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This Book is full of improbabilities.
Was Jonah a real person? The Bible does know of a prophet by that name, the son of Amittai (see 2 Ki 14:25), who lived around the middle of the eighth century. Here, however, the impression is given that “Jonah” is simply a straw man.
Jonah did exist, but in a different sense: in the same sense that the murderous vinedressers existed (Mt 21:33-41), or the rich man and the impoverished Lazarus (Lk 16:19-21), or the prodigal son and his father (Lk 15:11-32). In the author’s intention, we are to see in Jonah those religious Jews of the postexilic period who huddled around the Jerusalem temple, whose hopes were limited by a narrow nationalism, and who had nothing but scorn for the great mass of human beings astray in the world.
The story told in this Book is, then, a parable, and it has a rightful place among the Prophets. In fact, it gives the real meaning of the countless threats against the pagans that occupy so much space in the Prophets (Am 1:3—2:3; Isa 13–27; Jer 48–51; Ezek 25–32; etc.): God desires not the destruction of the nations but their conversion (Jer 12:15-16; 16:19; Isa 45:22; 49:6; Jon 3:10; 4:2, 11; etc.). The author ridicules a narrow-minded and jealous nationalism and asserts that God’s forgiveness knows no limits. Even the pagans are called, and Jesus goes beyond Jonah when he says that the Ninevites will be the Pharisees’ accusers at the judgment (see Mt 12:41-42; Lk 11:21-32). In speaking to his contemporaries, Jesus will use the image of Jonah to announce his own resurrection (Mt 12:39-40).
This Book, written in a late form of Hebrew and drawing its inspiration from the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel, was composed in the postexilic period and is one of the most interesting testimonies to the missionary ideal of the People of God and to the universal scope of the message of salvation.
This Book may be divided as follows:
I: Recalcitrant Prophet (1:1—2:1)
II: Prayer of Deliverance (2:2-11)
III: An Unforeseen Success (3:1—4:5)
IV: The Last Lesson (4:6-11)