Recently my wife and I taught about Jonah in the kids’ Sunday school at my church. The story is a favorite for Sunday schools, vacation Bible schools, and even murals in church nurseries. But there’s so much more to it than just a guy who was swallowed by a whale. Who was Jonah?

Jonah 1:1 describes the main character of this account: “Jonah son of Amittai” (v. 1). Jonah was a prophet from Israel during the reign of a king named Jeroboam II who ruled over Israel for 41 years in the 700s BC. Second Kings 14:23–25 tells us that this king, Jeroboam II, was evil and idolatrous. However, this period was also one of relative stability and economic prosperity, and Jeroboam even restored Israel’s borders, “in accordance with the word of the LORD, the God of Israel, spoken through his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher” (2 Kings 14:25). That is the same Jonah in the book of Jonah.

Jonah begins by saying the “word of the LORD came to Jonah” (Jonah 1:1). Perhaps Jonah was expecting a different message when God’s word came to him, something more like telling Jeroboam II to expand Israel’s territory (2 Kings 14:25). Yet the “word of the LORD” was different this time— radically different! Given Jonah’s role in helping Israel reclaim lost territory, maybe it’s not so surprising that Jonah didn’t want to preach a message of repentance to Israel’s nemesis Assyria. Yet preaching repentance to Nineveh is exactly what God called Jonah to do. The question that Jonah had to face—and the question we also have to face—is whether we will obey God even when we don’t like what He says.

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