Jonah is the story of a prophet who tries to run from God's call and ends up in the belly of a great fish. Through his disobedience, his repentance, and his mission to the city of Nineveh, the book reveals God's boundless mercy toward all peoples. It is a surprising account of grace, forgiveness, and the attitude of the human heart in the face of divine compassion.
The book of Jonah belongs to the minor prophets and is traditionally placed in the 8th century BC, during the reign of Jeroboam 2 in Israel. Jewish tradition attributes its authorship to the prophet Jonah himself, son of Amittai, also mentioned in 2 Kings 14:25. Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire, Israel's most feared enemy at the time, which makes God's command to preach mercy to it all the more radical. A curious fact: Jonah is the only prophetic book of the Old Testament whose message is directed exclusively at a foreign nation. Jesus himself cited the story of Jonah as a sign of his own death and resurrection (Matthew 12:40).