JONAH AND THE BIG FISH
Embedded Files
MEMORY VERSE
MEMORY VERSE
Matthew 12:40, ESV
For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
DAY 1
DAY 1
Jonah 1:1-6, NIrV
1 A message from the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai. The Lord said, 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh. Preach against it. The sins of its people have come to my attention.”
3 But Jonah ran away from the Lord. He headed for Tarshish. So he went down to the port of Joppa. There he found a ship that was going to Tarshish. He paid the fare and went on board. Then he sailed for Tarshish. He was running away from the Lord.
4 But the Lord sent a strong wind over the Mediterranean Sea. A wild storm came up. It was so wild that the ship was in danger of breaking apart. 5 All the sailors were afraid. Each one cried out to his own god for help. They threw the ship’s contents into the sea. They were trying to make the ship lighter.
But Jonah had gone below deck. There he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. 6 The captain went down to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call out to your god for help! Maybe he’ll pay attention to what’s happening to us. Then we won’t die.”
BIBLE STUDY
Normally, prophets like Jonah spoke messages from the Lord to his chosen people in Israel. But this time, God sent Jonah to speak to the far away country of Assyria. Nineveh was a huge city full of people, full of riches, and full of sin! God sent Jonah to tell the people there to repent: to turn away from their sins and trust in the One True God. But Jonah hated the guts of the awful Assyrians and their wicked ways! So he hopped on a boat and sailed in the opposite direction. But after a wild windstorm rocked his boat, Jonah quickly learned you can’t run away from the God who sees everything!
+ What did the other sailors do as the waves tossed their ship? (vs. 5)
+ What was Jonah doing during the storm? (vs. 5)
DAY 2
DAY 2
Jonah 1:7-16, NIrV
7 Here is what the sailors said to one another. “Someone is to blame for getting us into all this trouble. Come. Let’s cast lots to find out who it is.” So they did. And Jonah was picked. 8 They asked him, “What terrible thing have you done to bring all this trouble on us? Tell us. What do you do for a living? Where do you come from? What is your country? What people do you belong to?”
9 He answered, “I’m a Hebrew. I worship the Lord. He is the God of heaven. He made the sea and the dry land.”
10 They found out he was running away from the Lord. That’s because he had told them. Then they became terrified. So they asked him, “How could you do a thing like that?”
11 The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down?”
12 “Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied. “Then it will become calm. I know it’s my fault that this terrible storm has come on you.”
13 But the men didn’t do what he said. Instead, they did their best to row back to land. But they couldn’t. The sea got even rougher than before. 14Then they cried out to the Lord. They prayed, “Please, Lord, don’t let us die for taking this man’s life. After all, he might not be guilty of doing anything wrong. So don’t hold us responsible for killing him. Lord, you always do what you want to.” 15 Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard. And the stormy sea became calm. 16 The men saw what had happened. Then they began to have great respect for the Lord. They offered a sacrifice to him. And they made promises to him.
BIBLE STUDY
This God-sent windstorm was so wild, the sailors thought, "One of us must have angered the gods!" They cast lots (a bit like rolling dice) to figure out who was to blame. When God caused the lots to pick his runaway prophet, Jonah shared his sinful secret with the sailors. He believed God wouldn’t stop the storm until he was tossed overboard to pay for running away. And he was right. When Jonah splashed into the sea, the angry sea became calm. But God wasn’t done with Jonah. He ordered a huge fish to swallow his prophet whole. And unlike Jonah, the fish obeyed God’s command!
+ What did the sailors do after God stopped the storm? (vs. 16)
+ How long was Jonah inside the belly of the fish? (vs. 17)
DAY 3
DAY 3
Jonah 2:1-10, NIrV
1 From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. 2 He said,
“When I was in trouble, I called out to the Lord.
And he answered me.
When I was deep in the place of the dead,
I called out for help.
And you listened to my cry.
3 You threw me deep into the Mediterranean Sea.
I was deep down in its waters.
They were all around me.
All your rolling waves
were sweeping over me.
4 I said, ‘I have been driven away from you.
But I will look again
toward your holy temple in Jerusalem.’
5 I had almost drowned in the waves.
The deep waters were all around me.
Seaweed was wrapped around my head.
6 I sank down to the bottom of the mountains.
I thought I had died
and gone down into the grave forever.
But you are the Lord my God.
You brought my life up
from the very edge of the pit of death.
7 “When my life was nearly over,
I remembered you, Lord.
My prayer rose up to you.
It reached you in your holy temple in heaven.
8 “Some people worship the worthless statues of their gods.
They turn away from God’s love for them.
9 But I will sacrifice a thank offering to you.
And I will shout with thankful praise.
I will do what I have promised.
I will say, ‘Lord, you are the one who saves.’ ”
10 The Lord gave the fish a command. And it spit Jonah up onto dry land.
BIBLE STUDY
Prayer is talking with God. Because He is everywhere, you can pray to God no matter where you are, even from inside the belly of fish! If you study Jonah’s prayer, he wasn’t asking God to save him from the fish. Instead, he’s thanking God that he was saved by the fish! If the fish hadn’t gobbled him up, Jonah would have drowned at the bottom of the stormy sea! Instead, for three days and nights, God kept his runaway prophet alive inside the smelly belly of a huge fish. Eventually, God gave the creature an order and it spit Jonah back onto dry land. At last, he was safe and sound and super stinky!
+ What happened to Jonah as he sank into the stormy sea? (vs. 5)
+ What did Jonah remember to do, right when he was about to die? (vs. 7)
DAY 4
DAY 4
Jonah 3:1-4, NIRV
1 A message from the Lord came to Jonah a second time. The Lord said, 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh. Announce to its people the message I give you.”
