The prophet who ran away from God, was thrown off his ship and became dinner to a big fish -- Who was he?
Hint: Jonah 1
Okay. You probably guessed (the name of the book kind of gives it away). That prophet was Jonah. I mean, who hasn't heard of Jonah and the Whale? But why is it an awesome happening in the Bible?
Because a man was in a belly of a great fish for three whole days (Man...what a tummy ache that fish must have had)! Look at this old painting by Pieter Lastman that Dad sent us a postcard of last week (Dad was at the museum in Dusseldorf, German and saw it himself). Here the great fish (we don't know for certain that it was a whale) was barfing Jonah up onto the beach! Gross, huh.
Anyway. Jonah didn't run away from his job then. He went to the capital city of the enemy of his country and told them they had to get their act together or else God was going to let them have it!
So other than the obvious, what's so awesome about this story?
1) It really happened - it's a real story, not a myth.
2) It shows - just like on the day the sun stood still when Joshua asked God to make the sun stay still - that God's in control of everything.
Even fish. Big fish.
Pretty cool, huh!
