Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,
Now - literally, 'And.' This 'and' marks that this book was joined on to the other sacred books-also Joshua, Judges, Ruth, the books of Samuel and of the Kings, Ezra and Nehemiah, and Ezekiel-and formed, with them, one continuous whole. The same conjunction joins together the first four books of Moses.
The word of the Lord came unto Jonah. "Jonah" means, in Hebrew, dove. Compare Genesis 8:8-9, where the dove in vain seeks rest, after flying from Noah and the ark: so Jonah. Grotius not so well, explains it, 'one sprung from Greece,' or Ionia, where there were prophets called Amythaonidae. The name was either given prophetically, or assumed by Jonah himself, as a watchword of his feeling. The dove symbolizes mourning love. He desired to be known among his people as one who lovingly mourned over them. Even his unloving zeal against Nineveh, which was to be the destroyer of his people, was due to the intense love he bore to his own people. His truthfulness in recording so faithfully all that was unfavourable of himself shows that he was truly the son of Amittai in the sense of that name. His faith was strong; but his zeal, like that of James and John, against the adversaries of his people, was in a wrong spirit (Luke 9:51-56; see note, Amos 4:2, end).
Amittai - Hebrew for 'truth,' 'truth-telling:' 'the truth of God,' appropriate to a prophet.