Even people unfamiliar with the Bible have heard of Jonah, the prophet who was swallowed by a whale and lived to tell about it.
Fact or fiction? Well, it is scientific fact that people have been swallowed by whales and escaped to tell of it. Did it actually happen to Jonah? Each reader must judge for himself.
Jonah was a reluctant prophet. God sent him to the pagan city of Nineveh to preach repentance. Jonah ran away from the Lord by boarding a ship.
In a horrible storm, Jonah admitted that he was probably the cause of it, so at Jonah’s request they threw him overboard, and “the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah” (Jonah 1:17).
Jonah reached Nineveh, preached the message of repentance, and—much to his disgust—the pagans repented. The book of Jonah was a sign that the Israelites were beginning to see that God loved all people, not just Israel.
