Jonah In The Book Of Jonah

The book of Jonah begins with God instructing his prophet, Jonah, to go to Nineveh to warn the people against their wicked ways. Jonah; however, tries to escape the Lord’s presence. However, as he flees to Tarshish by boat, the Lord sends a wind that creates a storm so strong that all the sailors become afraid. They pray to their gods while Jonah is asleep below deck. Then, the sailors wake Jonah and cast lots to see whose fault the storm is. When they find it is on account of Jonah, they question him asking where he is from and what business he has. He informs them that he is a Hebrew, and though he tells them he worships the Lord, he admits that he is running away from God’s command. The sailors, at Jonah’s prompting, and after some debate, decide to throw Jonah into the sea so that the ship might be sparred and the sea calmed. When Jonah was thrown …show more content…
2:1) and Coogan (403) are sure to mention that 2:2-9, Jonah’s prayer from the belly of the fish, is most likely a later addition to the original book. They cite several reasons including that the words of this prayer do not line up with Jonah’s actions. Coogan calls Jonah a fictional book (Coogan 402), so why does a fictional prayer in a fictional book matter? Perhaps, a later author added this prayer to teach the reader how one should pray when in distress. During this prayer, Jonah mostly tells how miserable his situation is and how God and merciful God is. He clearly does not remember this sentiment through the rest of the book, yet nonetheless, the author has showed us to praise God at all times even in troubled times. By praising God from the fish, Jonah seems to have appealed to God’s mercy and is spit up on the shore to try again at God’s mission. This prayer also explains where Jonah’s turning point was, without it, we are given little explanation as to why the fish spit Jonah up, unless it was simply God giving Jonah an unmerited second