The Book of Jonas (Jonah)

The Book of Jonas is the fifth of the twelve Minor Prophets and the only one that is almost all story. It has four chapters and forty-eight verses, and in them a Hebrew prophet runs from God, a crew of pagan sailors calls on the Lord, a great fish swallows the prophet and casts him up again, and the whole of Ninive, the capital of Assyria, fasts in sackcloth and is spared. The Douay-Rheims follows the Vulgate in calling the prophet Jonas, the form Our Lord's own words take in the Gospels, and the city Ninive; most modern Bibles say Jonah and Nineveh. This is the book of "Jonah and the whale," whose central event Christ took as the sign of His own death and Resurrection.

Who wrote the Book of Jonas?

The book does not name its author, and it speaks of Jonas in the third person throughout. The prophet himself is known from one other passage: under Jeroboam II, king of Israel, the borders of the kingdom were restored "according to the word of the Lord the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonas the son of Amathi, the prophet, who was of Geth, which is in Opher" (4 Kings 14:25, 2 Kings in modern Bibles). Geth-Opher (Gath-hepher) lay in the tribe of Zabulon in Galilee, and St Jerome reports that the prophet's tomb was still shown there in his day.

Jewish tradition assumed that Jonas wrote the account of his own mission, and the Christian writers who defend the history of the book have generally maintained the same. The third person is no objection, for Moses writes of himself in the same way, and the book tells what only Jonas could have known: his prayer inside the fish (Jonas 2) and his private complaint to God (Jonas 4). The Talmud (Baba Bathra 15a) says that the men of the Great Assembly "wrote" the Twelve Prophets, which is commonly understood of their collecting and editing the twelve as one book, not of composing them.

St Jerome, in the prologue to his commentary, records an old Jewish tradition that Jonas was the son of the widow of Sarephta whom Elias raised from the dead (3 Kings 17), built on the likeness of Amathi to the Hebrew emeth, "truth," for the widow told Elias that "the word of the Lord in thy mouth is true." The Catholic Encyclopedia judges it a legend with no other foundation than that likeness of sound.

The Church has not defined the author, and the Pontifical Biblical Commission gave no decree on Jonas in particular. What the Church teaches, with the Council of Trent, is that the book is sacred and canonical and has God for its author. Many modern scholars place its writing after the Exile, in the fifth century before Christ, and some read it as a parable; we note these views without adopting them.

When was the Book of Jonas written?

Jonas lived in the eighth century before Christ, in the reign of Jeroboam II of Israel, when the northern kingdom was strong and Assyria was the great power of the East. The Catholic Encyclopedia thinks it likely that the events fell in a period of Assyrian decline, under Ashur-dan III or Ashur-nirari V (770–745 BC), when plague and civil strife had shaken the empire, before it rose again to destroy Samaria in 722 BC. On the traditional view the book was written by the prophet, or from his account, soon after his mission. Jonas is earlier than Nahum, who foretold the final ruin of Ninive; the city fell in 612 BC, when its people had long since returned to the sins they once repented of.

What is the Book of Jonas about? A summary

Chapter 1: The flight and the storm

"Arise and go to Ninive, the great city, and preach in it: for the wickedness thereof is come up before me." Jonas rises instead "to flee into Tharsis from the face of the Lord," goes down to Joppe and takes ship in the opposite direction. The Lord sends a great tempest. The pagan mariners pray each to his god while Jonas sleeps in the hold; they cast lots, and the lot falls on him.

He confesses, "I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord the God of heaven, who made both the sea and the dry land," and tells them to throw him overboard. They row hard to spare him, then cast him into the sea, which at once grows calm. "And the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and sacrificed victims to the Lord, and made vows." Read Jonas chapter 1.

Chapter 2: In the belly of the fish

"Now the Lord prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonas: and Jonas was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights." In the Vulgate and the Douay-Rheims this verse opens chapter 2, so the chapter has eleven verses; Hebrew-based Bibles number it 1:17 and give chapter 2 ten. From the fish Jonas prays a psalm of thanksgiving: "I cried out of my affliction to the Lord, and he heard me: I cried out of the belly of hell, and thou hast heard my voice." Its lines echo the Psalter ("all thy billows, and thy waves have passed over me," as in Psalm 41 (42)), and it ends with a vow. Then "the Lord spoke to the fish: and it vomited out Jonas upon the dry land." Read Jonas chapter 2.

Chapter 3: The preaching and penance of Ninive

The word of the Lord comes "the second time," and now Jonas obeys. Ninive is "a great city of three days' journey"; he goes one day's journey into it and cries, "Yet forty days, and Ninive shall be destroyed." The Ninivites believe God, proclaim a fast and put on sackcloth "from the greatest to the least." The king sits in ashes and decrees that neither man nor beast shall eat or drink, and that all shall "turn every one from his evil way." "And God saw their works, that they were turned from their evil way: and God had mercy with regard to the evil which he had said that he would do to them, and he did it not." Read Jonas chapter 3.

