The story of Jonah speaks of God's great love for us, and of our unavoidable yielding to the tender force of all-healing divine Love. More than the anecdote of Jonah and the whale, this book of the Bible opens the heart and mind to the glory of the all-supporting and all encompassing encompassing, divine Principle, Love.
Jonah was chosen by God to save Israel's ancient enemy, Nineveh, by preaching repentance. But he thought he would have been happier with the opposite—to see revenge and destruction brought down on the city! Every effort to forestall God's plan failed, however. Finally he preached, and the city repented. Later he left the crowds to watch from a little distance and to see if perhaps the city might yet be destroyed for its sins.
In the meantime God had provided a gourd to shade him. Jonah grew fond of this gourd, but the Lord sent a worm to destroy it—so the story goes—and Jonah's grief, combined with the unpleasant effects of the sun, made him want to die. Then God's message came: "Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured . . .: and should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand ...?"Jonah 4:10, 11.
