Lessons from the Life of Jonah*

by Tiffany S.
from Virtuous Daughters, February 2002~Volume 1, Number 11

Pull out your Bibles! Remember that I told you I did a study on the book of Jonah? I thought I would share with you what I learned. Maybe you could do your own study on Jonah with someone in your family. Or you could do it on another book in the Bible. It’s best to start with short books, though. Note: I am going to put chapter: verse. For example, if you see 1:17, that means chapter 1, verse 17 of Jonah.  :)

1:3  Jonah wanted to hide from GOD!! We know that is impossible.
1:5  Jonah was asleep during the storm.
1:6  The ship master came to Jonah and told Jonah to call upon his God “that God will think upon us, that we perish not.”
1:7  The people cast lots “that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us.”  The lot fell on Jonah.
1:10   The men were afraid, because they knew that Jonah was hiding from God because Jonah had told them.
1:12  Jonah told them to throw him in the sea.
1:13  The men didn’t want to throw Jonah in, so they tried hard to row to land, but they couldn’t.
1:14  The men prayed to God before throwing him in.
1:15  When they threw Jonah in, the storm stopped.
1:17  A great FISH swallowed Jonah. Haven’t you always heard “whale”? He was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
2:1  The verse right before this says that Jonah was in the fish three days and three nights, and then this verse says “THEN Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish’s belly.” Doesn’t that make you wonder if Jonah didn’t pray for three days and three nights, but if he prayed the same day he was put on land? 
2:5  In Jonah’s prayer he says that “waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head.” Throughout Jonah’s prayer, he talks as if things had already happened.
2:7  This is another reason I think he prayed the third day: (still praying) “When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord.”  When he was getting weak, he remembered God, and he tells God what has happened to him. It makes you wonder if he didn’t pray until the last day. (Most children’s books say he prayed FOR three days and nights.)
3:3  Nineveh was a three days journey. If Jonah would have obeyed God the first time, he would have been there the day he was put on land.
3:4  In forty days, Nineveh would be overthrown--40 is used many times in the Bible.
3:5  The people in Nineveh repented--“from the greatest of them even to the least of them.”
3:6  Even the king repented!
3:7  King proclaimed that people or animals could not eat or drink and had to be covered in sack cloth and “cry mightily unto God" and “turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.”
4:1  Instead of Jonah rejoicing that people would live for the Lord, it displeased him, and he was angry. How sad.
4:6  God made for Jonah a gourd (plant). He liked it very much.
4:10  Jonah did not have pity for the people, but had pity for the gourd.
4:11  More that 120, 000 people were saved (“sixscore thousand persons”)
 
We can learn from Jonah to be obedient at all times and that God can see us wherever we are. Daddy said this, “Jonah was trying to get as far away from God as he could, but God took him even further.”  I’m sure Jonah was glad God could see him at all times when he was in that fish’s belly. :) I encourage you to do a study like this as well.  It is so amazing what you can learn from such a small book.