Chapter 4: The ivy, the worm and God's question

Jonas is "exceedingly troubled, and was angry," and confesses why he fled: "I know that thou art a gracious and merciful God, patient, and of much compassion, and easy to forgive evil." He asks to die. Watching from a booth east of the city, he rejoices in a plant God makes grow for his shade, until a worm withers it and a burning wind beats on him. When Jonas grieves for the plant, God answers with the question that closes the book: "And shall not I spare Ninive, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons that know not how to distinguish between their right hand and their left, and many beasts?" Read Jonas chapter 4.

The main message of the Book of Jonas

God's mercy reaches the Gentiles. Ninive was the capital of Israel's most feared enemy, yet God sends it a prophet and spares it when it repents. The pagan sailors and the pagan city both turn to the true God more readily than the prophet of Israel turns to his mission. St Augustine (Letter 102) reads here the call of the nations, fulfilled when the Gospel went to them after the Resurrection.

Penance turns away judgment. God's threat was conditional, and the Ninivites' fasting, sackcloth and amendment changed the sentence. This is why the Church reads Jonas in Lent and holds up Ninive as the model of public penance, as we explain in what God says about fasting and in our guide to Ash Wednesday. The prophet Joel, in Joel 2, uses nearly the same words as Jonas 4:2: "for he is gracious and merciful, patient and rich in mercy, and ready to repent of the evil."

No one escapes the call of God. The sea, the lots, the fish, the plant, the worm and the wind all obey God; only the prophet resists. And the last lesson is the prophet's own: God's mercy is not ours to ration.

The sign of Jonas: Christ's death and Resurrection

When the scribes and Pharisees asked for a sign, Our Lord answered: "An evil and adulterous generation seeketh a sign: and a sign shall not be given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet. For as Jonas was in the whale's belly three days and three nights: so shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights. The men of Ninive shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they did penance at the preaching of Jonas. And behold a greater than Jonas here" (Matthew 12:39–41; compare Matthew 16:4 and Luke 11:29–32).

Christ here makes Jonas a type of Himself in two ways: by the three days in the depths, a figure of His burial and rising, which we treat in our article on the Resurrection of Jesus Christ; and by his preaching of penance to the Gentiles. Jonas's cry "out of the belly of hell" turns our minds to the descent among the dead that we profess in the Apostles' Creed.

St Jerome, St Cyril of Alexandria and others expound Jonas as a figure of the Messiah, and St Augustine (Letter 102) writes that the event "did actually occur, and did not occur in vain": as Jonas passed from the ship into the fish, "so Christ passed from the cross to the sepulchre." The early Christians painted the Jonas story again and again in the Roman catacombs, as a sign of the resurrection.

The type does not make the history unreal. The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that no Father is cited for the opinion that the book is a fiction, and that in Our Lord's words "Christ contrasts fact with fact, not fancy with fancy." The Pontifical Biblical Commission (23 June 1905) answered that the books held as historical are to be read as history unless solid proof shows the sacred writer meant otherwise.

Famous verses of the Book of Jonas

Jonas 2:1, the great fish. The Hebrew says simply "a great fish," as does the Vulgate, piscem grandem; the Greek word in Matthew 12:40, rendered "whale" in the Douay-Rheims, means a great sea creature. Scripture's point is that "the Lord prepared" it. See Jonas 2.

Jonas 3:4, forty days. "Yet forty days, and Ninive shall be destroyed." The Septuagint reads "three days"; St Jerome kept the Hebrew forty. See Jonas 3.

Jonas 4:11, shall not I spare Ninive? The book's last words are a question from God, left for the reader to answer. See Jonas 4.

The gourd of Jonas: ivy or gourd?

The plant of Jonas 4:6 is qiqayon in Hebrew, a fast-growing shrub not certainly identified, often taken to be the castor-oil plant. The Septuagint and the Old Latin called it a gourd (cucurbita), and many English Bibles say "gourd." St Jerome, finding no exact Latin word, rendered it hedera, "ivy," and the Douay-Rheims follows him: "And the Lord God prepared an ivy." St Augustine told Jerome around 403 (Letter 71) that when a bishop of Oea in Africa read the new version, his people protested at the unfamiliar word until he changed it.

Where is the Book of Jonas in the Bible?

Jonas is in the Old Testament, the fifth of the twelve Minor Prophets in the order of the Hebrew Bible and the Vulgate, after Abdias (Obadiah) and before Micheas (Micah); the Septuagint places it sixth. It is a protocanonical book, received by Jews and Christians alike and found in every Catholic and Protestant Bible, and it stands among the Prophets in the canon of the Council of Rome under Pope St Damasus (382), the councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397), the Council of Florence and the Council of Trent, Session IV (1546). Our guide to the Catholic Bible and its 73 books gives the whole list. The Douay names used here come from the Douay-Rheims Bible, translated from St Jerome's Latin Vulgate. Ninive appears again in Tobias (Tobit): "the destruction of Ninive is at hand."

