Jonah

For other uses, see Jonah (disambiguation).

The Prophet Jonah, as depicted by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel

Jonah (יוֹנָה "Dove", Tiberian Hebrew jon'ɔh, Standard Hebrew Yona, Arabic يونس Yunus, or يونان Yunaan, Latin Ionas) was a prophet in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh/Old Testament) and Muslim Qur'an who was swallowed by a great fish.

The Story of Jonah

Jonah was the son of Amittai ("True"), from the Galilean village of Gath-hepher, near Nazareth. God orders Jonah to prophesy to the city of Nineveh. Jonah does not want to, and tries to avoid God's command by going to Joppa and sailing to Tarshish. A huge storm arises. The sailors, realizing this is no ordinary storm, cast lots, and learn that Jonah is to blame. Jonah admits this, and states that if he is thrown overboard, the storm will cease. The sailors throw him overboard, and the seas calm. Jonah is miraculously saved by being swallowed by a large fish. In chapter two, while in the great fish, Jonah prays to God and asks forgiveness and thanks God for being so faithful, and, as a result, God commands the fish to vomit Jonah out.

God again orders Jonah to visit Nineveh and prophesy to its inhabitants. He therefore goes there and walks through it, crying "In forty days Nineveh shall be destroyed." The Ninevites believe his word, and appoint a public fast, from the least of the people to the greatest; the king himself putting on sackcloth and sitting in ashes. God has compassion and does not bring His wrath against the city at that time.

Jonah is embittered by this. He questions the need for his journey, stating that since God is merciful, it was inevitable that God would yield to the Ninevites' entreaties--what need, then, for Jonah's journey? After this he retires out of the city and makes a shelter for himself, waiting to see if the city will be destroyed or not.

The Lord causes a plant (in Hebrew a kikayon) to grow over his shelter, giving Jonah some shade from the sun. Later, a worm bites the plant's root and it withers. Jonah, being now exposed to the burning heat of the sun, becomes faint and desires that God take him out of the world.

The Lord says unto him, "Do you have reason to be concerned at the death of a plant, which cost you nothing, which rises one night and dies the next; yet would you not have me pardon such a city as Nineveh, in which are 120,000 persons not able to distinguish their right hand from their left, and many beasts besides?"

Jonah in Islam

Main Article: Yunus

Like many important biblical people, Jonah is also important in Islam as a prophet who is faithful to God (Allah) and delivers his messages. He is known to Muslims by his Arabic name, Yunus. Sura 10 of the Qur'an, the Islamic holy book, is named "Sura Yunus" after him, though there is only one reference to him in that sura, in verse 98.

Jonah in Christianity

Jesus made reference to Jonah when He was asked for a miraculous sign by the Pharisees and teachers of the Law.

"He (Jesus) answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here." (Matthew 12:39-41)

Jonah is regarded as a saint by a number of Christian denominations. He is commemorated as a prophet in the Calendar of Saints of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod on September 22.

The Person of Jonah

His personal history is mainly to be gathered from the Book of Jonah, traditionally ascribed to the prophet himself, although this is not stated in Scripture. In the book, Jonah is a reluctant and uncompassionate prophet. This story contains a twofold characterization of Jonah: (1) a reluctant prophet of doom to heathen Nineveh, and (2) a "Son of man" type. The character of Jonah, who wants Nineveh destroyed, is contrasted with that of God, who is compassionate toward Jew and Gentile, human and animal.

The Fish

Depiction of Jonah and the "great fish" on the south doorway of the Gothic-era Dom St. Peter in Worms, Germany

Though it is often called a whale today, the Hebrew, as throughout scripture, refers to no species in particular, simply sufficing with "great fish" or "big fish" (whales are mammals and not fish, but no such distinction was made in antiquity). Some Bible scholars suggest the size and habits of the White Shark correspond better to the representations given of Jonah's being swallowed, however normally an adult human is too large to be swallowed whole.[1] In Jonah 2:1 (1:17 in English translation), the original Hebrew text reads dag gadol (דג גדול), which literally means "great fish."

