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Jonah 1:1–3, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Jonah 1:1–3
The LORD Sends Jonah, and Jonah Flees
The word names Nineveh; Jonah pays to go the other way
The word of the LORD comes to Jonah son of Amittai: Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. The patronymic matches the prophet in 2 Kings 14:25. The book does not pause to prove who wrote the final pages or when. It starts with a summons to confront a foreign imperial city's evil.
Jonah arises—not toward Nineveh, but to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He goes down to Joppa, finds a ship going to Tarshish, pays the fare, and goes down into it. Descent and payment are the first visible theology: resistance chooses a direction and spends money to keep it. Tarshish's exact ancient harbor can remain unsettled; the narrative contrast does not.
Nineveh's wickedness is real, and so are the people who live there
The commission takes the city's evil seriously. Assyrian imperial violence is not a rumor the story needs us to invent. Still, the opening does not turn Nineveh into a people readers are licensed to hate, and it does not map this city onto modern Iraqis or any living nation as a target.
How this should shape us
When a hard responsibility is named, notice the tickets you buy to avoid it. Tell the truth about harm without baptizing contempt for a whole people, ancient or living.
Teach it back
Explain Jonah 1:1–3 in your own words. Include the scene's movement, one source-supported detail, one material uncertainty, and one misuse the context rules out.
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Go deeper
The explanation above is meant to stand on its own. Open these notes only if you want language, history, disagreements, or source locations.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful interpreters disagree?
Best judgment: Major readings include historical prophetic narrative, didactic short story or novella, and satire or parody. The book deliberately evokes Jonah son of Amittai and a real Nineveh while using dense irony, repetition, hyperbole, and folktale-like motifs. Genre alone cannot decide historicity, and the text does not name its author or composition date.
How certain? probableResearch trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Jonah 1:1–3, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Supports: Hebrew forms, morphology, repeated roots, clause relationships, names, and the base wording behind translation discussion.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Jonah.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 1:1–3
Supports: Material lexical, grammatical, textual, historical, seafaring, city, repentance, and divine-relenting notes within the unit.
NET Bible Jonah PDF, printed pp. 1728–1732, translation and translator notes on 1:1–3
Supports: A responsible conservative historical reading, early-date proposal, Assyrian setting, structure, and opening verse-level interpretation, used only within the inspected preview.
Patterson, Jonah, printed pp. 243–248 and 251–255: introduction, outline, and commentary on 1:1–3
Supports: Current critical literary framing, section scope, and exposed summary claims; no unexposed paywalled detail is attributed.
Niditch, Jonah: A Commentary, JSTOR record and exposed section summary for pp. 27–37, section Jonah 1:1–3
Supports: Cumulative sixth-to-fifth-century linguistic proposal together with explicit methodological, dialectal, genre, Aramaic, and Phoenician limitations.
Hornkohl, 'Linguistic Periodization of the Book of Jonah,' pp. 1–17, especially tiered feature analysis and conclusion
Supports: Whole-book structure, genre and historicity survey, insider-outsider dynamics, social-value analysis, and stated cautions about Nineveh size and population claims.
Schader, doctoral thesis, pp. 15–68 (date and history/fiction survey) and 246–251 (Jonah 1 structure)
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Exact location: Jonah 1:1–3, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Jonah
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Hebrew forms, morphology, repeated roots, clause relationships, names, and the base wording behind translation discussion.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Jonah.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 1:1–3
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Jonah with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Material lexical, grammatical, textual, historical, seafaring, city, repentance, and divine-relenting notes within the unit.
Exact location: NET Bible Jonah PDF, printed pp. 1728–1732, translation and translator notes on 1:1–3
Open source ↗commentary preview
Jonah
Richard D. Patterson
Tyndale House Publishers, Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, volume 10, 2008
Supports: A responsible conservative historical reading, early-date proposal, Assyrian setting, structure, and opening verse-level interpretation, used only within the inspected preview.
Exact location: Patterson, Jonah, printed pp. 243–248 and 251–255: introduction, outline, and commentary on 1:1–3
Open source ↗modern critical commentary record
Jonah: A Commentary
Susan Niditch
Fortress Press, Hermeneia, 2023
Supports: Current critical literary framing, section scope, and exposed summary claims; no unexposed paywalled detail is attributed.
Exact location: Niditch, Jonah: A Commentary, JSTOR record and exposed section summary for pp. 27–37, section Jonah 1:1–3
Open source ↗peer reviewed open access article
The Linguistic Periodization of the Book of Jonah: E.B. Pusey and Modern Scholarship
Aaron Hornkohl
Journal of Anglican Studies, Cambridge University Press, 2026
Supports: Cumulative sixth-to-fifth-century linguistic proposal together with explicit methodological, dialectal, genre, Aramaic, and Phoenician limitations.
Exact location: Hornkohl, 'Linguistic Periodization of the Book of Jonah,' pp. 1–17, especially tiered feature analysis and conclusion
Open source ↗open access doctoral thesis
A literary-exegetical and social-scientific analysis of the book of Jonah: an exposition of its ancient social values
Jo-Mari Schader
University of Pretoria, 2016
Supports: Whole-book structure, genre and historicity survey, insider-outsider dynamics, social-value analysis, and stated cautions about Nineveh size and population claims.
Exact location: Schader, doctoral thesis, pp. 15–68 (date and history/fiction survey) and 246–251 (Jonah 1 structure)
Open source ↗