3 Jonah obeyed the Lord. He went to Nineveh. It was a very large city. In fact, it took about three days to go through it. 4 Jonah began by going one whole day into the city. As he went, he announced, “In 40 days Nineveh will be destroyed.”
BIBLE STUDY
After three days and nights as fish food, Jonah learned his lesson: saying “no” to God is a horrible idea! When the Lord spoke to him a second time, the prophet wasted no time following God’s orders. But Jonah’s job wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. He had to spend three days hiking all throughout the sinful city of Nineveh, making sure everyone heard his message of doom: “In 40 days, your great city will be destroyed!” God ordered Jonah to tell a city filled with violent sinners, “The one true God is going to punish you for your sins!” That kind of message was likely to get Jonah killed!
+ What message did Jonah speak to the people of Nineveh? (vs. 4)
+ Why might the people of Nineveh become angry when they heard Jonah’s message?
DAY 5
DAY 5
Jonah 3:5-10, NIRV
5 The people of Nineveh believed God’s warning. So they decided not to eat any food for a while. And all of them put on the rough clothing people wear when they’re sad. That’s what everyone did, from the least important of them to the most important.
6 Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh. He got up from his throne. He took off his royal robes. He also dressed himself in the clothing of sadness. And then he sat down in the dust. 7 Here is the message he sent out to the people of Nineveh.
“I and my nobles give this order.
Don’t let people or animals taste anything. That includes your herds and flocks. People and animals must not eat or drink anything. 8 Let people and animals alike be covered with the clothing of sadness. All of you must call out to God with all your hearts. Stop doing what is evil. Don’t harm others. 9 Who knows? God might take pity on us. He might not be angry with us anymore. Then we won’t die.”
10 God saw what they did. He saw that they stopped doing what was evil. So he took pity on them. He didn’t destroy them as he had said he would.
BIBLE STUDY
When the people of Nineveh heard Jonah’s doom-and-gloom news, they believed it. But they thought, “If we turn from our wicked ways and trust in the One True God, maybe he’ll save us!” So the king passed a law. Everyone, from the richest of the rich to the poorest of the poor, every man, woman, child, and animal, would stop eating and drinking. Instead, they would spend every second in prayer, begging God to save them. They even wore special scratchy clothes called “sackcloth” to show their sadness. When God saw the sadness of these sinners, he saved the city from destruction!
+ Besides not eating/drinking and wearing sackcloth, what else did the king say? (vs. 8)
+ When the people repented (turned away from their sins) and believed God’s message, they were saved. How is that like how God saves us from our sins?
DAY 6
DAY 6
Matthew 12:38-41, NIRV
38 Some of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law came to Jesus. They said, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.”
39 He answered, “Evil and unfaithful people ask for a sign! But none will be given except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 Jonah was in the belly of a huge fish for three days and three nights. Something like that will happen to the Son of Man. He will spend three days and three nights in the grave. 41 The men of Nineveh will stand up on judgment day with the people now living. And the Ninevites will prove that these people are guilty. The men of Nineveh turned away from their sins when Jonah preached to them. And now something more important than Jonah is here.
BIBLE STUDY
Jesus was born over 700 years after the prophet Jonah lived. In these verses, Matthew described a time when Jesus spoke to a group called the “Pharisees.” They loved God’s law, but they hated Jesus! They hated what he said. They hated what he did. And they hated that many people thought he was the Messiah (or Christ), the special savior God had been promising to send to his people for thousands of years.
The Pharisees asked Jesus to do a “sign” to prove he was really sent by God. Here, the word “sign” is another word for a miracle, a jaw-dropping wonder that can only be done by God’s power. But Jesus didn’t give them the “sign” they wanted. Because he was God’s Son, Jesus knew the evil thoughts of their hearts. He knew it didn’t matter how many signs and miracles he did; they were never going to believe in him!
So Jesus said, “The only miraculous sign you’ll get is the sign of Jonah the prophet.” What did Jesus mean by that? Was he going to jump in a lake, get swallowed by a big fish, and get spit back onto dry land three days later, smelling like seaweed?
No, Jesus was telling the Pharisees that the miracle of Jonah and the big fish was a picture of the even greater miracle Jesus was going to do. Jonah the runaway prophet spent three days and nights in the belly of a fish. But Jesus was going to spend three days in the heart of the earth. This was a fancy way of saying he was going to die and be buried. And just like the great fish spit Jonah out of its belly and back onto dry land, Jesus was going to pop out of his own grave on the third day.
But Jesus knew the Pharisees would never believe in him, even if he came back from the dead. They were supposed to be experts in God’s words. But they wouldn’t listen to the words of God’s own Son. In fact, Jesus said something shocking to them, “You Pharisees are even worse than those evil people of Nineveh!”
After Jonah the prophet spoke God’s doom-and-gloom message to Nineveh, those sinful people believed, turned from their sins, and cried out to God to save them. But when Jesus spoke God’s words to the Pharisees, they refused to listen. Instead, the Pharisees started making secret plans to put Jesus to death!
The story of Jonah points to Jesus in two ways. First, Jonah’s three nights in a fish point us to the bigger miracle of Jesus rising from the dead on the third day. And second, just like the people of Nineveh were saved from destruction because they believed God’s message and turned from their sins, we can be saved from the destruction of our sins by believing the good news about Jesus and turning from our sins!
+ How does the miracle of Jonah point us to the good news of Jesus? (vs. 40)
+ How were the Pharisees worse than the people of the city of Nineveh? (vs. 41)
© 2023 Andrew Doane. All rights reserved.
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