Jonah

1. Jonah (יוֹנָה pigeon, dove; darling, sweetheart) was a person in the Biblical Old Testament and Jewish Tanakh, the son of Amittai ("My Truth"), from the Galilean village of Gath-hepher, near Nazareth.

2. In the Hebrew Bible, the Book of Jonah is the 5th book in a series of books called the Minor Prophets (itself a subsection of the Nevi'im or Prophets). Unlike other prophetic books however, this book is not a record of a prophet's words toward Israel. Instead of the poetry and prophetic prose of Isaiah or Lamentations, this book tells the story of an apparently inept prophet who becomes one of the most effective prophets in the entire Bible.

God ordered Jonah to preach at the city of Nineveh. Jonah did not want to, and tried to avoid God's command by sailing to Tarshish. A huge storm arises. The sailors, realizing this is no ordinary storm, cast lots, and learn that Jonah is to blame. Jonah admits this, and states that if he is thrown overboard, the storm will cease. The sailors throw him overboard, and the seas calm. Jonah is miraculously saved by being swallowed by a large fish. In chapter two, while in the great fish, Jonah prayed to God and asked forgiveness and thanked God for being so faithful, and the result was, God commanded the fish to vomit Jonah out.

God again orders Jonah to visit Nineveh and preach to its inhabitants. He therefore went there and walked through it, crying "In forty days Nineveh shall be destroyed." The Ninevites believed his word, and appointed a public fast, from the meanest of the people to the greatest; the king himself putting on sackcloth and sitting in ashes. God had compassion and did not bring His wrath against the city at that time.

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