Apr 6, 20242 min read

Jonah's Eclipse

Updated: Apr 8, 2024

Jonah was prepared for Nineveh

God knew Jonah would run from the assignment, and end up in the belly of the great fish (beten dag).

It had to be him, and no one else.

What we don't know is that when Jonah finally ended up in Nineveh, it was the immediately after a couple of events that shook the people of the city. This is what the wicked city was dealing with the moment Jonah enters the city.

The Plague

First they had a plague in 765 BC, two years before Jonah arrived to Nineveh. We can certainly understand after our own recent life and death struggle with Covid how that affects a populace at large.

Unrest and Riots

In the year that Jonah enters Nineveh, the city had experienced political unrest and social riots that unnerved the population. The Assyrians linked the insurrection with the Eclipse as a horrific sign.

This leads one biblical commentator to write:

“No doubt this depressed state of Assyria

contributed much to the readiness of the people to hear Jonah

as he began to preach to them.”

Here was a great powerful nation

that dealt with a plague a few years before,

had political tensions, and the sign of an eclipse.

Does this sound similar?

Total Solar Eclipse

Then in the same year that Jonah preaches in the wicked city, there was a Total Solar Eclipse. This was 763 BC, the same year Jonah left Joppa to sail for Tarshish.

This eclipse is is registered with NASA's database and is known as the Bur-Sagale Eclipse. It was an unusually long eclipse around 4 minutes of viewing range, almost exactly what the April 8th, 2024 eclipse will be at 4 minutes and 60 seconds. TO compare, the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse was only 2 minutes and 40 seconds.

Setting the Times Straight

The Jonah Eclipse Correct Time.

This Jonah eclipse is the one that set all the dates for the Assyrian calendar since it is referenced in their records and we can know the exact date it occurred: June 15, 763 BC at 7:15 PM.

By this one event, all the Assyrian timelines were put into accurate accounting. This eclipse in Nineveh is how we affix Assyrian history. It all centers around Jonah’s eclipse.

This was the most famous of eclipses in history.

The eclipse happened in June, and Jonah makes his entry in the month of Alul. He begins to preach on Alul 1 which is in September that year. Jonah is in Nineveh just three months after the Total Solar Eclipse and two years after a plague that weakened the nation.

Nineveh worshipped Dagon, the fish god.

Here at this point, in Nineveh's weakened state, walks in the "fish" man to preach to a people who worshipped a "fish" god, just after a long Total Solar Eclipse.

There was only one man who fit that bill.