Jonah
Jonah is the Bible making fun of religious exclusivism.
Read this if you…
- want the most famous fish story in literature — three days in the belly of a great fish
- like a prophet who hates his job so much he tries to literally sail off the map to escape it
- care about a story whose punchline is that God shows mercy to Israel's enemies — and Jonah is furious about it
Skip this if you…
- don't want to read explicitly religious/Christian texts
Why It Matters
Jonah is the Bible making fun of religious exclusivism. The prophet is the one character who never repents. Its point, that God's mercy reaches past ethnic and national lines, sets up the universalism of the New Testament.
Where to go next
- Moby-Dick or, The Whale by Herman Melville. Jonah shaped it. - 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
Depicted in Art
Jonah lies prone on a rocky shore as the colossal whale heaves him out of its mouth in a churning sea under a cloudy sky.
Gustave Doré, 1866
A stormy seascape with Jonah on a rocky outcrop and the whale's tail still visible in the foaming surf.
Joseph Vernet, 1770
Jonah seated on the throne above the altar of the Sistine Chapel, twisting backward and looking up at God, with the great fish at his feet.
Michelangelo, 1512
A small figure of Jonah emerges from the fish's mouth in a tumultuous coastal storm, with a sweeping seascape and ships in the background.
Jan Brueghel the Elder, 1598
Tin-glazed earthenware plate showing the whale disgorging Jonah onto land, with vivid maiolica color.
1575
Jonah on his knees on the shore, the whale's gaping mouth still vomiting him out, while God appears above in cloud.
Jacopo Tintoretto, 1577
Jonah, naked and helpless with arms outstretched, is spewed from the open jaws of an enormous fish onto the rocky shore.
Pieter Lastman, 1621
Recommended Editions
King James Version
Cambridge University Press · 1611
The most influential and commonly quoted translation in English. The prose rhythm everyone else is responding to, even modern translations.
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Deep Dive
What It's About
This summary gives away plot details.
Notable Quotes
“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.”
“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?”