Jonah 1

Jonah 1 is the first chapter of the Book of Jonah in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible.^[1][2] This book contains the prophecies spoken by the prophet Jonah, and is a part of the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets.^[3][4]

Text

• The original text is written in Hebrew language.
• This chapter is divided into 17 verses. Masoretic texts place verse 17 as Jonah 2:1.

Textual versions

The whole Book of Jonah in Latin as a part of Codex Gigas, made around 13th century.

Some most ancient manuscripts containing this chapter in Hebrew language:

• Masoretic Text (10th century)
• Dead Sea Scrolls: (2nd century BC)^[5][6]
  • 4Q76 (4QXII^a): extant: verses 1‑5, 7‑10, 15‑17^[5]
  • 4Q81 (4QXII^f): extant: verses 6‑8, 10‑16^[5]
  • 4Q82 (4QXII^g): extant: verses 1‑9^[5]
  • Wadi Murabba’at (MurXII): extant: verses 1‑17^[5]

Ancient translations in Koine Greek:

• Septuagint (3rd century BC)
• Dead Sea Scrolls: (2nd century BC)^[5]
  • Naḥal Ḥever (8ḤevXII^gr): extant: verses 14‑17^[5]
• Theodotion version (~AD 180)

Structure

NKJV groups this chapter into:

• Jonah 1:1-3 = Jonah’s Disobedience
• Jonah 1:4-9 = The Storm at Sea
• Jonah 1:10-16 = Jonah Thrown into the Sea
• Jonah 1:17 = Jonah’s Prayer and Deliverance

Verse 1

Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,^[7]

• "Now": also can be translated as "and". Some have argued from this commencement that the Book of Jonah is a fragment, the continuation of a larger work; but it is a common formulary, linking together revelations and histories, and is continually used in the Old Testament at the beginning of independent works; e.g. Joshua 1:1; Judges 1:1; 1 Samuel 1:1; Esther 1:1; Ezekiel 1:1.^[8]
• "Jonah the son of Amittai": This prophet's name is also recorded in 2 Kings 14:25. Jonah signifies "Dove,"^[9] compare Genesis 8:8, 9, where the dove in vain seeks rest after flying from Noah and the ark: so Jonah.^[10] Amittai, "the truth of God,"^[9] "truth," "truth-telling."^[10] The Syriac version calls him the son of Mathai, or Matthew; though the Arabians have a notion that Mathai is his mother's name; and observe that none are called after their mothers but Jonas and Jesus Christ: but the right name is Amittai, and signifies "my truth"; and to be sons of truth is an agreeable character of the prophets and ministers of the word, who should be given to truth, possessed of it, and publish it.^[11]

Based on Book of 2 Kings (2 Kings 14:25), Jonah is of Gath-hepher in Zebulun (called Gittah-hepher in Joshua 19:10-13), so that he belonged to the kingdom of the ten tribes, not to Judah. He prophesied the restoration of the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain to the Kingdom of Israel which was fulfilled during the reign of Jeroboam the son of Joash. Now as this prophecy of Jonah was given at a time when Israel was at the lowest point of depression, when "there was not any shut up or left," that is, confined or left at large, none to act as a helper for Israel, it cannot have been given in Jeroboam's reign, which was marked by prosperity, for in it Syria was worsted in fulfillment of the prophecy, and Israel raised to its former "greatness." It must have been, therefore, in the early part of the reign of Joash, Jeroboam's father, who had found Israel in subjection to Syria, but had raised it by victories which were followed up so successfully by Jeroboam. Thus Jonah was the earliest of the prophets, and close upon Elisha, who died in Joash's reign, having just before his death given a token prophetical of the thrice defeat of Syria (2 Kings 13:14-21).^[10]

Verse 3

The ancient port of Jaffa (Today Tel Aviv-Yafo)^[12]

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.^[13]

• "Tarshish"—Tartessus in Spain; in the farthest west at the greatest distance from Nineveh in the east.^[10]
• "From the presence of the Lord" - literally "from being before the Lord." Jonah knew well, that man could not escape from the presence of God, whom he knew as the Self-existing One, He who alone is, the Maker of heaven, earth and sea. He did not "flee" then "from His presence," knowing well what David said Psalm 139:7, Psalm 139:9-10. Jonah fled, not from God's presence, but from standing before him, as His servant and minister. He refused God's service, because, as he himself tells God afterward Jonah 4:2, he knew what it would end in, and he misliked it.^[9]
• "Joppa". This is the modern Jaffa (or "Haifa"; called "Japho" in Joshua 19:46), a town on the seacoast, the well-known port of Palestine on the Mediterranean. It was 50 miles from Gath-hepher; thirty miles in a northwesterly direction from Jerusalem.^[8]

Verse 17

Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.

