Core Glossary
Core Glossary: Jonah
| # | Term (English) | Original (Hebrew / LXX / NT Greek) | Transliteration | Arabic Rendering | Risk | Baseline Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jonah (proper name) | יוֹנָה / Ἰωνᾶς | Yonah / Iōnas | يونان (Yūnān) | Critical | New | Established Christian Arabic Bible form. NEVER substitute the Quranic form يونس (Yūnus) — same underlying-figure risk pattern as “Jesus” (يسوع vs. عيسى) in the baseline. Quranic Yunus (10:98; 21:87-88; 37:139-148; 68:48-50) is an honored prophet-figure but without the book’s reluctance/rebellion arc or the resurrection-sign typology; readers may pre-load the Quranic narrative onto “Yunus” if that name is used. |
| 2 | Nineveh | נִינְוֵה | Nīnvēh | نينوى (Nīnawā) | High | New | Established proper name. Contemporary political/cultural sensitivity: modern Nineveh province (Mosul, Iraq) carries acute living memory of sectarian violence and persecution of religious minorities; doctrine application (“Compassion for the Nations”) should be framed with pastoral awareness of this, not treated as a neutral ancient place-name. |
| 3 | word of the LORD | דְּבַר־יְהוָה / λόγος Κυρίου | devar-YHWH / logos Kyriou | كلمة الرب | Medium | Partial reuse (lord = الرب, baseline) | Prophetic commissioning formula. Guard against conflation with Johannine الكلمة (Logos) Christological title. |
| 4 | LORD / God (divine names) | יהוה / אֱלֹהִים | YHWH / Elohim | الرب / الله | Critical | REUSE (baseline: lord, god) | Jonah alternates meaningfully between YHWH (Israelite/narrator naming) and Elohim (Gentile characters’ generic theism, e.g. sailors “each to his own god,” 1:5; Nineveh’s response to “God” generically in ch.3). Track which Hebrew name underlies each occurrence and render consistently (YHWH→الرب; Elohim→الله) through all four chapters — this alternation is a meaningful narrative signal, not incidental variation. |
| 5 | great city | עִיר גְּדוֹלָה | ir gedolah | المدينة العظيمة | Low-Medium | New | Recurring epithet (1:2; 3:2-3; 4:11); magnifies the scope of divine compassion. |
| 6 | proclaim / proclamation | קָרָא / קְרִיאָה / κήρυγμα | qara / keri’ah / kērygma | ينادي / يعلن | Medium | New (distinct from baseline “calling”/الدعوة) | Root קרא does multiple duties in Jonah (proclaim, cry out in fear, call a fast) — track sense per occurrence; do NOT use الدعوة, which baseline reserves for God’s technical salvific summons. NT κήρυγμα Ἰωνᾶ (“the preaching of Jonah,” Luke 11:32) is the direct Greek-layer link to this term. |
| 7 | forty days | אַרְבָּעִים יוֹם | arba’im yom | أربعون يوماً | Low | New | Biblical probation-number (Flood, Sinai, wilderness, Elijah, Christ’s fast); the delay itself is grace-space, not a bare countdown. |
| 8 | overthrown / overturned | נֶהְפָּכֶת (√הפך) | nehepekhet | تُخرَّب / تنقلب | Medium | New | Same root used of Sodom’s destruction (Genesis 19:25) — deliberate intertextual judgment-threat; root also carries a “turned back” sense that the narrative’s outcome plays out. Wordplay is lost in Arabic; flag in teaching notes. |
| 9 | believed (Nineveh believed God) | וַיַּאֲמִינוּ … בֵּאלֹהִים / ἐνεπίστευσαν τῷ θεῷ | vaya’aminu … be’Elohim / enepisteusan | آمنوا / الإيمان (al-īmān) | Critical | REUSE (baseline: faith) | Direct root-cognate with Pauline πίστις. OT anticipation of the gospel pattern extended to Gentiles apart from Law. Must convey genuine personal trust, not Islamic iman’s creedal-assent-plus-practice framework (per baseline “faith” notes). |
| 10 | fast (ritual response) | צוֹם | tsom | الصوم | Medium | New | Compatible with Islamic صوم as a virtue-category, but this is spontaneous urgent contrition, not calendar-fixed obligatory practice (Ramadan); distinguish explicitly. |
| 11 | sackcloth | שַׂקּ | saq | المسوح | Low | New | Established biblical mourning/humility symbol. |
| 12 | ashes | אֵפֶר | efer | الرماد | Low | New | Shared Middle Eastern mourning symbolism. |
