The story of Jonah is a narrative loaded with a deep spiritual content, to the point that this story is cited several times by Jesus himself; it can be affirmed that the prophet Jonah who spent three days in the stomach of a whale is a prefiguration of the resurrection of our Lord.
The story begins by relating that the sins of the Ninevites had reached God, and that God in response to this fact sent his servant Jonah to preach for the conversion of the city; but not before warning that if the prophet was not listened to, the city would be destroyed.
But faced with this situation there was a problem, Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian empire, an empire famous for its cruelty and its devotion to war. God had sent Jonah to the worst place in the world to preach the word of God. Put like this, the conversion of the Ninevites to God seemed crazy and complete nonsense.
But this had a very clear spiritual meaning, if the Ninevites accepted the preaching of the prophet Jonah it meant that the fear of God and divine forgiveness could reach all corners of the earth, even the most ruthless people in the world.
Jonah was not a fool and he knew what Nineveh was, and because of the fear of men, Jonah forgot the fear of God; and so he set out for Tarshish by ship, far from where the Lord had called him.
The Bible relates that a storm broke out that threatened the safety of the ship and since the crew suspected that the cause of the situation was Jonah, they decided to throw it into the sea, and thus Jonah was swallowed by a fish, probably a whale. The story continues and tells that Jonah repented and so the fish vomited him out.
God then called Jonah a second time: "Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you" Jonah 3:2.
In this way, the prophet Jonah went to Nineveh and the history expresses that the city was converted, and thus was forgiven by the mercy of God. This story shows that God is willing to forgive not only the bad people but also the worst and that no one is exempt from his calling.
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