Lord, the God of Israel, had promised through Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath-hepher. The Prophet Jonah is one of the seven Old Testament prophets painted by the Italian High Renaissance master Michelangelo (c. 1542–1545) on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. As the apostle Paul states, God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). Jonah is the only Old Testament prophet whose ministry is entirely on foreign soil. The decision “displeased Jonah exceedingly [Jonah thought it a great evil], and he was very angry” (v. 1). The sign of the Prophet Jonah would be repeated in the Person of Christ by the resurrection on the third day. Written by the Prophet Jonah, son of Amittai, around 785-760 B.C., the book of Jonah is different from the other prophetic books of the Bible.The audience of the book of Jonah was the people of Israel and all future readers of the Bible and, typically, prophets issued warnings or gave instructions to the people of Israel. Maybe God sent a whale to swallow Jonah. Jonah disobediently ran from the Lord and headed for the city of Tarshish by boat. The sailors cast lots and by a miracle the lot identified Jonah (1:7). The book exemplifies the miraculous power and supremacy of God over His entire creation. Jonah lived, according to Bible chronology, in the early half of the eighth century before Christ, and prophesied in the time of Jeroboam II of Israel. This inspired document reveals the international interest of God, even in … Maybe it was just some enormous fish God “prepared” with a bigger throat and stomach. One of the major themes is the relationship between God and Jonah. That is the point of the book of Jonah in the Old Testament. Jesus in fact saw himself in Jonah. A worm was “prepared” to wither the plant (4:7). When Jonah fled from God’s assignment, the Bible says that “the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. Please enable Cookies and reload the page. The change of heart on the part of the people of Nineveh displeased Jonah. Upon genuine repentance God is willing to forgive and will continue to work with us. All along, he feared that Nineveh would heed the warning and repent (4:2). But God used that anger as a teachable moment: “You have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. Prophet Jonah was both foolish and selfish. Around 740 B.C., just a matter of decades after Jonah delivered his warning to Nineveh, God used Assyria to begin the process of punishing Israel for its sins (1 Chronicles 5:26). Previously he pastored congregations in southern Africa, including South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi. • He mistakenly thought he could run away from God. God, who “relents from doing harm,” would then spare the city, and this powerful threat to the people of Israel would survive. The young evangelist Timothy was admonished by the apostle Paul: “And that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15). identified as a prophet and servant of God during the reign of King Jeroboam II of Israel (2 God definitely accepts repentance when it is from a contrite (repenting) heart. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” – Matthew 12:38-40 The time of Elijah was long past; his successor, Elisha, had died during the reign of Jeroboam’s father. 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