Jonah Trivia
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100 free Jonah trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Jonah is the prophet who ran the wrong way. Told to preach to Nineveh, he booked passage to Tarshish, got thrown overboard in a storm, spent three days inside a great fish, and finally sulked under a withered plant because God had spared the city after all. This Jonah trivia quiz covers the whole four-chapter book, verse by verse, plus what Jews, Christians and Muslims have made of it since. You will find questions on the story itself, on where the tale is read (Yom Kippur), how Jesus used the 'sign of Jonah', why the Quran calls him Dhul-Nun, the tomb ISIL destroyed at Mosul in 2014, and the long argument about whether it was really a whale. Difficulty runs from Sunday-school easy to seminary hard, and every answer is verified and cited to its reference page. If you enjoy this quiz, try our other Bible and religion quizzes.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In Jonah's day, which people ruled the city he was sent to warn?
The Assyrians
The Assyrians. Nineveh, their capital, was later sacked in 612 BC by a coalition that included the Babylonians and the Medes.
Q 02How long did Jonah remain inside the sea creature?
Three days and nights
Three days and nights. In one rabbinic legend, the creature spent that time showing Jonah the depths, including the path Israel took through the Red Sea.
Q 03Which port did Jonah flee to in order to sail away from his mission?
Jaffa
Jaffa. Called Joppa in older Bibles, it is where Jonah found a ship and paid his own fare to flee 'from the presence of the Lord'.
Q 04For which destination did Jonah's ship set sail?
Tarshish
Tarshish. Jonah later told God why he had fled there: he had known all along that God was gracious and would spare Nineveh.
Q 05How did the sailors discover that Jonah was to blame for the storm?
They cast lots
They cast lots. Asked who he was, Jonah said he was a Hebrew who feared the God who made the sea and the dry land.
Q 06What did the sailors do once the storm calmed?
Offered sacrifices to God
Offered sacrifices to God. During the storm each sailor had cried to his own god; now they worshipped the God Jonah had been fleeing.
Q 07How did Jonah leave the creature's belly?
It vomited him out at God's command
It vomited him out at God's command, onto dry land, and God then told Jonah a second time to go to Nineveh.
Q 08What did Jonah warn would happen to Nineveh within forty days?
It would be overthrown
It would be overthrown. The whole city believed him and fasted, and when God saw them turn from their evil ways, he spared it.
Q 09What did the king of Nineveh do on hearing Jonah's message?
Put on sackcloth and sat in ashes
Put on sackcloth and sat in ashes. His decree ordered everyone, even the herds and flocks, to fast and be covered in sackcloth.
Q 10How did Jonah react when God spared Nineveh?
He was displeased and angry
He was displeased and angry. He asked God to take his life, then sat east of the city to see whether it would be destroyed.
Q 11In the King James Version, what plant grew up to shade Jonah?
A gourd
A gourd. When a church read Jerome's new Latin version, which called the plant ivy, the congregation broke into an uproar, as Augustine wrote to Jerome.
Q 12What made the plant that shaded Jonah wither?
A worm
A worm. God had made the plant grow just the day before, and once it withered, a scorching east wind and the sun left Jonah faint.
Q 13God says more than 120,000 people in Nineveh cannot tell what apart?
Right from left
Right from left. The book ends with God asking Jonah, who had pitied a plant, whether God should not spare such a city, 'and also much cattle'.
Q 21In rabbinic legend, when did God make the creature that swallowed Jonah?
At the beginning of the world
At the beginning of the world. It was made for this one task, so its mouth was big enough for Jonah to walk in as if entering a great synagogue.
Q 22In one rabbinic legend, what lit up the inside of the creature that swallowed Jonah?
A great pearl
A great pearl. Hanging inside and shining like the sun at noon, it let Jonah see all that was in the sea and the depths.
Q 23In the Midrash, which monster threatened to eat Jonah and the creature that swallowed him?
Leviathan
Leviathan. Jonah showed it the mark of his circumcision, the seal of Abraham, and the monster fled two days' journey away.
Q 14The name Jonah is the Hebrew word for what?
Dove
Dove. It is the same Hebrew word used for the dove that Noah sent out from the ark, which came back with an olive leaf.
Q 15What was Jonah doing below deck while the storm battered the ship?
Sleeping
Sleeping. The captain woke him and told him to get up and call on his God, in case that god would spare them.
Q 16What did Jonah tell the sailors would make the raging sea calm down?
Throwing him overboard
Throwing him overboard. The sailors tried rowing back to land first, and only threw him in when the storm grew even worse.
Q 17During which king's reign does 2 Kings place Jonah?
Jeroboam II
Jeroboam II. Though 2 Kings says this king did evil, Jonah foretold that he would win back the lost borders of Israel.
Q 18Which group of Bible books includes Jonah?
The Minor Prophets
The Minor Prophets. Yet it is mostly a story about the prophet, and most scholars think it was written long after the events it describes.
Q 19On which Jewish holy day is the Book of Jonah read in full?
Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur. The whole book is read at the afternoon service, for its story of God forgiving the people of Nineveh when they repented.
Q 20What does the Hebrew text actually call the creature that swallowed Jonah?
A great fish
A great fish. The whale came from Matthew's Gospel, where English Bibles from Tyndale to the King James Version say 'the whale's belly'.
Q 24In rabbinic legend, what did Jonah fear people would call him if Nineveh was spared?
A false prophet
A false prophet. He had once foretold Jerusalem's doom, but its people repented, the city was spared, and they branded him a liar.
Q 25Jesus said that at the judgment, the men of Nineveh would do what to his generation?
Condemn it
Condemn it. They had repented when Jonah preached, he said, and now someone greater than Jonah was here.
Q 26The ruins of Nineveh stand in which modern country?
Iraq
Iraq. The fire that destroyed the city is thought to have baked the clay tablets of its royal library hard, preserving them.
Q 27Where on the Sistine Chapel ceiling did Michelangelo paint Jonah?
Above the altar
Above the altar. Vasari marvelled at its foreshortening: Jonah bends back so far that the vault, which really curves forward, looks straight.
Q 28In early Christian art, Jonah's story was a popular symbol of what?
The resurrection
The resurrection. Jesus had compared Jonah's time inside the creature to the time he himself would spend 'in the heart of the earth'.
Q 29What kind of prayer does Jonah pray from inside the creature?
A hymn of thanks
A hymn of thanks. He gives thanks for being saved while still inside, which led some scholars to argue the poem was added later.
Q 30Why couldn't a whale shark, despite its enormous size, have swallowed Jonah?
Its throat is too narrow
Its throat is too narrow. Though its mouth can be five feet long, its throat measures only inches across.