• it was the capital of the Assyrian nation.
  At the time that Joel and Jonah wrote, Israel was being troubled by the Syrians. The Assyrians, who were north and east of Syria, had risen to power, but had not yet become a major threat to Israel. Yet, the prophets foresaw what was coming. Israel would be taken captive by Assyria, about a hundred years after Jonah's ministry.
• it was very large and populous...-
  The size of the city is mentioned in Jonah 3:3 (further discussion there).

• He traveled overland to Joppa, which was a seaport.
  (Several centuries later, this would be the place of Peter's vision, in Acts 10, which marked the starting point of reaching the Gentiles with the Gospel.)
• He searched for and found a ship...
• He paid the fare...
• He boarded the ship...
• He sailed en-route to Tarshish.
  (Tarshish was at the limits of the known world. He probably could not have booked passage to a more distant place.)

1. He did not want Nineveh to repent. He wanted God to destroy them. (Jon 4:2)
   He was well aware of the cruelty of the Assyrians. He foresaw the suffering that they would inflict upon his people, Israel. It is possible that some of his family members had already suffered at their hands, in some early Assyrian incursions into the land. His town, Gath-Hepher, was in the far north of Israel, and would be among the first affected.
2. He may have feared for his personal safety.
   How would such a cruel nation receive the harsh message of pending judgment, from an unarmed and unaccompanied representative of a God, whom they did not know or serve? (About a hundred years later, an Assyrian king would express his disdain for the God of Israel in a letter to King Hezekiah of Jerusalem. Isa 37:8-20)
3. He may have felt uncomfortable with the approach.
   Had not God placed Israel at the crossroads of the world? Was it not His purpose that the nations should learn about Him (if they would), by observing the chosen people, their customs, and especially, their Temple worship? Were the scriptures not available to them also, including the books of Moses, David and Solomon? Why shouldn't these people come, as the Queen of Sheba had in Solomon's day, to see if the things she had heard were so? Jonah did not ask these questions aloud. But if he had, would he have been reminded of Israel's poor testimony, due to her apostasy from the LORD, and her spiritual adultery with the world?
      Jonah expected the nations to 'come up to Jerusalem.' But God was sending him out, much as our Lord commissioned us, in Acts 1:8. In effect, when faced with the command to reach out to the Gentiles, Jonah replied, 'Not so Lord' (as Peter did, in Acts 10:14).

• his occupation: a prophet of the LORD.
• his city and country: Gath-Hepher, in Israel
• his ethnicity...

• that his disobedience had imperiled others, who were about to die because of his sin.
• that God would not allow him to persist in his disobedience, or to continue on to Tarshish.
  God's anger was directed at him. It was he who deserved to die, not these others.

• In this, Jonah is a type of Christ, whose death saved others from the wrath of God.
• Unlike Jesus, Jonah was a sinner, who deserved the wrath of God.
  But Jesus took our sin upon Himself, in order to suffer the wrath that you and I deserved (Rom 5:6-10; 2Cor 5:21; 1Pet 3:18).

• for forgiveness for causing Jonah's death. They had no alternative remaining, except to believe what Jonah had said.
• to the LORD...- The false gods had been deaf to their cries. Their only hope was to appeal for mercy, to the God under whose wrath they were about to perish.

• But the text does not speak of a whale. This was a 'great' {HB=gadowl, exceedingly large} 'fish' {HB=dag, fish. The root meaning of the word is 'numerous' (perhaps because fish often swim in groups or schools)}. The Greek word 'ketos' translated 'whale,' in Mat 12:40, refers to a large fish or sea monster, not necessarily a whale. Furthermore, the creature that swallowed Jonah had been specially 'prepared' {HB=manah, appointed, numbered}, by God, for the purpose.
• Also, the account does not require that Jonah was alive during the whole time that he was in the fish's belly. Certain elements in the text (of Jonah ch.2) suggest that he may have died and was subsequently resurrected. However, nothing is impossible with God. So, it is very possible that God kept him alive within a specially prepared fish, for three days.

"In February, 1891, the whaling ship "Star of the East" was in the vicinity of the Falkland Islands, and the lookout spotted a sperm whale. Two boats were launched and in a short time one of the harpooners was enabled to spear the whale.

"The second boat attacked the whale but was upset by a lash of its tail and the men were thrown into the sea. One man was drowned, and another, James Bartley, having disappeared, could not be found.

"The whale was killed and in a few hours was lying by the ship's side, and the crew was busy with axes and spades removing the blubber. They worked all day and part of the night. Next morning, they attached some tackle to the stomach, which was hoisted onto the deck.

"The sailors were startled by something in it which gave spasmodic signs of life, and inside was found the missing sailor, doubled up and unconscious. He was laid on the deck and treated to a bath of salt water which soon revived him... He remained two weeks a raving maniac... At the end of the third week he had entirely recovered from the shock and resumed his duties.

"Bartley remembers the sensation of being thrown out of the boat into the sea... He was then encompassed by a great darkness and he felt he was slipping along a smooth passage of some sort which seemed to move and carry him forward. The sensation lasted but a short time and then he realized he had more room. He felt about him and his hands came in contact with a yielding, slimy substance that seemed to shrink from his touch.

"It finally dawned upon him that he had been swallowed by the whale... He could easily breathe, but the heat was terrible. It was not of a scorching stifling nature, but it seemed to open the pores of his skin and draw out the vitality...

"His skin, where it was exposed to the action of the gastric juice... face, neck, and hands... was bleached to a deadly whiteness and never recovered its natural appearance, though otherwise his health was not affected by this terrible experience."

1. The prior preparation of the great fish.
2. The coordination of timing, such that when Jonah was thrown overboard, the fish was there to receive him.
3. Jonah's preservation through a deadly situation, or resurrection out of actual death.
4. Jonah's transportation in the fish, and delivery from the fish, to the nearest possible location to his destination city (Jonah 2:10).