Salvation Geography & Jonah

Understanding the geography of Jonah 1:1-3 highlights Jonah’s dramatic disobedience. He’s sent to Nineveh in Assyria, 500 miles east of Israel, in what is now northern Iraq. Instead he heads to Joppa, to sail for Tarshish. Joppa was then a Philistine city, the modern city of Tel Aviv on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. Tarshish is probably Tartessos in south west Spain. Jonah heads 2000 miles west, virtually the length of the Mediterranean, the span of the known world. Jonah does the opposite of what he’s been told to do. He could hardly get more disobedient if he tried!

There’s a danger of parallelomania, of course, but given that Jonah is reluctantly shown God’s compassion for the gentile Ninevites, it is interesting that Jonah goes to get a ship in Joppa (Jonah 1:3) and Peter is in Joppa (which is named 10 times in Acts 9-11) by the sea when he has his vision and then begins to grasps that “God does not show favouritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right.” (Acts 10:35).

Given the New Testament parallel between Jonah and Jesus (Mt 12:38-41; 16:1-4; Lk 11:29-32) it’s interesting to note that both Jonah and Jesus were prophets from Galillee. Jonah was from Gath-Hepher (Jonah 1:1), a city in the district of Zebulun, 3 miles north east of Nazareth.