Jonah and God: the Book of Jonah

Abstract Setting the plot in motion YHWH summons Jonah to a mission. The story breaks the rules right from the start—there is virtually no exposition. Nineveh’s evil has confronted (affronted?) YHWH who has decided to do something about it by means of Jonah. Who is this Jonah? Where and when does he live? The narrator tells us nothing, though the sentence has a decidedly prophetic ring to it—reminding us perhaps of Jeremiah’s commissioning (Jeremiah 1) or Isaiah (Isaiah 6). And, indeed, a prophet of this name has appeared before, Jonah ben Amittai (‘Dove, son of Faithfulness’), in 2 Kgs. 14: 25. There he announces the restoration of (northern) Israel’s borders, in the time of King Jeroboam ben Joash, several decades before the Assyrians finally destroy the northern kingdom. So, although nowhere in the story is the term ‘prophet’ used, we may decide that Jonah is an Israelite prophet.