BBB Bible Series: Jonah Trivia Quiz

Answer: Tarshish

You know where Tarshish was? Jonah started from Joppa and headed west (Jonah 1:3), along the entire length of the Mediterranean, towards the coast of Spain. But Nineveh lay across the desert to the east, in the opposite direction: on the Tigris river, north of the site of Babylon - in modern terms, it was in the northern part of Iraq, next door to Mosul.

In short, Jonah could not have been any more disobedient if he tried - and he did!

Answer: the captain

The captain shook him awake and told Jonah to call on his God, as the others in the ship had all called upon theirs. Jonah's response to the captain is not stated, but he came up on deck.

Answer: Jonah

This very prophet is where modern English gets the expression 'a Jonah' from: it means the particular person who has brought bad luck, or a curse, into the group. The lot fell on Jonah (Jonah 1:7), and the sailors asked him what they should do, since it was Jonah's God who was angry, and perhaps Jonah knew why.

Answer: they offered a sacrifice to the Lord

When they saw the sea grow calm so dramatically, they 'greatly feared the Lord'.
Jonah's God, they could see, was Somebody not to be trifled with, as Jonah had done. They offered a sacrifice and made vows to Him (Jonah 1:16), doing their best to keep on His good side.

Answer: God wanted it to

"Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah." (Jonah 1:17, NKJV) It was God's purpose that the fish should swallow Jonah. We also see in Jonah 2:10 that God "spoke to the fish" and, it is clearly implied, told it to spit Jonah up again.

Answer: three days and nights

This may be found in Jonah 1:17. Later, when the scribes and Pharisees asked Jesus for a sign that He came from God, Jesus told them that the only sign He would give them would be the "sign of Jonah". In Matthew 12:40 Jesus draws a direct parallel between Himself and Jonah, saying "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." (NKJV)

Answer: Enormous: it took three days to walk from one end to the other

"Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three-day journey in extent." (Jonah 3:3b, NKJV)
Along with Babylon, Nineveh was founded by Nimrod (Genesis 10:11), on the Tigris river. Archaeologists tell us that the city wall was eight miles long, with fifteen massive gates in it. One of the mounds of Nineveh still bears a name which means, translated from the Arabic, 'The prophet Jonah'!

Answer: Forty days

"Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" (Jonah 3:4b, NKJV) This is all that we are told of Jonah's message, and yet the whole population of the city, from the king downwards, believed God's word and repented at once.

Answer: God relented, and spared the people and the city

God relented, and, according to Jonah 4:1, it was just this which "displeased Jonah exceedingly". To paraphrase the next few verses, Jonah said, "Oh, no, Lord! This is exactly what I said back home was going to happen! This is why I ran off to Tarshish, because I know how merciful and softhearted you are! Oh, I'd rather die than see this day!" One strongly suspects that Jonah did not like being made to prophesy disaster, and then see his prophecy *not* come true when the Ninevites repented. Jonah, I believe, did not like looking like a fool.

Answer: the people could not tell their right hand from their left

In the context, it seems that God meant that the Ninevites didn't know what they were doing, especially in terms of telling right from wrong. It's possible that He meant that they were like little children, too young to understand.