Jonah - Definition and Overview

Jonah (יוֹנָה "Dove", Standard Hebrew Yona, Tiberian Hebrew Yônāh) was a person in the Bible Old Testament and Jewish Tanakh, the son of Amittai, from the Galilean village of Gath-hepher, near Nazareth.

He was a prophet of the ten-tribe kingdom of Israel, and predicted the restoration of the ancient boundaries (2 Kings 14:25-27) of the kingdom. This prophecy was already fulfilled during the reign of Jeroboam II, under whom Jonah exercised his ministry. Timewise, this may mean he was contemporary with the prophets Hosea and Amos; or possibly he preceded them, and consequently may have been the very oldest of all the prophets whose writings we possess. He is often placed in the 8th century BCE.

His personal history is mainly to be gathered from the Book of Jonah, in which he is a reluctant and uncompassionate prophet. This story contains a two-fold characterization of Jonah: (1) a prophet of doom to heathen Nineveh, and (2) a "Son of man" type. The character of Jonah, who wants Ninevah destroyed, is contrasted with that of God, who is compassionate toward Jew or Gentile, human or animal.

In the Qur'an he is known as Yunus (see Similarities between the Bible and the Qur'an).

External links

• Jewish Encyclopedia 1901 -06 (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/) offers a more modern critical and historical appraisal of the manuscript traditions, the age and origin of Jonah, its inclusion into the canon, etc.
• Read Jonah at Bible Gateway (http://www.biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&version=NIV&passage=jonah)
• Study Notes on Jonah (http://www.bible.gen.nz/jonah/)