A prophet who runs, gets swallowed, obeys, succeeds — and is furious about it.
God commands Jonah to preach against Nineveh, but Jonah flees in the opposite direction, boarding a ship to Tarshish. God sends a violent storm; the pagan sailors pray desperately while Jonah sleeps below deck. After casting lots reveals Jonah as the cause, he instructs them to throw him overboard. The sea calms, the sailors worship YHWH, and God appoints a great fish to swallow Jonah.
Jonah ben Amittai is historically attested in 2 Kings 14:25 as a prophet during Jeroboam II's reign (eighth century BC). Tarshish, likely in Spain, represents the farthest possible point from Nineveh—the Assyrian capital that represented Israel's greatest geopolitical threat and eventual destroyer.
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