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Ionas

Ionas {ee-o-nas'}
Greek: personal noun masculine

Possible Definitions:
1) Jonah meaning "dove" was the fifth minor prophet, the son of Amittai, and a native of Gath-hepher. 2 Ki. 14:25. He flourished in or before the reign of Jeroboam II, about B.C.
820. Having already , as it seems, prophesied to Israel, he was sent to Nineveh. The time was one of political revival in Israel; but ere long the Assyrians were to be employed by God as a scourge upon them. The prophet shrank from a commission which he felt would result, in the sparing of the hostile city. He attempted therefore to escape to Tarshish. The providence of God, however, watched over him, first in a storm, and then in his being swallowed by a large fish (a sea monster, probably a white shark) for the space of three days and three nights. After his deliverance, Jonah executed his commission; and the king, "believing him to be a minister from the supreme deity of the nation," and having heard of his miraculous deliverance, ordered a general fast, and averted the threatened judgement. But the prophet, not from personal but from national feelings, grudged the mercy shown to a heathen nation. He was therefore taught by the significant lesson of the gourd, whose growth and decay brought the truth at once home to him, that he was sent to testify by the deed, as the other prophets would afterward testify by word, the capacity of Gentiles for salvation, and the design of God to make them partakers of it. This was "the sign of the prophet Jonas." Luke 11:29. But the resurrection of Christ itself was also shadowed forth in the history of the prophet. The mission of Jonah was highly symbolical. The facts contained a concealed prophecy. The old tradition made the burial place of Jonah to be Gath-hepher; the modern tradition places it at Nebi-Yunus, opposite Mosul.
2) Jonas, was the father of Peter.

Ionas {ee-o-nas'}

Greek: personal noun masculine

of Hebrew origin [3124];

Translated as:

Jonas (the prophet) (9 times)

Jona (father of Peter) (4 times)

Total: 13 times

Strong's Number 2495

TDNT - 3:406,380