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Chapter 1 records God's command to Jonah to go to Nineveh to preach. Nineveh was a large city located in Assyria on the Tigris River. Jonah's reference to its size probably included the large urban area that surrounded the city. Nineveh had a population estimated at 120,000 people and it had great power and dominion over the Middle East. It was an exceedingly wicked city, one that the Lord would destroy if they did not repent, so the Lord ordered Jonah to go and preach repentance unto them.
But Jonah didn't want to go. Why didn't Jonah want to go? Jonah didn't like the people of Nineveh. He didn't care if they were destroyed. In fact, he wanted them to be destroyed, but he knew that God was a merciful God and if he went to preach, God would quicken their hearts and they would repent and then they would not be destroyed. In other words, he was a reluctant preacher.
So what did Jonah do? He headed west instead of east, to the city of Joppa, a city on the Mediterranean Sea, 34 miles N.W. of Jerusalem. There he boarded a ship for Tarnish, a city near Gibraltar, in Spain. There, he hoped, he would get away from the presence of the Lord.
Shortly after they set sail, the Lord sent a great wind over the sea. The storm was so great that it threatened to send the ship to the bottom of the sea. The seamen were much afraid and the prayed to their gods and they threw much of the cargo over board but to no avail. Jonah was below deck asleep and the seamen came down and awakened him and commanded him to cry out to his God to see if He would save them. By now the crew had decided that someone had angered the gods and they needed to find out who it was. They cast lots (drew straws) and the lot fell on Jonah.
"What have you done," they asked, "to bring this awful storm upon us?" "I am running away from the Lord," he said. What could they do to stop the storm. Jonah's answer was to throw him overboard into the sea. So when everything else failed, they picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea, and the storm stopped. Now the Lord arranged for a big fish to swallow Jonah and Jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights.
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