Jonah 1:12

1:12 He said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea to make the sea quiet down, ¹  because I know it’s my fault you are in this severe storm.”

Jonah 2:2

2:2 and said,

“I ²  called out to the Lord from my distress,

and he answered me; ³ 

from the belly of Sheol ⁴  I cried out for help,

and you heard my prayer. ⁵ 

Jonah 3:7

3:7 He issued a proclamation and said, ⁶  “In Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles: No human or animal, cattle or sheep, is to taste anything; they must not eat and they must not drink water.

Jonah 4:5

4:5 Jonah left the city and sat down east ⁷  of it. ⁸  He made a shelter for himself there and sat down under it in the shade to see what would happen to the city. ⁹ 

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¹ tn Heb “quiet for you”; NAB “that it may quiet down for you.”

² sn The eight verses of Jonah’s prayer in Hebrew contain twenty-seven first-person pronominal references to himself. There are fifteen second- or third-person references to the Lord.

³ tn Tg. Jonah 2:2 renders this interpretively: “and he heard my prayer.”

sn The first verse of the prayer summarizes the whole – “I was in trouble; I called to the Lord for help; he rescued me; I will give him thanks” – before elaborating on the nature and extent of the trouble (vv. 3-7a), mentioning the cry for help and the subsequent rescue (6b-7), and promising to give thanks (8-9). These elements, as well as much vocabulary and imagery found in Jonah’s prayer, appear also in other Hebrew psalms. With Jonah 2:1 compare, for example, Pss 18:6; 22:24; 81:7; 116:1-4; 120:1; 130:1-2; Lam 3:55-56. These references and others indicate that Jonah was familiar with prayers used in worship at the temple in Jerusalem; he knew “all the right words.” Consider also Ps 107 with Jonah as a whole.

⁴ sn Sheol was a name for the place of residence of the dead, the underworld (see Job 7:9-10; Isa 38:17-18). Jonah pictures himself in the belly of Sheol, its very center – in other words he is as good as dead.

⁵ tn Heb “voice” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV); NIV “my cry.” The term קוֹל (qol, “voice”) functions as a metonymy for the content of what is uttered: cry for help in prayer.

⁶ tn Contrary to many modern English versions, the present translation understands the king’s proclamation to begin after the phrase “and he said” (rather than after “in Nineveh”), as do quotations in 1:14; 2:2, 4; 4:2, 8, 9. In Jonah where the quotation does not begin immediately after “said” (אָמַר, ’amar), it is only the speaker or addressee or both that come between “said” and the start of the quotation (1:6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12; 4:4, 9, 10; cf. 1:1; 3:1).

⁷ tn Heb “from the east” or “from the front.” When used to designate a location, the noun קֶדֶם (qedem) may mean “front” (BDB 869 s.v. קֶדֶם 1.a) or “east” (BDB 869 s.v. 1.b). The construction קֶדֶם + preposition מִן (min, “from”) means “from the front” = “in front of” (Job 23:8; Ps 139:5; Isa 9:11) or “from the east” = “eastward, on the east side” (Gen 3:21; 12:8; Num 34:11; Josh 7:2; Ezek 11:23). Because the morning sunrise beat down upon Jonah (v. 8) and because the main city gate of Nineveh opened to the east, the term probably means “on the east side” of the city. But “in front of” the city would mean the same in this case.

⁸ tn Heb “of the city.” For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, the noun “city” has been replaced here by the pronoun (“it”) in the translation.

⁹ sn Apparently Jonah hoped that he might have persuaded the Lord to “change his mind” again (see 3:8-10) and to judge Nineveh after all.