The Prophet Who Ran Away From God Quiz

Answer: Nothing--all we know about Jonah is that God talks to him.

Absolutely no personal details about the prophet are given in the Book of Jonah at all. Unlike other prophets whose occupation, families, and time period are described (the life story of Moses, for example, is told in great detail), Jonah is essentially a blank slate.

From a single verse in 2 Kings, however (14:25), we learn that Jonah lived and prophesied during the reign of Jeroboam II (roughly 790-750 BCE)--much later than the reign of King Solomon! But even 2 Kings is silent about the other personal details of Jonah's life.

Answer: "In my trouble I called out to the Lord, and He answered me."

One of the important (and puzzling) things about the Jonah story is that Jonah doesn't try to argue with God--he just hops up and runs away. Jonah doesn't say a thing to God until he winds up in the belly of the fish and has to ask God for a second chance. "In my trouble I called out to the Lord, and He answered me" is the opening of Jonah's prayer from the fish in 2:3. It's also the only answer here that isn't an objection.

Jonah's decision not to argue with God is striking because there's such a strong tradition of prophets in the Bible arguing with God. All of the incorrect answers were famous examples of this tradition:

"Will you sweep away the innocent along with the guilty?" is what Abraham said to God in Genesis 18:23, in an attempt to convince God not to destroy the evil cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

"What if they do not believe me and do not listen to me?" is Moses's objection at the burning bush in Exodus 4:1. Moses doesn't want to accept the overwhelming task of leading the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt.

"Woe is me; I am lost! For I am a man of unclean lips" is Isaiah's frightened initial reaction to his first prophecy in Isaiah 6:5. Ultimately Isaiah accepts his mission as a prophet, but his first vision of God terrifies him and makes him feel unworthy of prophecy.

Answer: Jonah heads off in the exact opposite direction from Nineveh.

Jonah buys passage aboard a ship sailing to Tarshish. Though scholars aren't sure exactly where Tarshish was (theories range from Tarsus in present-day Turkey, to Carthage on the northern coast of Africa), everyone agrees it lay to the west, across at least part of the Mediterranean.

Nineveh, by contrast, was the capital city of the Assyrian empire. It lay to the east, in present-day Iraq.

Jonah doesn't argue with God at the beginning of the story, and even if he had, that wouldn't be unusual in the Bible.

Answer: God

After throwing Jonah into the stormy sea, the sailors cry out to God (1:14), "Do not hold us guilty of killing an innocent person! For You, O Lord, by Your will, have brought this about."

The story of Jonah is, I believe, ultimately about the tension between God's justice and God's mercy (or love). This early statement of belief that God is responsible for what happens here on earth sets the stage for the book's theological message. After all, if God wasn't responsible for any human suffering, how could we even ask if God should be merciful or just with us?

Answer: An apology for Jonah's disobedience.

In his prayer, Jonah never actually apologizes for disobeying God. This is strange because an apology is often seen as a crucial component of earning forgiveness (whether from God or from other people). But apparently God is merciful and forgives Jonah anyway--an important point in a story about justice versus mercy.

Jonah does mention that God saved his life (2:6-7--"The waters closed in over me . . . Yet You brought my life up from the pit, O Lord my God!"). Jonah also greatly misses God and the Temple (2:5--"I thought I was driven away, out of Your sight; would I ever gaze again upon Your holy Temple?"), and concludes with a promise to serve God in the future (2:10--"But I, with loud thanksgiving, will sacrifice to You; what I have vowed I will perform.").

Answer: Everyone, from the king to the humblest person, begins to repent.

The reaction to Jonah is immediate--after his first day proclaiming the destruction of Nineveh (3:5), "the people of Nineveh believed God." The king himself proclaims a city-wide period of mourning, fasting and repentance. Even the animals in the city are expected to obey the fast!

Answer: About 50 years after Jonah's time, the people of Nineveh conquered Israel.

Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian empire, and in 721 BCE the Assyrians launched a vicious attack on the Northern Kingdom of Israel. The Assyrians conquered northern Israel and exiled the Israelites living there. It was during this Assyrian exile that the "10 Lost Tribes of Israel" disappeared.

Since 2 Kings 14:25 states that Jonah lived during the reign of King Jeroboam II (approx. 790-750 BCE), the Jonah story must have taken place a mere 50 years or so before the people of Nineveh violently conquered Jonah's people.

The fact that Jonah is sent to save one of the biggest enemies of the Israelites makes the story that much more dramatic--and troubling.

Answer: Jonah knew that God would forgive Nineveh for all its terrible sins.

God's decision to forgive the people of Nineveh "displeased Jonah greatly" and makes him "grieved" (4:1). Angrily, Jonah tells God, "This is why I fled beforehand to Tarshish. For I know that You are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in kindness, renouncing punishment" (4:2).

There's some irony in this line, since Jonah turns concepts ordinarily used to praise God into biting criticism. Jewish liturgy today frequently mentions God's compassion, kindness, slowness to anger, and reluctance to punish sinners--but for Jonah, these are fundamentally qualities of injustice which enable the wicked to escape unscathed.

Answer: A plant, a worm, and an east wind.

God causes a plant to spring up to give Jonah shade, which makes Jonah "very happy" (4:6)--the first and only time he feels happy in the whole book. But the next day God provides a worm to attack the plant, and a "sultry east wind" to make Jonah miss the plant even more (4:8).

Frogs, locusts and hail are 3 of the 10 Plagues sent to teach Pharaoh a lesson.
The tree, fruit, and snake are from the Garden of Eden story.
Lost donkeys, a well, and a prophet are from the tale of the first meeting between Saul and Samuel in 1 Samuel 9.

Answer: There are a lot of people in Nineveh, and they don't understand the difference between right and wrong.

In the final verse of the Book of Jonah (4:11), God says, "And should not I care about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who do not yet know their right hand from their left, and many beasts as well?"

The Book of Jonah is often seen as a story of the power of repentance--it is read in synagogues around the world in the closing hours of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement--so it's noteworthy that God doesn't mention repentance at all. Instead, God says the opposite: the people of Nineveh are called ignorant and compared to animals, and thus apparently not responsible for their own actions.