Jonah setting & dates

The setting of Jonah

The book ranges across the ancient world by land and sea. Jonah’s home was in Israel, where he had ministered under Jeroboam II; the town of Gath-hepher, named as his birthplace in 2 Kings, lay in Galilee. When God called him eastward to Nineveh, Jonah instead went to Joppa, a port on the Mediterranean coast, and set sail westward for Tarshish: often identified with the far reaches of the western Mediterranean, roughly the opposite end of the known world. His flight thus took him as far from Nineveh as a ship could carry him, out onto the open sea where God’s storm overtook him.

Nineveh itself lay far to the northeast, on the banks of the Tigris River in the heart of Assyria (near modern Mosul in Iraq). It was one of the great cities of the age and would become the capital of the Assyrian Empire, the superpower that loomed over Israel. The book calls it “an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth,” home to more than 120,000 people. That God would send a prophet to such a place, and spare it when it repented, is the geographic measure of His mercy, reaching from Israel to the very center of its enemies’ power.

The two directions

The three places the book names, and where they are today. Tarshish is not listed because it cannot be located with confidence; southern Spain is the usual proposal, and the point of the name in Jonah 1:3 is its distance rather than its harbour.

Timeline

• c. 780-760 BC - Jonah son of Amittai ministers in Israel during the reign of Jeroboam II (see 2 Kings 14:25).
• Jonah’s mission - God calls him to Nineveh; he flees, is swallowed by the fish, and is delivered.
• Nineveh repents - The city turns from its evil and is spared, displaying God’s mercy to the nations.
• 722 BC - Assyria, whose capital Nineveh becomes, destroys the northern kingdom of Israel.
• c. 612 BC - Nineveh, fallen back into wickedness, is destroyed, as Nahum later foretold.