SkiesBible story
Jonah and the great fish
A retelling of the book of Jonah: a prophet who ran, a fish, a city that turned, and a God slow to anger.
So he prayed to the LORD, saying, “O LORD, is this not what I said while I was still in my own country? This is why I was so quick to flee toward Tarshish. I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion—One who relents from sending disaster.
Jonah 4:2
God told Jonah to warn the city of Nineveh, but Jonah ran the other way by ship. In a storm the sailors threw him overboard, and God sent a great fish that swallowed him. Jonah prayed from inside the fish, and after three days and three nights it spat him onto dry land. He went to Nineveh, the city repented, and God showed it mercy, to Jonah’s anger.
The story
God told Jonah to go to Nineveh, a great city of Assyria, Israel’s feared enemy, and warn it. Jonah got up and went the opposite way, onto a ship bound for Tarshish, “away from the presence of the LORD.”
A violent storm hit. The sailors cast lots and it fell on Jonah. “Throw me into the sea,” he told them, and the storm stopped. God provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and he was inside it three days and three nights. There he prayed: “Salvation is from the LORD!” And the fish spat him onto dry land.
This time Jonah went. He walked through Nineveh shouting that the city would be overturned in forty days. And the people believed, from the king down: they fasted, put on sackcloth and turned from violence. God saw it and relented.
Jonah was furious. “I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion,” he complained. The book ends with God’s question: shouldn’t I care about this great city?
What it means
The fish is the famous part, but the story is about mercy: God’s mercy to a runaway prophet, and his mercy to a city Jonah wanted to see destroyed. Its question is for us: will we be glad when God is kind to people we don’t like?
Jesus pointed to Jonah’s three days in the fish as a sign of his own death and resurrection (Matthew 12:40).
Pray
Gracious God, slow to anger and full of love, thank you that you don’t give up on me when I run. Give me your heart for the people I find hardest to love. Amen.
Read it in the Bible
But I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to You. I will fulfill what I have vowed. Salvation is from the LORD!”
Jonah 2:9
Questions people ask
Was it a whale or a fish?
The Hebrew says “a great fish” (Jonah 1:17). Older English translations of Matthew 12:40 used “whale,” which is how the story became “Jonah and the whale.”
