Jonah

AI summary: Jonah matters because the cross references show a prophet whose commission exposes not only a city's sin but also the limits of his own compassion. He appears first in Israel's royal context, but the book that bears his name places him on a larger stage where God pursues him at sea, preserves him in the depths, sends him again to Nineveh, and confronts his anger after the city's repentance. The narrative therefore treats Jonah as both messenger and object lesson. Taken together, the material presents Jonah as a prophet through whom Scripture explores divine mercy, human resistance, and God's concern for people beyond Israel.¹

A dove, the son of Amittai of Gath-hepher. He was a prophet of Israel, and predicted the restoration of the ancient boundaries (2 Kings 14:25-27) of the kingdom. He exercised his ministry very early in the reign of Jeroboam II., and thus was contemporary with Hosea and Amos; or possibly he preceded them, and consequently may have been the very oldest of all the prophets whose writings we possess. His personal history is mainly to be gathered from the book which bears his name. It is chiefly interesting from the two-fold character in which he appears, (1) as a missionary to heathen Nineveh, and (2) as a type of the “Son of man.” ³