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Jonah 
   Text:  a dove, the son of Amittai of Gath-hepher. He was a prophet 
of Israel, and predicted the restoration of the ancient boundaries (2 
Kings 14:25-27) of the kingdom. He exercised his ministry very early 
in the reign of Jeroboam II., and thus was contemporary with Hosea and 
Amos; or possibly he preceded them, and consequently may have been the 
very oldest of all the prophets whose writings we possess. His 
personal history is mainly to be gathered from the book which bears 
his name. It is chiefly interesting from the two-fold character in 
which he appears, 

(1.) as a missionary to heathen Nineveh, and 

(2.) as a type of the "Son of man."