But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.
But Jonah rose up to flee. Jonah's motive for flight is hinted at in Jonah 4:2 - fear that, after venturing on such a dangerous commission to so powerful a pagan city, his prophetic threats should be set aside by God's "repenting of the evil," just as God had so long spared Israel, notwithstanding so many provocations, and so he should seem a false prophet. Besides, he felt a repugnance to discharge a commission to a foreign idolatrous nation, whose destruction he desired rather than their repentance. Jonah had been for some time in exercise of his prophetic office and was sent on this mission in the latter part of the reign of Jeroboam II, or even later. Amos had already prophesied that through the third of the Assyrian monarchs Israel was to be destroyed. Hosea, too, had foretold of the ten tribes, "They shall not dwell in the Lord's land ... they shall eat unclean things in Assyria" (9: 3).
Ivalush III, or Pul (Rawlinson, 'Herodotus,' 1: 466, 7), probably was then king. It was not unnatural that Jonah should dislike carrying a warning to Nineveh, which might eventuate in the sparing of the city by which his own country was to suffer. Pul was the very king by whom, under Menahem, king of Israel, the first weakening of Israel was about to take place. The instinct of self-preservation, and the natural love of country, caused him for a time to disobey a higher claim, the command of his God. 'Jonah sought the honour of the son (Israel), and sought not the honour of the father (Kimchi, from an old Rabbinical tradition). Having had the privilege of being God's instrument to foretell the restoration of Israel under Jeroboam II, after its prostration by Syria, he shrunk from being the instrument of saving Nineveh, the fore-appointed scourge of his country, from its doom, threatened because of its violent sins. Rather would he have desired to make its sudden overthrow, like that of Sodom, a solemn example to rouse Israel, his own people, from their impenitence-an effect which all the verbal warnings of the prophets of God had heretofore failed to effect. This is the only case of a prophet charged with a prophetic message concealing it. From the presence of the Lord - literally, 'from being before the Lord' (cf. Genesis 4:16, "Cain went out from the presence of the Lord" - i:e., from the vicinity of the cherubim and flaming manifestation of God at the east of Eden). Jonah thought, in fleeing from the land of Israel, where Yahweh was peculiarly present, that he should escape from Yahweh's prophecy-inspiring influence. He doubtless knew the truth stated in Psalms 139:7-10 - "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or where shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me," - but virtually ignored it, just as "Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden" (Genesis 3:8-10; Jeremiah 23:24, "Can any hide himself in secret places, that I shall not see him? saith the Lord: do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord"). The prophets often showed a reluctance to take on them the difficult and responsible office of ministering in the name of the Lord. Compare Isaiah 6:5; Jeremiah 1:6; Jeremiah 1:17; Exodus 4:10. So Jonah, while not supposing he could escape from God's omnipresence, yet fled away from standing in his immediate presence as his ministering prophet. So Elijah uses the phrase, "The Lord God of Israel, before (in the presence of) whom I stand," for 'whose prophet I am,' 1 Kings 17:1. х milipneey (H6440) Yahweh (H3068), not mipneey (H6440), is the phrase here.] So 1 Kings 8:25, Hebrew, 'There, shall not be cut off to thee a man from before me.'
And went down - appropriate in going from land to the sea (Psalms 107:23, "They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters"). Jonah went down from his native country, the mountain region of Lebanon, to the sea side. A strong impetuous will, reckless of consequences to himself, was his failing.
To Joppa - now Jaffa, in the region of Dan, a harbour as early as Solomon's time, and to it were borne the cedars for building the first temple (2 Chronicles 2:16).
And he found a ship going to Tarshish - Tartessus in Spain, at the farthest west, at the greatest distance from Nineveh in the northeast.