pagan gentile world and its openness to the call of faith. Although there seems to be some basis for this in Jonah’s self-identification as a Hebrew who fears the Lord (1:9), his statement fits perfectly into the plot as a natural response to his interrogation by the sailors, who are trying to avoid shipwreck by unmasking the guilty party and the deity who is hounding him. Jonah’s anger at the pardon extended to Nineveh might be taken as an indication that he is a xenophobe who longs for the destruction