The Lantern

Lives of the Prophets10

lives-of-the-prophets

Jonah

He was from the district of Kiriath-maon, near the Gentile city of Azotus on the sea.

After he had been cast on shore by the whale and had made his journey to Nineveh, on his return he did not stay in his own land, but took his mother and settled in Tyre, a country of foreign peoples.

For he said, "In this way I will take away my reproach, that I prophesied falsely against the great city Nineveh."

Elijah was at that time rebuking the house of Ahab, and having called a famine upon the land he fled. Coming to the region of Tyre he found the widow and her son, for he himself could not lodge with the uncircumcised.

He brought her a blessing; and when her child died, God raised him from the dead through Elijah, for he wished to show him that it is not possible to flee from God.

After the famine was over, Jonah came into the land of Judea. On the way thither his mother died, and he buried her beside the oak of Deborah.

Thereafter having settled in the land of Seir, he died there and was buried in the tomb of the Kenizzite, the first who became judge in the days when there was no king.

He gave a sign to Jerusalem and to all the land: When they should see a stone crying aloud in distress, the end would be at hand; and when they should see all the Gentiles gathered in Jerusalem, the city would be razed to its foundations.