Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,
All Commentaries on Jonah 1:1 Go To Jonah 1
Gregory the Theologian
AD 390
What then is the story, and wherein lies its application? For, perhaps, it would not be amiss to relate it, for its general validation. Jonah also was fleeing from the face of God, or rather, thought that he was fleeing. But he was overtaken by the sea, and the storm, and the lot, and the whale’s belly, and the three days’ entombment. All this is a type of a greater mystery. He fled from having to announce the dread of the awful message to the Ninevites and from being subsequently, if the city was saved by repentance, convicted of falsehood. It was not that he was displeased at the salvation of the wicked, but he was ashamed of being made an instrument of falsehood and exceedingly zealous for the credit of prophecy, which was in danger of being destroyed in his own person. Indeed most would be unable to penetrate the depth of the divine dispensation in such cases.
