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Bible Encyclopedias
Jonah
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
or (Heb. Yonah', יוֹנָה, a dove, as often, but in that sense fem., Sept. Ι᾿ωνά in 2 Kings 14:25; elsewhere and in the N.T. Ιωνᾶς : (See JONAS) ), the son of Amittai, the fifth in order of the minor prophets. No aera is assigned to him in the book of his prophecy, yet there is little doubt of his being the same person who is spoken of in 2 Kings 14:25 as having uttered a prophecy of the relief of the kingdom of Israel, which was accomplished by Jeroboam's recapture of the ancient territory of the northern tribes between Coele-Syria and the Ghor (compare 2 Kings 14:29). The Jewish doctors; have supposed him to be the son of the widow of Sarepta by a puerile interpretation of 1 Kings 17:24 (Jerome, Proefat. in Jonam). His birthplace was Gath-hepher, in the tribe of Zebulon (2 Kings 14:25). Jonah flourished in or before the reign of Jeroboam II (B.C. cir. 820), since he predicted the successful conquests, enlarged territory, and brief prosperity of the Israelitish kingdom under that monarch's sway (comp. Josephus, Ant. 9, 10, 1). The oracle itself is not extant, though Hitzig has, by a novel process of criticism, amused himself with a fancied discovery of it in chaps. 15 and 16 of Isaiah (Des Proph. Jonah Orakel. ü ber Moab kritisch vindicirt, etc., Heidelb. 1831).
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