Jonah and the Whale

The Luck of Jonah


Once upon a time there was a man named Jonah.
God spoke to Jonah and said this:
“Get up! Go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach there.
Tell the people that I have seen how wicked they are.”

Doing such a thing scared Jonah.
Rather than doing what God said,
Jonah decided to sail for Tarshish.

So, he went to Joppa,
Found a ship headed for Tarshish,
And paid the fare.

Jonah thought he had gotten away from God.



A Very Big Storm



But as the ship sailed along
God sent a great wind,
And there was a bad storm.
It appeared that the ship would sink.

This scared the sailors on the ship.
So, they all prayed as hard as they could,
And they tried to lighten the ship
By throwing everything they could
Off into the sea.

While this was going on,
Jonah was in the hold of the ship,
Sleeping away.

When the ship’s captain saw Jonah, he said,
“What do you think you’re doing?
Wake up and do some praying!”

Meanwhile, the sailors were all saying,
“Someone on this boat must be evil.
Let’s draw straws to see who it is.”

Jonah got the short straw.

So, the sailors asked Jonah,
“Whatever have you done
To bring so much bad on all of us?
What do you do for a living?
Where did you come from?
What nationality are you?
What’s your tribe?”

Jonah said, “I am a Hebrew. I worship
The God who made both the sea and the dry land.”

Then Jonah told them about how he was fleeing God. . .

This frightened the sailors
And everyone started asking,
“Why did you do this!
Look at this storm!”

Jonah said, “Go ahead.
Throw me overboard.
All this is my fault.
When I’m gone, the sea will be calm.”

The sailors did not want to do this, however,
So they tried and tried to get the ship to land.

Finally, however, they saw they could not do it.
The storm was just too strong.

Then the sailors started praying:
“God, we know you will do as you please,
But we are begging you:
Don’t kill us! We aren’t to blame!”

Then, they picked up Jonah and pitched him into the sea.

At that, the storm stopped.


These events caused the sailors to feel very pious,
So they made a sacrifice and offered vows to God.





Jonah Gets Swallowed Whole



Now, God had made a large fish that could swallow Jonah,
Which it did.

And Jonah was in the belly of the fish
Three days and three nights.

In the fish’s bellow, Jonah did some praying.

“The waters surrounded me,”
Jonah said,
“And I thought I had been
Driven from your sight
As the depths closed around me.
Weeds wrapped around my head.
I sank to the bottoms of the mountains;
The bars of the earth closed on me,
But you brought me back from the depths.”

God spoke to the fish and
Up it vomited Jonah
Out upon the dry land.




Jonah Goes to Nineveh



Then God spoke to Jonah a second time, saying,
“Get up! Go to Nineveh, that great city,
And preach there what I tell you.”


So, finally, Jonah got up and went to Nineveh,
As God had told him to do.


Now, Nineveh was huge, a three day walk across.
So, Jonah walked for an entire day, then began to preach:

“In just forty days,”
Jonah preached,
“Nineveh will be destroyed.”


The people of Nineveh believed Jonah was speaking the truth.

So they proclaimed a fast and put on mourning clothes,
From the most powerful all the way to the lowliest.

Yes, even the king himself
Got down off his throne,
Put his fancy clothes aside,
Put on the clothes of mourning
And sat in the ashes.

The king and his officers sent out a decree saying:

Hear ye!
Let neither man nor beast,
Herd nor flock, taste anything!

Do not let them eat!
Do not let them drink!

Let every person
And every beast
Be clothed in
Mourning clothes!

Let everyone and everything
Cry mightily to God!

Yes! May everyone turn
Away from bad,
Away from violence!

Who knows?
Maybe God will repent
And stop being angry.
Who knows?
Perhaps we won’t all be destroyed!”




Jonah Gets Angry



It happened that God saw what the people of Nineveh were doing,
How they turned from their bad ways;
And God repented of the bad that he had said that he would do to them;
God didn’t do a thing to them.

Now, that did not please Jonah at all!
He was very angry and prayed to God,
Saying, “God! I’m praying here!
Didn’t I say I did not want to come to Nineveh!
Isn’t that why I headed for Tarshish?
I knew you are a gracious God, and merciful,
And slow to anger, and very kind,
And that you repent of doing bad.
Now, I’m asking: Take my life!
I am so embarrassed that
It is better I be dead!

God said to Jonah,
“Why are you complaining?”





Jonah and the Gourd




So Jonah went out of the city
To the east side of the city,
And there he built a hut,
Sitting in its rather poor shade.

He waited there to see
What would happen to Nineveh.

God caused a gourd to grow there,
So that Jonah could have more shade,
Which helped some with Jonah’s grief.

Jonah liked the gourd very much.

The next morning, however, God made a worm
That attacked the gourd and killed it.

Then, when the sun got hot,
God made a strong, hot wind;
And the sun beat down on Jonah’s head
So that he got faint and wanted to die.

Jonah said, “It’s better for me
To die than to live!”

God said to Jonah,
“Is it good that you are angry about the gourd?”

Jonah said, “Yes! It’s good for me
To be angry, even if it kills me!”

God said, “You have pity for the gourd,
Even though you never worked for it.
Never made it grow.
It grew in a night
And died in a night.
Think about it:
Shouldn’t I spare Nineveh,
A huge city,
A hundred twenty thousand people
Who don’t know their right hand from their left hand;
And many animals as well?”


God had a point!