Most Bible students will agree that chapter two of Jonah contains the prayer that Jesus said while he was inside the fish. This study takes the next step. It’s an attempt at looking at the entire four chapters from the view that they are all about Jesus.
Learning the meanings of the Hebrew names is a great help in understanding the story of Jonah. For example, Jonah means “Dove” –the symbol of peace– and his father, Amittai, means “Certainty, or Truth, or Trustworthy” –attributes which only God fulfills.
The story starts out with Jesus at home in heaven. His Father told Him to go down to Paradise (Nineveh) –where the Old Testament saints were waiting for their reward and tell them the judgement that was coming. Jesus quickly left, but first He had to make another, very necessary stop.
Having been cast out of His Father’s presence and into the grave (into the sea), Jesus cried out to His Father. They had never been separated before and Jesus was in agony over His situation. While in the grave, His body and especially His face was covered over with grave clothes. (Jonah –including his face– was covered in seaweed.)
Paradise (Nineveh) was so important that it required a three day visit from Jesus. Only His death (to be proven by three days in the ground) could free its inhabitants. In that time period they confessed Him as Lord, but another change came into the world just forty days after His entrance. That change upset the entire religious world.
After His return to heaven and the ordeal was over, Jesus had the one of the deepest conversations with His Father that is recorded in the Bible. All of the emotions He felt (hurt, frustration, anger) are bared here so that we can know the depths of what He endured on our behalf.