The Septuagint translates this phrase into Greek as ketos megas (κητος μεγας). The term ketos alone means "huge fish," and in Greek mythology the term was closely associated with sea monsters. (See the Theoi Project "Ketea" for more information regarding Greek mythology and the Ketos.) Jerome later translated this phrase as piscis granda in his Latin Vulgate. However, he translated ketos as cetus in Matthew 12:40.

At some point, cetus became synonymous with "whale" (the study of whales is now called cetology). In his 1534 translation, William Tyndale translated the phrase in Jonah 2:1 as "greate fyshe," and he translated the word ketos (Greek) or cetus (Latin) in Matthew 12:40 as "whale." Tyndale's translation was, of course, later incorporated into the Authorized Version of 1611. Since then, the "great fish" in Jonah 2 has been most often interpreted as a whale.

The throats of many large whales, the giant grouper, (as well as that of a large whale shark specimen, which could be found in the Mediterranean ) can accommodate passage of an adult human. The story of Jonah mentions "weeds" wrapped around Jonah's head, perhaps to shield his face with seaweed against the acid.

Possibly the phrase "great fish" was a technical term used by ancient sailors to describe a kind of violent current. Thus, there would be no literal fish, and Jonah's own prayer clarifies what actually happened.

You [God] hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me. (Jonah 2:3, NIV)

That is, violent storm waters dragged Jonah away, which he eventually escaped to dry land.

It was also mentioned that he was in fish's belly for three days and three nights. It is impossible to be in water for three days and still live. So, it should be a fish of some kind that can only bring Jonah to shore.

Jonah and Jason

In 1995 the classicist Gildas Hamel revived a long-forgotten theory connecting the story of Jonah with that of the Greek hero Jason ("Taking the Argo to Nineveh: Jonah and Jason in a Mediterranean context," Judaism Summer, 1995; online). Drawing on the Book of Jonah and Greco-Roman sources—including Greek vases and the accounts of Apollonius of Rhodes, Valerius Flaccus and Orphic Argonautica—Hamel identifies a number of shared motifs, including the names of the heroes, the presence of a dove, the idea of "fleeing" like the wind and causing a storm, the attitude of the sailors, the presence of a sea-monster or dragon threatening the hero or swallowing him, and the form and the word used for the "gourd" (kikayon, a hapax legomenon within the Hebrew Bible). Hamel argues the Hebrew author was reacting to and adapting this mythological material to communicate his own, quite different message. His daughter Andrea went to meet the water goddess on Mt. Sini.

Jonah and Cassandra

Jonah in Niniveh and Cassandra in Troy present an interesting symmetrical contrast. Jonah's warning of destruction is believed, and therefore does not come true. Cassandra's warning of destruction is not believed, and comes true.

External links

• The Story of Yunus (Jonah) by Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jama'ah Association of Australia. The same page is also available at [2]
• The Prophet Yunus
• Prophet Yunus by Al-Huda Foundation
• Jewish Encyclopedia (1901–06) offers a more modern critical and historical appraisal of the manuscript traditions, the age and origin of Jonah, its inclusion into the canon, etc. Note: This is about the book. For information on the prophet see here
• Catholic Encyclopedia: Jonah
• Jonah on the Web, annotated guide to 200 sites and 150 pictures of Jonah
• Read Jonah at Bible Gateway
• Fast of Jonah at the Coptic Orthodox Church
• Study Notes on Jonah
• Jonah An Overview of Jonah
• Yonah: Flight, Return and Redemption Jonah from an Orthodox Jewish perspective
• Prophecy of Jonah --Background and critical analysis.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Easton, Matthew George (1897). Easton's Bible Dictionary (New and revised ed.). T. Nelson and Sons. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)