The Midrash on Jonah

The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: Arise, go to Nineveh. (Jonah 1:1–2)

The name of the king of all kings, the Holy One, should be blessed and praised, for His mercies on His creations are great. For at that time when He sent Jonah to Nineveh to prophesy, it was with His attribute of mercy, to show His strength and power on the sea, as it says: But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish [from the presence of the Lord] (Jonah 1:3). To what may this be compared?—to a flesh-and-blood king whose wife died while she was nursing, and the king sought a wet nurse for his son so that he would not perish. What did the king’s wet nurse do? She abandoned the king’s son and ran away. When the king realized that she had run away and abandoned his son, he wrote a decree to have her caught and placed in a prison dungeon where there were snakes and scorpions. After a time, the king passed by the dungeon where she was being held, and she cried out and begged to the king from her pit. The king had mercy on the woman and commanded that she be brought up from the dungeon and returned home.

Similarly, in the case of Jonah, when he ran from the Holy One, he was imprisoned in the sea, in the belly of the fish, until he called out to the Holy One, who released him.

And why did Jonah flee? Because the first time the Holy One sent him to bring the Children of Israel to repent, he was successful, [as it is written:] He restored the border of Israel from the entrance of Hamath to the sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which He spoke by the hand of His servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was of Gath-hepher (2 Kings 14:25). The second time, he was sent to Jerusalem to destroy it, but when the Israelites repented, the Holy One in His great mercy renounced the punishment and did not destroy it. This led the Israelites to call him a false prophet. The third time, he was sent to Nineveh, and Jonah thought to himself as follows: “Now not only do the Israelites call me a false prophet, but the nations of the world will do so as well! Rather, I will flee to a place where His glory is not mentioned. Regarding the heavens, we find: His glory is above the heavens (Psalms 113:4). Regarding the earth we find: His glory fills all the earth (Isaiah 6:3). I will flee to the sea, for there His glory is not mentioned.”

What did he do? He went to Jaffa but found no ship there. The ship Jonah boarded was forced to return to Jaffa by a storm the Holy One brought upon it. When Jonah saw that the ship returned, he became glad in his heart and said, “Now I know that the Holy One approves of my path.”