| 13 | violence / wrongdoing | חָמָס | chamas | العنف / الظلم | Medium-High | New | AVOID any spelling resembling حماس. Etymologically and semantically unrelated to the militant organization’s name (an acronym), but visual/phonetic proximity risks unwanted contemporary distraction — a real, specific, non-doctrinal but practical rendering risk. |
| 14 | turn/repent (human) | שׁוּב | shuv | يرجع (verse-level) / يتوب, التوبة (doctrinal-teaching level) | Critical | New | Van Dyck precedent (3:8) uses يرجع (“turn back”), avoiding the Islamically-loaded ت‑و‑ب root at the verse level. Reserve التوبة (the standard NT rendering of μετάνοια, e.g. Matthew 3:2) for doctrinal discussion, always paired with notes distinguishing gospel-shaped repentance (response to revealed mercy, not itself the ground of forgiveness) from Islamic tawba’s self-initiated remorse-restitution-resolve sequence held to secure forgiveness through the sincerity/completeness of the human act. |
| 15 | relent (divine) | נִחַם | nacham | يندم (عن غضبه) / يرجع عن | Critical | New | Must NOT be taught as God discovering error or morally repenting like a human. This is a change of declared temporal disposition, consistent with — not contradicting — God’s fixed compassionate character (4:2). Sensitive collision point with Islamic qadar (fixed, unchanging divine decree/knowledge); teach explicitly to prevent a false inference of divine fallibility. |
| 16 | evil / calamity (dual sense) | רָעָה | ra’ah | الشر (moral) / الشر، البلاء، الكارثة (calamity) | Medium-High | New | Same Hebrew word serves both senses within a single verse (3:10), producing a deliberate pun (“God relented of the [calamity] because they turned from their [wickedness]”) that Arabic cannot preserve with one word. Flag the lost wordplay explicitly in teaching notes. |
| 17 | gracious, compassionate (Exodus 34:6 formula) | חַנּוּן, רַחוּם | chanun, rachum | حنون، رحيم، رؤوف | High | New | Genuinely overlaps with Islamic الرحمن/الرحيم (Ar-Rahman/Ar-Rahim), a real bridge point — but the doctrine here extends this compassion specifically and effectively to a violent Gentile enemy nation with no covenant claim; teach the outward, undeserving direction explicitly, not assumed shared ground. |
| 18 | lovingkindness | חֶסֶד | chesed | كثير الرحمة (as “رב חסד”) | High | New | Distinguish from baseline grace = النعمة (specific NT soteriological unmerited-favor category). Chesed here names covenant-loyal steadfast character, related but not identical; do not substitute one term for the other. |
| 19 | slow to anger | אֶרֶך אַפַּיִם | erekh apayim | بطيء الغضب / طويل الروح | Low-Medium | New | Established OT idiom (cf. Exodus 34:6 Van Dyck). |
| 20 | great fish | דָּג גָּדוֹל / κῆτος | dag gadol / kētos | الحوت (العظيم) | Medium | New | Established Van Dyck term, matching Matthew 12:40’s κήτος exactly (“بطن الحوت”) — keep this word identical across Jonah and any Gospel cross-references, since the resurrection-sign typology depends on the vocabulary link. Not scientifically “a whale”; an unidentified large sea-creature. |
| 21 | three days and three nights | שְׁלֹשָׁה יָמִים וּשְׁלֹשָׁה לֵילוֹת | shlosha yamim u-shlosha leylot | ثلاثة أيام وثلاث ليال | Critical | New | Direct textual anchor for Matthew 12:40’s “sign of Jonah” (σημεῖον Ἰωνᾶ) — the entire resurrection-typology doctrine depends on exact numeric/durational precision here. |
| 22 | Sheol / the pit | שְׁאוֹל / שַׁחַת | She’ol / shachat | الهاوية / الجب | High | New | Poetic death-language establishing the “death and return” experience the resurrection typology depends on. Do not import a full Islamic barzakh intermediate-state framework; this is experiential/poetic, not a developed afterlife doctrine in this context. |
| 23 | salvation belongs to the LORD | יְשׁוּעָתָה לַיהוָה | yeshu’atah l’YHWH | الخلاص للرب | Critical | REUSE (baseline: salvation, lord) | Climactic confession anticipating the Romans-package doctrine of salvation secured and declared by God, not achieved by human effort. Full theological weight; do not soften. |
