50 Fun Facts About Jonah

Which people ruled the city Jonah was sent to prophesy against?

Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, stood near present-day Mosul in Iraq; a mosque said to hold Jonah's tomb stood there until 2014.

How long did Jonah remain inside the sea creature?

Jesus later compared the span to the time he would spend 'in the heart of the earth'.

Which port did Jonah flee to in order to sail away from his mission?

The port is also transliterated Joppa; from there he took a ship bound for Tarshish.

For which destination did Jonah's ship set sail?

The location is uncertain, but it was understood as somewhere far to the west, the opposite direction from Nineveh.

How did the sailors discover that Jonah was to blame for the storm?

They initially refused to throw him overboard and kept rowing, but eventually gave in and the sea grew calm.

What did the sailors do once the storm calmed?

Their readiness to worship contrasts ironically with Jonah's own reluctance.

How did Jonah leave the creature's belly?

Inside, Jonah had prayed and promised to give thanks and pay what he had vowed.

What warning did Jonah cry out as he walked through the city?

The people believed him and proclaimed a fast, and the city was spared.

What did the king of Nineveh do on hearing Jonah's message?

His decree required fasting, sackcloth, prayer and repentance for the people and even the livestock.

How did Jonah react when God spared Nineveh?

He argued that since God is merciful, the reprieve had been inevitable, and went outside the city to watch.

What is the Hebrew name for the plant God grew over Jonah's shelter?

The King James Version calls it a gourd; a worm bit its root and it withered overnight.

What killed the plant that shaded Jonah?

Exposed to the sun, Jonah begged God to let him die, setting up the book's final rebuke.

How many people did God say lived in Nineveh who could not tell right hand from left?

God adds 'and many cattle as well', the closing words of the book.

What does the name Jonah mean in Hebrew?

Scholars note the irony that a bird associated with peace names a prophet so militant in his views.

Who was Jonah's father?

His name means 'truth' in Hebrew, which Jewish commentators tie to Jonah's stubborn preference for truth over forgiveness.

From which town was Jonah, according to 2 Kings?

The village of Mashhad in Galilee stands on the ancient site and claims one of several tombs of Jonah.

During which king's reign does 2 Kings place Jonah?

That dates the historical prophet to 786-746 BCE, though the book itself names no king.

How many chapters does the Book of Jonah have?

It is one of the twelve minor prophets, and despite its brevity has been adapted countless times.

On which Jewish holy day is the Book of Jonah read in full?

It is the Haftarah at the afternoon mincha prayer, chosen to stress God's willingness to forgive those who repent.

What does the Hebrew text actually call the creature that swallowed Jonah?

Tyndale's 1534 translation rendered the Greek ketos in Matthew as 'whale', and the idea stuck in English.

Which Jewish concept, meaning repentance, does the story of Jonah teach?

Jonah, son of 'truth', resists asking Nineveh to repent, and the text is critical of him for it.

According to Rabbi Eliezer, what was the inside of the fish's mouth like?

The fish's eyes were like windows and a pearl inside gave extra light, in this midrashic tradition.

In the Midrash, which monster threatened to eat both Jonah and the fish?

Jonah threatened to leash it by the tongue; seeing he was circumcised and under God's protection, it fled.

Which medieval scholar argued that Jonah's experiences were visions, not actualities?

Abarbanel later countered that Jonah could easily have survived, since fetuses live nine months without fresh air.

What did Jesus promise the Pharisees when they demanded a miracle?

Jonah's three days in the fish prefigured the resurrection; Jesus said 'something greater than Jonah is here'.

In which two Gospels is Jonah mentioned?

In Luke the reference comes as an eschatological prophecy after a woman in the crowd blesses Jesus's mother.

On what date is Jonah's feast day in the Roman Catholic Church?

The Eastern Orthodox calendar keeps it a day later, on 22 September of the Julian calendar.

Which observance in the Syriac and Oriental Orthodox churches commemorates Jonah's mission?

The Armenian Apostolic Church holds moveable feasts for Jonah as one of the Twelve Minor Prophets.

Which reformer said the plant shading Jonah represented Judaism and the worm Christ?

Luther also doubted anyone would read the book as literal history had it not been in the Bible.

Which reformer called the Book of Jonah the prophet's own personal confession of guilt?

He likened Jonah's time in the fish to the fires of Hell and called the sailors 'iron-hearted, like Cyclops'.

Which chapter of the Quran is named after Jonah?

He is the only one of the Twelve Minor Prophets named in the Quran.

What title, meaning 'The One of the Fish', does the Quran give Jonah?

The name appears in Quran 21:87 and 68:48; other verses call him an apostle of Allah.

In the Quranic account, how did Jonah come to be thrown overboard?

The surah says that had he not glorified Allah, he would have stayed inside the fish until the Day of Resurrection.

According to hadith, Muhammad said one should not claim to be better than which prophet?

A servant from Nineveh named Addas is said to have embraced Islam after Muhammad called Jonah his brother.

Which group destroyed the mosque said to hold Jonah's tomb at Mosul in July 2014?

An Assyrian palace of Esarhaddon was later found beneath the ruins after Mosul was retaken in 2017.

Which Assyrian king's palace was found beneath the ruined Nabi Yunus mosque?

It dates to the first half of the 7th century BCE; ISIL had looted it for the black market.

At which famous 1925 court case did the whale of Jonah feature in cross-examination?

Clarence Darrow grilled William Jennings Bryan, who admitted the Bible had to be interpreted.

What does the sailors' term 'a Jonah' mean?

The sense broadened to any person who carries a jinx to an enterprise.

In Turkish, 'Jonah's fish' (yunus balığı) is the everyday word for which animal?

The name reflects how deeply the story is embedded in the Islamic world.

In which novel does Father Mapple preach a sermon on the Book of Jonah?

Mapple concludes that Jonah admirably understood that 'his dreadful punishment is just'.

Which children's classic has its hero and his father swallowed by 'the Terrible Dogfish'?

Carlo Collodi's 1883 allusion to Jonah survives in Disney's 1940 film version.

Which vegetable plays Jonah in the 2002 VeggieTales movie?

In the film Jonah is swallowed by a gargantuan whale, in keeping with popular tradition rather than the Hebrew text.

By one tradition, Jonah was the boy brought back to life by which prophet in 1 Kings?

Another tradition makes him the son of the woman of Shunem revived by Elisha in 2 Kings.

Jonah is the only one of the Twelve Minor Prophets to be named in which scripture?

Surah 37:139–148 retells his full story.

Which Persian historian wrote that Allah made the fish's body transparent so Jonah could see the deep?

He also recorded that none of Jonah's bones were injured and that he heard all the fish praising God.

Where in Turkey does a claimed tomb of Jonah lie behind the mihrab of the Fatih Pasha Mosque?

The traveller Evliya Çelebi wrote of visiting the tombs of the prophets Jonah and George in the city.

Under what number does the Aarne–Thompson–Uther index classify tales of a man surviving inside a fish?

The motif became a stock trope of later satire, from Lucian's A True Story to Baron Munchausen.

Which 18th-century tall-tale hero, created by Rudolf Erich Raspe, is also swallowed by a giant fish?

Lucian of Samosata's A True Story used the same motif in the second century CE.

Which Greek mythological hero did Joseph Campbell link to Jonah, noting their names differ only in sound order?

In Greek, Jonah is Jonas (Ἰωνᾶς) and Jason is Ἰάσων.

In which deuterocanonical book does Tobias rejoice at news of Nineveh's destruction, echoing Jonah?

Jonah is mentioned twice in the fourteenth chapter of the Vaticanus version.