The Book of Jonas in the liturgy

In the 1962 Missal, Jonas chapter 3 (verses 1–10) is the lesson of the Mass on Monday in Passion Week. The Gospel of Ember Wednesday in Lent is Matthew 12:38–50, with the sign of Jonas; read our guide to Lent for these days. In the Roman Breviary the book is begun at Matins on the Saturday after the fourth Sunday of November, in the course of the Minor Prophets: Et factum est verbum Domini ad Jonam, filium Amathi. Jewish custom reads Jonas in the afternoon service of the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), for its lesson of repentance.

How to read the Book of Jonas

Jonas can be read in a quarter of an hour. Read chapter 1 for the storm and the faith of the sailors, chapter 2 slowly as a prayer, chapter 3 as a model of penance, and chapter 4 as a question addressed to yourself. The Vulgate facing the English shows Jerome's hedera and the Ninivites' fast, praedicaverunt jejunium. Then turn to Matthew 12 and Luke 11 to hear Our Lord explain the sign, and to Nahum, "the burden of Ninive," for the city's last chapter.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who wrote the Book of Jonah?

The book does not name its author. Jewish tradition, commonly followed by Catholic commentators, holds that the prophet Jonas, son of Amathi, wrote the account of his own mission, speaking of himself in the third person as Moses does. The Church has not defined the question; many modern scholars date the book later, a view we note without adopting.

When was the Book of Jonah written?

Jonas prophesied in the eighth century before Christ, under Jeroboam II, king of Israel (4 Kings 14:25). On the traditional view the book was written by him or from his account soon after his mission to Ninive. Many modern scholars place it after the Exile, in the fifth century BC.

What is the Book of Jonah about?

It tells how the prophet Jonas fled from God's command to preach to Ninive, was thrown into the sea and swallowed by a great fish, prayed from its belly and was cast up on land. He then preached, Ninive repented in sackcloth and was spared, and God rebuked Jonas's anger with the lesson of the withered plant.

How many chapters and verses are in the Book of Jonah?

The Book of Jonas has 4 chapters and 48 verses. In the Vulgate and Douay-Rheims the great fish is 2:1 and chapter 2 has eleven verses; Bibles that follow the Hebrew numbering place that verse at 1:17.

What book of the Bible is Jonah and the whale in?

The story is in the Book of Jonas (Jonah), in the Old Testament, among the Minor Prophets between Abdias (Obadiah) and Micheas (Micah). The fish appears in Jonas 2 of the Douay-Rheims (1:17 in Hebrew-based Bibles). Our Lord recalls it in Matthew 12:40: "as Jonas was in the whale's belly three days and three nights."

Is the Book of Jonah history or a parable?

Catholic tradition has always read it as a true narrative. Our Lord sets the repentance of the Ninivites beside the judgment of His own hearers, and no Father of the Church treated the story as fiction. Its events are also a figure of Christ, but the type rests on real history.

What is the gourd in the Book of Jonah?

It is the plant God made to shade Jonas and then withered with a worm (Jonas 4:6–10). The Hebrew qiqayon is a fast-growing shrub, perhaps the castor-oil plant; the Septuagint called it a gourd, and St Jerome rendered it "ivy" (hedera), as the Douay-Rheims does. God used it to show Jonas that he grieved for a plant yet begrudged mercy to a city.

Why does the Book of Jonah end so abruptly?

The book ends with God's question, "shall not I spare Ninive, that great city?" (Jonas 4:11), and no answer from Jonas. It is not incomplete: the question is the point of the book, left open so that the reader must answer it.

Read the whole Book of Jonas verse by verse, Latin and English side by side, in the Iter Fidei Catholic Bible app.

Sources. The Book of Jonas, Douay-Rheims (Challoner revision) and Latin Vulgate; 4 Kings 14:25; 3 Kings 17:24; Tobias 14:6; Joel 2:13; Psalm 41 (42):8; Matthew 12:38–41 and 16:4; Luke 11:29–32; St Jerome, Commentary on Jonas (with its prologue); St Augustine, Letter 71 to Jerome and Letter 102 to Deogratias; the Babylonian Talmud, Baba Bathra 15a; Council of Trent, Session IV (1546); Pontifical Biblical Commission, response on the historical narratives of Scripture (23 June 1905); Catholic Encyclopedia (1910), "Jonah" (J. F. Driscoll); Missale Romanum (1962), Monday in Passion Week and Ember Wednesday in Lent; Breviarium Romanum, Saturday after the fourth Sunday of November.