tend to view it in modern terms, as a story about a missionary who was sent to proclaim God’s word to a pagan nation. It is nothing of the sort, however, since Jonah was not sent to preach a message of salvation but to announce judgment on Nineveh. The thrust of the story lies elsewhere. It ridicules the narrow ethnocentrism of Jonah (and Israel!), who “allowed” God to work only within Israel (cf. Verkuyl 1978:97) and sulked about God treating those outside the covenant the same way he treats those