Jonah and the Whale

The story of Jonah and the Whale opens with the divine summons to Jonah to go to Nineveh, the great Assyrian capital, whose monarchs were already begining to domineer over Palestine. Jonah was to warn the Assyrians against their sins and threaten them with the wrath of God. But Jonah feared death at the hands of these fiece foes. So he disobeyed God, and sought to hide from Him. Taking a ship from Palestine he sailed for far-off Tarshish. The ship was shaken by a great tempest. The men aboard the ship were convinced that this tremendous storm was directed against someone on the ship. Jonah confessed that he had indeed rebeled against God, so the other men flung him overboard, and the storm ceased.

The Lord had prepared a huge sea monster to punish Jonah. (Neither the Hebrew nor the English vesion of the bible calls this monster a whale.) It swallowed Jonah, and for three days he remained in darkness, imprisoned within the body of the "great fish." While Jonah was in the whale, he prayed to the Lord, confessing his sin and asking for pardon. God heard Jonah's humble cry and the fish cast Jonah out upon the dry land.

On this page you'll find nine images of Jonah and the Whale taken from my collection of old Bible story books. You're welcomed to use these pictures of Jonah and the Whale in your artistic creations. Click on the Jonah and the Whale illustrations below to see more details about saving a free Jonah and the Whale image or about purchasing the images of Jonah and the Whale at a higher resolution.