For such a small biblical book Jonah manages to pack in a great deal of natural phenomena. Fauna, both wild and domestic, flora, both terrestrial and aquatic, and atmospheric conditions, both fierce and mild, all appear in the four short chapters. Significantly, all of these aspects of nature come across in a most unnatural fashion. They are not presented as existing in a normal ordinary fashion but all are shown here as existing at the beck and call of Yahweh, the God of Israel. It is a central aspect of this particular story that all of nature does exactly as it is commanded to do from the divine realm. In short, nature here is an extension of deity. Moreover, this tale is written using perfectly recognizable creatures, plants and atmospheric conditions from the world in which the author and audience lived. Nonetheless, the nature of Jonah is not “natural” but oriented to the will of God and the frustration of Jonah.

Animal

Because the fish in the story has captured the imagination of millennia of readers, the animal population of the story may serve as a starting point. There is a wild swimming animal, a creepy-crawly animal, and undefined domesticated animals in the narrative; this division seems to conform, in a loose fashion, to the divisions of animal life related in the creation story of Genesis 1:20–25.