Jonah ben-Amittai, from Gath-hepher[1464] in Galilee, came forward in the beginning of the reign of Jeroboam II. to announce that the king would regain the lost territories of Israel from the Pass of Hamath to the Dead Sea.[1465] He flourished, therefore, about 780, and had this book been by himself we should have had to place it first of all the Twelve, and nearly a generation before that of Amos. But the book neither claims to be by Jonah, nor gives any proof of coming from an eye-witness of the adventures which it describes,[1466] nor even from a contemporary of the prophet. On the contrary, one verse implies that when it was written Niniveh had ceased to be a great city.[1467] Now Niniveh fell, and was practically destroyed, in 606 B.C.[1468] In all ancient history there was no collapse of an imperial city more sudden or so complete.[1469] We must therefore date the Book of Jonah some time after 606, when Niniveh’s greatness had become what it was to the Greek writers, a matter of tradition.
A late date is also proved by the language of the book. This not only contains Aramaic elements which have been cited to support the argument for a northern origin in the time of Jonah himself,[1470] but a number of words and grammatical constructions which we find in the Old Testament, some of them in the later and some only in the very latest writings.[1471] Scarcely less decisive are a number of apparent quotations and echoes of passages in the Old Testament, mostly later than the date of the historical Jonah, and some of them even later than the Exile.[1472] If it could be proved that the Book of Jonah quotes from Joel, that would indeed set it down to a very late date—probably about 300 B.C., the period of the composition of Ezra-Nehemiah, with the language of which its own shows most affinity.[1473] This would leave time for its reception into the Canon of the Prophets, which was closed by 200 B.C.[1474] Had the book been later it would undoubtedly have fallen, like Daniel, within the Hagiographa.