Tim Maas Retired Quality Assurance Specialist with the U.S. Army

To my knowledge, Jonah's father Amittai is mentioned only twice in Scripture (2 Kings 14:25 and Jonah 1:1), both of which speak of him only in connection with being Jonah's father, and neither of which speaks of Amittai's death.

2 Kings 14:25 indicates that Jonah (and thus likely Amittai) was from Gath-Hepher (in the land allotment of the Israelite tribe of Zebulun), which is mentioned only in that verse, and in Joshua 19:13.

So, apparently, as far as the Bible indicates, neither Amittai nor Jonah had a previous association with Nineveh (which was located in Assyria in modern-day northern Iraq), despite the fact that God called Jonah to go there in order to warn the Ninevites of the city's coming destruction because of its wickedness, as a motivation for Nineveh's inhabitants to repent (which they did, as noted in Jonah 3).

(Amittai is also mentioned in Islamic literature, where Muhammad is recorded as speaking of Nineveh as being the town of Jonah, the son of Amittai, with Muhammad referring to Jonah as his prophetic "brother". However, this is at variance with the Biblical record (since, as noted above according to the Bible, Nineveh was not Jonah's hometown -- even though he was called to preach there), in the same manner as other Islamic versions of events recorded in the Bible -- such as God telling Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael (rather than Isaac), and especially in regard to Islam's denial of Jesus as God incarnate.)

August 24 2020 • 0 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report