Jonah Preaches to Nineveh

The word of the LORD came to Jonah: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” But Jonah, unwilling to preach to Israel’s brutal Assyrian enemies, fled in the opposite direction toward Tarshish.

God sent a great storm. When the sailors discovered Jonah was fleeing from God, he told them to throw him overboard. A great fish swallowed Jonah, and he spent three days and three nights in its belly, praying a psalm of repentance. The fish vomited him onto dry land.

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.” This time Jonah obeyed.

Nineveh was a vast city—three days’ journey across. Jonah proclaimed: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown!” Shockingly, the Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and everyone—from the greatest to the least—put on sackcloth. Even the king arose from his throne, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

When God saw their repentance, He relented from the disaster He had threatened.

But Jonah was furious, not joyful. He complained: “I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. That’s why I fled to Tarshish!” Jonah wanted Nineveh destroyed, not forgiven.

God taught Jonah through a plant that grew and then withered: “You have been concerned about this plant… But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals. Should I not have concern for that great city?”

The book ends with God’s question unanswered—challenging narrow nationalism and revealing God’s compassion for all peoples, even Israel’s enemies.

Jesus referenced Jonah as a sign: “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” (Matthew 12:40). Islam honors Jonah (Yunus) as a prophet, and the Quran tells his story (Surah 37:139-148).