Jonah 1:5

The sailors were of mixed religious convictions. Some of them were probably Phoenicians, since Phoenicians were commonly seafaring traders. Phoenicia was a center of Baal worship then. The sailors’ willingness to throw their cargo into the sea illustrates the extreme danger they faced (cf. Acts 27:18-20).

Jonah’s ability to sleep under such conditions seems very unusual. The same Hebrew word (radam) describes Sisera’s deep sleep that his exhaustion produced (Judges 4:21) and the deep sleep that God put Adam and Abram under (Genesis 2:21; Genesis 15:12). Perhaps Jonah was both exhausted and divinely assisted in sleeping. His condition does not seem to have a major bearing on the story; it is probably a detail. The events that follow could have happened if he had been wide-awake just as well. What does seem unusual is his attitude of "careless self-security." [Note: Keil, 1:393.] He seems to have preferred death to facing God alive. Not only did he flee to Tarshish, but he also fled to the innermost part of the ship (cf. Amos 6:10).