger over Nineveh sprang from motives that were likewise selfish, prideful and a desire to save face to be proved right. Jonah did learn a valuable lesson, he being given the privilege to write the Bible book that bears his name, imagine the prophet in his homeland writing about his account. As he writes about his rebellion his shortcomings and stubborn refusal to show mercy He is certainly older and wiser and humble, and because of his maturity he sees a vital lesson in mercy that God granted him the privilege of learning.
Salem Markus Purba
We should learn from how close was the relationship between Jonah and God. Although Jonah was trying to be disobedient to God, God did not get angry with him, and kept on getting in touch with him. (Jonah 4: 1-11) All of the believers and followers of Jesus Christ are just like Jonah, we are commanded by Jesus to spread Gospel to the world (Mathew 28: 18-20; Mark 16: 15-16). We should have a close relationship with Jesus as Jonah had with God.
Apostles Paul Francis
We should lean from Jonah, because it'll help us how to do our God's will every time when he asks us to do something or when he sends us to preach the Gospel. Also, it will help us to know that it's a must to obey our God! And if we make our neck hard, God himself shall do His will anyway, which will cost you!
Jack Gutknecht
At Dallas Theological Seminary we seminary students (all men at that time) had to translate the whole book of Jonah from Hebrew to English in our Hebrew class. (1972-1975). Jonah 1 shows that Jonah was a disobedient prophet running from God Jonah 1:1-11). He tried fleeing from his unwelcome task (Jonah 1:3, "But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa, and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD." (a key memory verse I memorized from the Thompson Chain Reference Bible-- appendix). And consequently, he was punished or afflicted (Jonah 1:12-17). HL. He thought he could avoid God's call by running away. But God will accomplish his purposes, even through reluctant and unwilling servants. HL, LASB Jonah 2: A praying prophet running back to God and delivered (Jonah 2:10). HL, CIS Even from inside the fish, Jonah's prayer was heard by God. We can pray anywhere and at any time, and God will hear us. Your sin is never too great and your predicament, your problem, is never too hard for God. LASB Jonah 3: A faithful prophet running with God and rewarded. In Jonah 3:1-3 Jonah is recommissioned by God. He got a 2nd chance. Have you made mistakes in the past? You may yet have another chance! LASB And then after Jonah's recommissioning, he became powerful (Jonah 3:4-10). HL I.e. he became a revivalist (Jonah 3). In summary, A Disobedient Servant in Ch.1 Fleeing from God in Ch.2 Fleeing to God in Ch.3 Flying for God
Add your Answer
All answers are REVIEWED and MODERATED.
Please ensure your answer MEETS all our guidelines.
A good answer provides new insight and perspective. Here are guidelines to help facilitate a meaningful learning experience for everyone.
- Adhere to the eBible Statement of Faith.
- Your answer should be complete and stand-alone.
- Include supporting arguments, and scripture references if possible. Seek to answer the "why".
- Adhere to a proper tone and spirit of love and understanding.
- For more info see The Complete Guide to eBible