Jonah
c. 800–c. 740 BCE · Ancient Israel
“Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.”
1 work in canonNonfiction
Influence
The lineage through Jonah
Inspired(1)
who Jonah shaped
- Father Mapple's sermon in Chapter 9 of Moby-Dick is, start to finish, a sermon on Jonah — a sustained KJV retelling Melville plants at the threshold of the novel
- Jonah's theme — disobedience, flight, and reluctant submission to God — becomes the moral frame the whole voyage is measured against
- It's the original man-and-whale story, and Melville knew his readers would feel the echo every time the Pequod hunts
In their words
Famous Quotes
“Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.”
“Salvation is of the LORD.”
“And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?”
“Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”
Biography
About Jonah
Traditional author of the book bearing his name, a unique prophetic narrative about a reluctant prophet sent to preach to Israel's enemy, Nineveh. The story of Jonah and the great fish is among the most famous in all of scripture.
1 work