Jonah 1 Footnotes

1:3 It may seem unusual that a prophet of God, called to be his spokesman, would ever presume to run away from the Lord. The story of Jonah shows that the prophet had a good deal to learn about the extent of the Lord’s mercy; his narrow view of that mercy may be a clue to why he thought he could escape God. Perhaps he did not expect his presence to be easily encountered outside the land of Israel. God “made the sea and the dry land” (v. 9), but would he really dwell among people who were outside his covenant with Israel?

1:17 Was Jonah swallowed by a fish or a whale? Traditionally dag gadol has been translated “a whale” (e.g., Mt 12:40, KJV). Ancient taxonomy of the animal kingdom did not follow the modern Linnaean system, so perhaps any swimming sea creature might be considered a “fish.” The author of Jonah was not concerned with phylogenic distinctions but with the Lord’s involvement in Jonah’s life. When Jesus speaks of the “huge fish” (Mt 12:40), the text uses the same word found in the Septuagint at Jnh 1:17. If Jesus was speaking Aramaic, or possibly Hebrew, when he made his pronouncement, Matthew—or the source he was using—simply chose the Greek word already available to render Jesus’s words into Greek. Whether it was a fish or a whale in which Jonah was kept alive is less important than the fact that God provided a miraculous means to redirect the wayward prophet to his original task, preaching repentance to Nineveh. God’s plans will not be thwarted by the schemes disobedient people devise to get around them.