Jonah’s use of a familiar liturgical phrase to describe his god may strike a reader as ironic. Yahweh, affirms Jonah, is the creator of the world, heaven and earth, the sea and the land. Yet here is Jonah, attempting to flee from him!

These god-fearing men have become specifically Yahweh-fearing

YHWH commands Jonah to “arise” (qôm) and go eastward to Nineveh, the prophet goes “down” (yārad) to the port city of Joppa, “down” into a ship that was headed to Tarshish in southern Spain, which was considered to be the western edge of the world. Jonah then continues his descent by going “down” into the ship’s hold, where he lies “down” and falls into a deep sleep.

we are to understand this as a prophecy respecting the future call of the Gentiles