Hebrew Yonah, "dove." Eighth-century BC prophet from Gath-hepher in Galilee (2 Kings 14:25), probably contemporary with Amos and Hosea. Unique among the writing prophets: the book of Jonah is almost entirely narrative rather than oracles, and the prophet himself is the unwilling, pettish antihero of his own book. Called to preach repentance to Nineveh — the capital of the brutal Assyrian empire that would eventually destroy the northern kingdom — Jonah fled in the opposite direction, was swallowed by a great fish, repented, preached reluctantly, saw unprecedented revival in Nineveh, and sulked at the generosity of God.
Jonah is the funniest book in the Bible and one of the most theologically pointed. Every character obeys God except the prophet: the storm obeys, the sailors obey (they even sacrifice to the LORD before they throw him over), the great fish obeys, the Ninevites obey (from the king down), even the worm obeys. Only Jonah keeps resisting. His final, honest confession explains why he fled in the first place: "O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster" (Jonah 4:2). Jonah didn't want the Assyrians saved. His theology was correct; his heart was wrong. The book is a mirror for every Christian who can quote Exodus 34 about God's mercy but resents God's mercy when it flows toward an enemy. Jesus called "the sign of Jonah" the only sign His generation would be given (Matthew 12:39-41): three days and three nights in the belly of the fish prefigured three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. And "the men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here." If Assyrian pagans repented at a reluctant prophet's eight-word sermon (od arbaim yom wenineweh nehpaket — "Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown"), what excuse has Christendom?