Why didn’t Jonah just jump off the boat?

[Magenta]

I will accept that. It is a mysterious thing to accept, that Jesus went into Hades to preach, while there are no other passages that can be used to support that interpretation. So prison really can be understood differently. What could those who cannot change from their circumstances have to gain from being preached at? At any rate everything for full atonement was accomplished already. The resurrection ahead was to seal the needed basis for all believers.

Perhaps it would be so that the those in Sheol, where everyone expected to go upon death (it being
a holding place of the dead), would know that the fulfillment of Scriptural prophecy had come to pass.

 

[Webers.Home]

.
● Luke 11:30 . . For as Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the
Son of man be to this generation.

I've been curious for some time now to know exactly how Jonah was a sign
to Nineveh when the city was something like +/- 400 miles from the
Mediterranean Sea as the crow flies.
_

 

[tourist]

.
● Luke 11:30 . . For as Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the
Son of man be to this generation.

I've been curious for some time now to know exactly how Jonah was a sign
to Nineveh when the city was something like +/- 400 miles from the
Mediterranean Sea as the crow flies.
_

The book of Johah is a good read. He was a very interesting character as well as being a sign unto the Ninevites.

 

[FredVB]

Perhaps it would be so that the those in Sheol, where everyone expected to go upon death (it being
a holding place of the dead), would know that the fulfillment of Scriptural prophecy had come to pass.

If Sheol is to be understood from Hades we see mentioned, those that have any hope with what fulfillment would be preached to them might be separate from there where those without hope are, in paradise instead. There are saints of old testament times that surely would not go with those pass on without hope, with their faith paradise is ready for them.

 

[ChristRoseFromTheDead]

Maybe Jonah couldn't swim, and the fish was God's way of saving him from drowning

 

[FredVB]

Jonah was a sign not by being faithful, he had shortcoming in that, but with telling the shipmates while out at sea the truth, they had belief then that it was the revelation of God who is Yahweh, to obey and cast Jonah in the sea. The men on ship at sea were delivered, and trusted the one God after that. I believe Jonah, who in fact probably could not have kept swimming to save himself, was swallowed by a whale where he could survive to when he was spat out in the shore, whales were not then in those places distinguished from fish, the word fish was not used in its modern sense. The story of Jonah's miracle surviving all that spread far. Ninevites would have heard of this.

 

[birdie]

If Jonah knew he was the cause of the storm, then why not just jump off the ship, instead of requiring the sailors to throw him over?

Thanks Burn1986, for your question about why sailors threw Jonah overboard instead of Jonah simply jumping. Jonah was providing a picture of Christ, it seems. We can make this assertion because Jesus referred to Jonah being in the belly of the whale as being a picture of Christ being in the heart of the earth. We read: "For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. " The sea seems to be a picture of hell or the unsaved condition. You know, when the new heaven and the new earth are come, there is no more sea. No more unsaved condition nor hell there. We read: "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. "
We know that it was God's plan for Jesus to go to the cross for the sake of his own. No sooner do the sailors toss Jonah into the sea than the great fish swallows him. Likely, this tossing by the sailors is a picture of events related to the cross. On the one hand, it would be easy to speculate that the sailors are a picture of how the Jews and the Gentiles conspired together to put Jesus to the cross and gave him up to death. Indeed, even Jesus' followers fled or abandoned him at the crucifixion. This seems like a possible answer and it may be the actual answer. Keep in mind, however, that sailors in a ship can be pictures of those belonging to the ship of the gospel, so to speak. Acts talks about Paul's journey in a ship, and it does come with it's symbolism. It is interesting to note that the sailors tried very hard on their own to bring the ship to dry land, but God's wind, so to speak would not allow them to succeed. The likely reason is that this was a picture of anyone who was not the perfect sinless lamb trying in their own strength to obtain salvation. Since no one else is sinless, no one else could be the one to go to the cross for the payment of sin. Notice that the sailors experienced calm after the cross, since the sea (a picture of hell or the unsaved condition) stopped raging.

We read: "And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him. But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men. "

So, Peter was wrong to try to stop Jesus from going to the cross. In that sense, even Jesus' followers would be in God's will to allow Jesus to be put to death. I have often thought about a verse in Acts in which Peter is told: "And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat. " Why would those words be used? It seems to me that this is likely saying that we let Christ fulfill his role of being killed on the cross, so that we can eat of the gospel with others. We know, of course, that Christ is risen, so death is not the end. Even so, Jonah was spit out onto dry land.