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I would like to propose a different explanation on Jonah, even if it might be weird. We know that Balaam was a false prophet. Though he spoke some of the most compelling and detailed prophecies in the OT regarding Israel and the Messiah in Numbers, he is condemned as a false prophet all the way through to Revelation. In consindering Jonah, I maintain, that though he experienced miracles, he is a false prophet according to the definition of Deuteronomy 18.
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‘But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in My name which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.’ “You may say in your heart, ‘How will we know the word which the LORD has not spoken?’ “When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.
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By this definition, Jonah spoke an "unqualified message of destruction" to Nineveh and the destruction didn't happen. I think that this falseness is hinted at throughout Jonah. Jonah disobeys and runs to Tarshish. It is only after almost dying and after being held in the belly of the fish three days that he cries to God.

After this God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh and "proclaim the proclamation which I am going to tell you." It says that Jonah "went according to the workd of the Lord." It is interesting that it never says that Jonah proclaimed what God told Him to say. Jonah isn't recorded as preaching "God will judge you if you don't repent." The people are recorded as believing God, not Jonah, and repenting. The fact that Jonah didn't preach a qualified message is evidenced by 3:9, "Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we don't persih." They said "who knows" because Jonah hadn't made that clear.

At this point, after the people believed God and repented, God relents concerning the calamity that he had declared - conditionally (though Jonah didn't communicate this).

Here we see the evidences that Jonah was a false prophet and didn't deliver the word of God correctly. In 4:2 Jonah acknowledges that even when He was in His own country He knew that God's message of judgment he was to deliver to Nineveh was conditional on the people not repenting. He fled because Jonah wanted Nineveh judged. Jonah had more love for a worm than the people of Nineveh. He preached no gospel. Jonah only went because he was pressured by three days in the belly of a fish. It is interesting that we never even hear of the outcome with Jonah, except that God condemns him as being uncompassionate and Jonah wishes for death. The book leaves us with God and His character and Jonah wanting to die in response to it. There is never any indication that Jonah delivered the proper word of God or that he repented.

Jonah claimed that an event was going to happen, and it didn't. Because he didn't qualifiy it as he knew he must, he spoke presumptuously. Jonah's message was false because it was not complete. He is presumptuous and false according to Deut 18. We are told not to fear him.

Thus, God never "repented" but did what he always intended and Jonah knew this, though he wouldn't speak this truth to Nineveh. The people of Nineveh believed God and not Jonah.

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Spen Lake
"There is no situation in life so bad that you can't add a little bit of guilt to it and make it worse" - Garrison Keillor

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