And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.^[14]

• Verse numbering: Masoretic text includes this verse in Jonah 2 as Jonah 2:1.
• Cited in Matthew 12, Matthew 16, Luke 11
• "Had prepared": Septuagint, προσέταξε, "appointed;" so in Jonah 4:6, 7, 8 (comp. Job 7:3; Daniel 1:10, 11). The fish was not created then and there, but God so ordered it that it should be at the place and should swallow Jonah. The prophet seems, from some expressions in his psalm (Jonah 2:5), to have sunk to the bottom of the sea before he was swallowed by the fish.^[8]
• "A great fish": Hebrew: דג גדול‎‎, dāḡ gā·ḏōl Septuagint, κῆτος (Matthew 12:40). There is nothing in the word to identify the intended animal, and to call it "a whale" is simply a mistranslation.^[8] See explanation in a separate section.

Great fish

There are several accounts on record of men being swallowed by large fish and living to tell the tale. Grace W. Kellogg, in a little booklet on the subject, "The Bible Today," has compiled a list of the records - which have been authenticated - of the experiences of living creatures in fish who later were rescued alive.^[15] Others also speculate and propose a number of possibilities.^[16]

• The white shark of the Mediterranean (Carcharias, vulgaris), which sometimes measures twenty-five feet in length, has been known to swallow a man whole, and even a horse. This may have been the "great fish" in the text (see Dr. Pusey on Jonah, pp. 257, etc.).^[8]
• Two known monsters of the deep who could easily have swallowed Jonah: Balaenoptera musculus or sulphur-bottom whale, and the Rhinodon typicus or whale shark. Neither of these monsters of the deep have any teeth. They feed in an interesting way by opening their enormous mouths, submerging their lower jaw, and rushing through the water at terrific speed. After straining out the water, they swallow whatever is left. A sulphur-bottom whale, one hundred feet long, was captured off Cape Cod in 1933. His mouth was ten or twelve feet wide - so big he could easily have swallowed a horse. These whales have four to six compartments in their stomachs, in anyone of which a small colony of men could find free lodging. They might even have a choice of rooms, for in the head of this whale is a wonderful air storage chamber, an enlargement of the nasal sinus, often measuring seven feet high, seven feet wide, by fourteen feet long. If he has an unwelcome guest on board who gives him a headache, the whale swims to the nearest land and gets rid of the offender as he did Jonah.^[15]
• In 2011, a diver almost got sucked into the mouth of a massive whale shark while it fed on thousands of plankton. It was photographed by Mauricio Handler who was taking pictures during a feeding frenzy where more than 600 of the 40 ft animals ('shark suckers') gathered to feed on tuna spawn. Whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) have mouths up to 1.5 metres wide that contain up to 350 rows of teeth. The shark, the sea's largest fish, is actually incredibly docile. Despite their size, they do not pose a risk to divers. The largest recorded specimen was caught off the coast of Pakistan in 1947. It was 12.65 m (41.5 ft) long, weighed more than 21.5 tons and had a girth of 7 meter. There are stories of larger specimens - quoted lengths of 18 m (59 ft) are common - but there are no scientific records to support their existence.^[17]
• The Cleveland Plain Dealer quoted an article by Dr. Ransome Harvey who said that a dog was lost overboard from a ship. It was found in the head of a whale six days later, alive and barking.^[15]
• Frank Bullen, F.R.G.S., who wrote, 'The Cruise of the Cachalot,' tells of a shark fifteen feet in length which was found in the stomach of a whale. He says that when dying the whale ejects the contents of its stomach.^[15]
• Dr. Dixon stated that in a museum at Beirut, Syria, there is a head of a whale shark big enough to swallow the largest man that history records! He also tells of a white shark of the Mediterranean which swallowed a whole horse; another swallowed a reindeer minus only its horns. In still another Mediterranean white shark was found a whole sea cow, about the size of an ox.^[15]
• In 2009, a photograph was taken showing a female sperm whale, with a calf at her side, carrying the remains of a roughly 30-foot (9-meter) giant squid in her jaws, while swimming near the surface off Japan's Bonin Islands (map)in the northwestern Pacific.^[18]
• Keith Robinson and Donna Parham of SeaWorld speculate that to swallow a person whole, there is a good candidate, one known throughout the Mediterranean, that is the great white shark. They stated that Elephant seals is one of the favorite meals of the great white shark and some elephant seals are bigger than a killer whale. They also told of seeing a photograph "of a great white shark opening its mouth, and it had within its gullet a whole six-foot blue shark, ...so it could easily swallow a man." In the cold water, with the metabolism of a shark, a man's body could last three days without deterioration.^[19]

See also

• Related Bible parts: 2 Kings 14, Matthew 12, Matthew 16, Luke 11

Notes and references

Bibliography

External links

Jewish

• Jonah 1 Hebrew with Parallel English
• Jonah 1 Hebrew with Rashi's Commentary

Christian

• Jonah 1 English Translation with Parallel Latin Vulgate