Jonah’s prophecy is in the main the history of himself. It shows that the prophet embodied in himself the testimony of God through Israel to the Gentiles (compare Matt. 24:14), and also the important fact that God regards the contrition and turning from evil of a city or nation. Jonah was directed to go and cry against that great city Nineveh, but instead of obeying, he fled from the presence of the Lord. He himself tells us why he fled—he knew Jehovah was gracious: If he foretold the destruction of the city and God spared it, he would lose his reputation (Jonah 4:2). It was the same with Israel: They could not bear grace being shown to the Gentiles (compare Acts 13:45; 1 Thess. 2:16). Jonah was God’s servant, but unfaithful: His unfaithfulness brought him into the depths of judgment, but he then embodied in his own person the truth of the testimony he proclaimed, and yet while proclaiming the judgment, he was unprepared for the extension of mercy to the Gentiles. God stopped him in his course, and though he slept, the sailors called him to account. After praying to their gods, they drew lots and the lot fell on Jonah. He had to confess he was fleeing from Jehovah, the God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land. Thus Jehovah was made known to those Gentile seamen. The obduracy of the Jews only opened the door wider for grace to go to the Gentiles. We may hope that Jonah humbled himself before being used by the Spirit to write his own history—a history which shows what the heart of even a servant of God was, and the means employed by God to teach him.