Context & Key Themes Chapter 4 is the strangest and most theologically rich ending in the prophetic books. Nineveh has repented. God has relented. The mission is a complete success by any reasonable measure. And Jonah is furious. He sits outside the city, tells God he knew this would happen, and asks to die. God…
Context & Key Themes Chapter 3 is the pivot of the entire book. The word of the Lord comes to Jonah a second time — the same call, the same city, the same command. This time Jonah goes. What happens next is one of the most astonishing events in all of Scripture: the largest, most…
Context & Key Themes Chapter 2 is Jonah’s prayer from inside the great fish — and it is remarkable on multiple levels. It is not a prayer asking to be let out. It reads more like a psalm of thanksgiving written from the other side of disaster, full of the language of the Psalms, describing…
Context & Key Themes The book of Jonah opens with one of the most startling moments in all of prophetic literature: the prophet runs. God says go east to Nineveh; Jonah books passage on a ship heading as far west as the known world goes — Tarshish, the edge of everything. The chapter then traces…