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Easton's Bible Dictionary
a dove, The son of Amittai of Gath-hepher. He was a prophet of Israel, and predicted
the restoration of the ancient boundaries ( 2
Kings 14:25 - 27
) of the kingdom. He exercised his ministry very early in the reign of Jeroboam
II., and thus was contemporary with Hosea and Amos; or possibly he preceded them,
and consequently may have been the very oldest of all the prophets whose writings
we possess. His personal history is mainly to be gathered from the book which
bears his name. It is chiefly interesting from the two-fold character in which
he appears, (1) as a missionary to heathen Nineveh, and (2) as a type of the "Son
of man."
Hitchcock's Dictionary of Bible Names
or Jonas
Smith's Bible Dictionary
(dove)
The fifth of the minor prophets, was the son of Amittai, and a native of Gath-hepher.
( 2
Kings 14:25 ) He flourished in or before the reign of Jeroboam II., about
B.C. 820. Having already, as it seems, prophesied to Israel, he was sent to Nineveh.
The time was one of political revival in Israel; but ere long the Assyrians were
to be employed by God as a scourge upon them. The prophet shrank from a commission
which he felt sure would result, ( Jonah
4:2 ) in the sparing of a hostile city. He attempted therefore to escape to
Tarshish. The providence of God, however, watched over him, first in a storm,
and then in his being swallowed by a large fish (a sea monster, probably the white
shark) for the space of three days and three nights. [On this subject see article
WHALE] After his deliverance, Jonah executed his commission; and the king, "believing
him to be a minister form the supreme deity of the nation," and having heard of
his miraculous deliverance, ordered a general fast, and averted the threatened
judgment. But the prophet, not from personal but national feelings, grudged the
mercy shown to a heathen nation. He was therefore taught by the significant lesson
of the "gourd," whose growth and decay brought the truth at once home to him,
that he was sent to testify by deed, as other prophets would afterward testify
by word, the capacity of Gentiles for salvation, and the design of God to make
them partakers of it. This was "the sign of the prophet Jonas." ( Luke
11:29 , 11:30
) But the resurrection of Christ itself was also shadowed forth in the history
of the prophet. ( Matthew
12:39 , 12:41
; 16:4
) The mission of Jonah was highly symbolical. The facts contained a concealed
prophecy. The old tradition made the burial-place of Jonah to be Gath-hepher;
the modern tradition places it at Nebi-Yunus , opposite Mosul.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
jo'-na (yonah, "dove"; 'Ionas):
(1) According to 2
Kings 14:25, Jonah, the son of Amittai, of Gath-hepher, a prophet and servant
of Yahweh, predicted the restoration of the land of Israel to its ancient boundaries
through the efforts of Jeroboam II. The prophet lived and labored either in the
early part of the reign of Jeroboam (790-750 BC), or during the preceding generation.
He may with great probability be placed at 800-780 BC. His early ministry must
have made him popular in Israel; for he prophesied of victory and expansion of
territory. His native village of Gath-hepher was located in the territory of Zebulun
(Joshua
19:13).
(2) According to the book bearing his name, Jonah the son of Amittai received
a command to preach to Nineveh; but he fled in the opposite direction to escape
from the task of proclaiming Yahweh's message to the great heathen city; was arrested
by a storm, and at his own request was hurled into the sea, where he was swallowed
by a great fish, remaining alive in the belly of the fish for three days. When
on his release from the body of the fish the command to go to Nineveh was renewed,
Jonah obeyed and announced the overthrow of the wicked city. When the men of Nineveh
repented at the preaching of the prophet, God repented of the evil He had threatened
to bring upon them. Jonah was grieved that the oppressing city should be spared,
and waited in the vicinity to see what would be the final outcome. An intense
patriot, Jonah wished for the destruction of the people that threatened to swallow
up Israel. He thought that Yahweh was too merciful to the heathen oppressors.
By the lesson of the gourd he was taught the value of the heathen in the sight
of Yahweh.
It is the fashion now in scholarly circles to treat the Book of Jonah as fiction.
The story is said to be an allegory or a parable or a symbolic narrative. Why
then did the author fasten upon a true and worthy prophet of Yahweh the stigma
of rebellion and narrowness? On theory that the narrative is an allegory, J. Kennedy
well says that "the man who wrote it was guilty of a gratuitous insult to the
memory of a prophet, and could not have been inspired by the prophet's Master
thus to dishonor a faithful servant."
(3) our Lord referred on two different occasions to the sign of Jonah the prophet
(Matthew
12:38 - 41
; Luke
11:29 - 32
; Matthew
16:4). He speaks of Jonah's experience in the belly of the fish as parallel
with His own approaching entombment for three days, and cites the repentance of
the Ninevites as a rebuke to the unbelieving men of his own generation. Our Lord
thus speaks both of the physical miracle of the preservation of Jonah in the body
of the fish and of the moral miracle of the repentance of the Ninevites, and without
the slightest hint that He regarded the story as an allegory.
John Richard Sampey
Tags:
belly of the whale, bible commentary, bible history, bible reference, bible study, define, great storm, jonah, missionary, nineveh, prophet, whale
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