Jonah Introduction Part1

*When did Jonah go to Nineveh?

2Kings 10:31-32 Land was taken away from the northern kingdom of Israel by the LORD during reign of Jehu.

1Kings 14:23-25   Jeroboam II believed the prophesy of Jonah concerning the LORD’s promise to restore the lands taken from Israel. He went to battle and regained the land.

Between 2Kinds 10:31-32 and 1Kings 14:25 It was during this 70-80 year period of time that Jonah prophesied concerning the return of the land. The Bible does not tell exactly when Jonah made this prophesy. Nor does it tell when Jonah prophesied in Nineveh. It seems to me Jonah would have gone to Nineveh during the same time period or close there after.

Jonah was

·      From Gath-hepher (associated with making or pressing wine) close Nazareth in the area called Galilee place in Palestine.

·      Son of Amittai (one who speaks the truth) Jonah would have been brought up to speak the truth

·      Jonah seems to mean dove

v   Turtledoves were often accepted as substitutes for the more expensive animals that were to be offered to the Lord, the poor man’s offering. They were a substitute sacrifice. See Leviticus 5:7, 5:11

v   It was a dove released by Noah that showed God's judgment upon the earth was ending.

v   Matthew 3:16 .  .  . the Spirit of God descended like a dove upon Jesus when he came out of the water.

*The LORD Jonah knew

Jonah 1: 9 The LORD is the God to fear

·      Deuteronomy 10:12 ¶ And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,

 Jonah 4:2 .  .  .  . thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.

·      Exodus 34:6; Psalm 86:5; Joel 2:13

·      Exodus 32:14; Psalm 106:45; Jeremiah 26:13

·      He knew the LORD would extend His mercy to Nineveh when they repented of their evil.

·      God also of the Gentiles (Romans 3:29)

Something to consider: Could it be the Jews have always known if they would show the true nature of their LORD to the Gentiles they would repent and God’s mercy and grace would come to them?

*The Jonah the LORD knew

V1:12 .  .  .  for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.

·      my sake: Jonah was the reason (Proverbs 3:11-12)

V1:17a Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.

·      The LORD knew Jonah would flee from His presence before the word of the LORD came to him. (Before the foundation of the world Ephesians 1:4; 1Peter 1:19-21)

·      Everything that has happened or will happen was known by God. He has not reacted to something that surprised Him.

·      Do not think God has ever made these statements. "I didn't see that coming" or "If I knew that was going to happen I would have done something different"?

·      Be sure to understand the use His foreknowledge is not God predestinating the outcome.

Jonah used as a sign to the evil and adulterous generation of Jews to whom Christ came to offer His kingdom.

Matthew 12:38-41 The sigh of Jonah to an evil and adulterous generation. Jesus declared the scribes and the Pharisees who had to have a sign before they believed Jesus were evil; the proof was their demand for a sign. 

·      1Corinthians 1:22 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:

·      The Jews are an evil and adulterous generation today.  

Their sign was Jonah in the belly of the whale. The evidence against them is gentiles believing the words of the prophet Jonah while they reject the words the greatest prophet of all, Jesus Christ. In Matthew 12:37-41 guards were paid to say his body was stolen by his disciples. When they saw him after the three days could they have said, see he didn’t die when they put him in the tomb he was not really dead.’

I will not go as far as to say Jonah was a type of Christ. How can a man so disobedient be a type of Christ? Jonah’s experience was a sign.

I do believe he was a type of the nation of Israel.

Jonah and the nation of Israel: (the last lesson of Jonah)

·      Had the word of God

·      The LORD’s witness

·      Despised the Gentiles

·      Gentiles only worthy of God’s wrath, value less than a gourd.

·      Refused to obey the LORD

·      Thought they could hide from the presence of the LORD

·      Removed from serving the LORD.

·      Reconciled to Him after being in tribulation.