Jonah 1
Jonah 1
Jonah flees his commission, a storm unmasks him, the pagan sailors act with more piety than the prophet, and a great fish takes him where the running started.
Jonah — chapter by chapter
All 4 chapters, from the flight to Tarshish to the question about the cattle.
Jonah is four chapters, each almost exactly one movement: the flight and the storm; the prayer from the fish; the sermon and the repentance; and the argument under the plant. Read them in a single sitting — the book is shorter than most New Testament letters, and the structure is part of the meaning. The unanswered question that closes chapter 4 is what the whole book has been moving toward.
The flight
The commission, the ship to Tarshish, the storm, the fish.
Jonah 2
Jonah 2
Jonah prays a psalm of deliverance from inside the fish, acknowledging the LORD hears from the depths of Sheol, and is vomited out onto dry land.
The mission
The second chance. The eight-word sermon. The repentance. The argument under the plant.
Jonah 3
Jonah 3
Jonah delivers a five-word announcement of doom; the entire city of Nineveh — king, people, and livestock — repents in sackcloth, and God relents of the threatened disaster.
Jonah 4
Jonah 4
Jonah confesses he fled because he knew God would be merciful, argues with God under a withered vine, and is left without a response to the closing question about the cattle.