The Book of Jonah is important for many reasons, one of which is that it reveals God's desire to be merciful, even to pagan nations, if they will repent and turn to God.

In addition, this book presents a prophetic description of the three days and three nights that Yeshua-Jesus would spend in the grave, followed by the key message in the Word of God that for true believers in God, a resurrection from the dead awaits.

While most of the prophets in the Old Testament were instructed by God to prophesy to God's chosen people, Israel, the Book of Jonah is unique in that Jonah is instructed to prophesy to the pagan nation of Ninevah.

Moreover, one of the most remarkable aspects of this episode is that the people of Ninevah, upon hearing Jonah's prophecy, instantly repented and turned to God, and they did so even though Jonah had not even announced this prophecy as being from God.

This book describes God's directive to Jonah to deliver a prophesy of judgment that was about to come upon the Assyrian capital of Nineveh, which today is known as Mosul in Iraq. God instructed Jonah to warn the gentiles there to repent and accept the God of Israel.

At first, Jonah foolishly resisted God's command to travel to Nineveh because he viewed the people of Nineveh as deplorable and undeserving of God's mercy. Consequently, Jonah ran away in the opposite direction and boarded a ship toward Tarshish in Spain at the opposite end of the Mediterranean Sea.

Because of Jonah's disobedience, God caused a violent storm that put Jonah's ship in peril. So Jonah asked the sailors to throw him overboard to save themselves. They did so and Jonah was then swallowed by a whale, and he spent three days and three nights in the belly of that great fish or whale. This episode is important because it prophetically foretells of Jesus' death and resurrection.

Jonah described being in the belly of the whale as being in the depths of the grave or sheol. But he then prayed a prayer of repentance that ended with the important prophesy that declares, Salvation comes from the Lord. In this, Jonah knew that God would deliver him, and God does so and casts Jonah out of the whale onto dry land. This symbolizes a resurrection from the dead.

After this, Jonah repented and proceeded to Nineveh where he prophesied about its impending destruction. That prophesy resulted in the people of Ninevah instantly repenting, and God had compassion on them and relented from judgment.

Strangely, however, as a result of this, Jonah became angry toward God because he thought that God should only be compassionate to Israel and not to Israel's enemies. But God told Jonah that he had no right to be angry because, if He wanted to have compassion on gentiles who could not tell their right hand from their left, that was His prerogative.

This message makes two important points: First, that Israel must not be like Jonah, who had resisted God's desire that he submit to God's plan to be a light to the pagan nations, seeking their repentance and conversion. And second, that non-Israelite nations are not beyond God's mercy, because God will have compassion on whomever He chooses to have compassion, even to pagan nations.