Jonah 1:9

It should have been no surprise to the sailors that Jonah was a Hebrew since they had taken him on board at Joppa, a major port in Israel. "Hebrew" is the name by which the Israelites’ neighbors knew them (cf. 1 Samuel 4:6; 1 Samuel 4:9; 1 Samuel 14:11). Jonah probably identified himself as a Hebrew as a preamble to explaining that he worshipped Yahweh Elohim, the heavenly God of the Hebrews. The Phoenicians also thought of Baal as a sky god (cf. 1 Kings 18:24). It was the fact that this God made the sea on which they traveled, as well as the dry land, that convinced the sailors that Jonah had done something very serious. It was obvious to them that Jonah’s God was after him and had sent the storm to put him in His hands. Ironically what was so clear to these pagans was obscure to the runaway prophet. When God sovereignly selects someone for special service, that person cannot run and hide from Him. Jonah had not yet learned this lesson.

The title "the God of heaven" is common in the postexilic books (e.g., Ezra 1:2; Ezra 7:12; Nehemiah 1:4; Daniel 2:18-19; Daniel 2:37; Daniel 2:44; Daniel 5:21; Daniel 5:23). This fact has influenced some scholars to conclude that the Book of Jonah must also date from the same period. However this title was a very old one in Israel’s history (cf. Genesis 24:3; Genesis 24:7). Its use on this occasion was particularly appropriate since it expressed the supremacy of Yahweh to polytheistic pagans.

Jonah’s confession is a central feature in the narrative. It is the center of a literary chiasmus that begins in Jonah 1:4 and extends through Jonah 1:16. [Note: See Ernst R. Wendland, "Text Analysis and the Genre of Jonah (Part 2)," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 39:3 (September 1996):374-75, which also points out many other structural features of Jonah.]