| 24 | sign of Jonah | σημεῖον Ἰωνᾶ | sēmeion Iōna | آية يونان | Critical | New | NT (Matthew 12:39-41; Luke 11:29-32) typological term, not present in the Hebrew text itself. Essential vocabulary for the curriculum doctrine “Jonah as a Sign Foreshadowing Christ’s Resurrection”; must connect explicitly to رقم 20-21 above (الحوت; ثلاثة أيام وثلاث ليال) and to baseline resurrection = القيامة. |
| 25 | prophet | נָבִיא / προφήτης | navi / prophētēs | نبي | High | REUSE (baseline: prophet) | Jonah as נביא; per baseline notes, pair with fuller context so “prophet” is not read as Jonah’s/Christ’s complete or final identity (Islamic khatam an-nabiyyin sensitivity applies generally). |
| 26 | resurrection (typological reference) | ἀνάστασις (via NT reception) | anastasis | القيامة | Critical | REUSE (baseline: resurrection) | Applied typologically via the “sign of Jonah”; carries the same apologetic scaffolding requirement as in the Romans package — establish the historical reality of Christ’s death/resurrection rather than assuming the connection is self-evident to a reader shaped by Quran 4:157’s crucifixion denial. |
| 27 | the plant (qiqayon) | קִיקָיוֹן | qiqayon | اليقطينة | Low | New | Established Van Dyck rendering (4:6); exact botanical identity disputed but doctrinally immaterial. |
| 28 | worm | תּוֹלַעַת | tola’at | دودة | Low | New | — |
| 29 | east wind | רוּחַ קָדִים | ruach qadim | ريح شرقية حارة | Low | New | — |
| 30 | appointed / prepared (God commands creation) | מָנָה | manah | أعدّ / عيّن | Medium | New | Used of the fish (2:1/1:17), the plant, the worm, and the wind (ch.4) — fourfold repetition anchoring “Sovereignty of God over Creation.” Render identically at each of the four occurrences to preserve the pattern. |
| 31 | pity / compassion (on the plant / on Nineveh) | חוּס | chus | يرثي / يرقّ / يحنّ | High | New | The book’s closing rhetorical question (4:11) is its true climax; must be preserved as an open, convicting question, not resolved into a flat statement. |
| 32 | anger (Jonah’s) | חָרָה | charah | غضب / احتد غضبه | Low-Medium | New | Establishes “Human Reluctance versus God’s Universal Love”: Jonah angry precisely because God is compassionate to a Gentile enemy. |
| 33 | lot (casting lots) | גּוֹרָל | goral | القرعة | Low | New | Ch.1 sailors’ means of identifying the cause of the storm. |
| 34 | Tarshish (proper name) | תַּרְשִׁישׁ | Tarshish | ترشيش | Low | New | Geographic opposite direction from Nineveh; establishes the flight’s deliberateness. |
| 35 | gentiles / the nations | (contextual — Nineveh as a Gentile city/nation) | — | الأمم | Medium | REUSE (baseline: gentiles) | Nineveh functions in this book as the paradigm Gentile-nation recipient of God’s compassion; connect explicitly to baseline doctrine “unity_of_jews_and_gentiles” and “Compassion for the Nations” as this curriculum’s organizing doctrine. |
Chapters Reviewed with No New Load-Bearing Terms
All four chapters of Jonah (1, 2, 3, 4) contribute new theological vocabulary; there is no chapter in this short book that introduces no new terms. Every chapter has been reviewed and is represented above.
This glossary is Phase 1 Step 1 output. Terms marked “New” should be proposed for addition to a future Jonah-specific translation_memory.json and bible_term_registry.json, following the exact schema of the baseline Romans Language Package, before Phase 2 segment translation begins.
Critical Risk Terms
God
Approved rendering: الله
Transliteration: Allāh
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Inherited from Romans package. In Jonah, tracks Hebrew אֱלֹהִים (Elohim) occurrences — the pagan sailors’ and Ninevites’ generic-theism references (1:5, 1:6, 3:5-10) — kept distinct from יהוה (YHWH), rendered الرب. See divine_names_yhwh_elohim below for the book-specific tracking convention.
Lord
Approved rendering: الرب
Transliteration: al-Rabb
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: السيد, المولى
Inherited from Romans package. In Jonah renders יהוה (YHWH) throughout — the narrator’s and Jonah’s own covenant-name usage (1:1, 1:3, 1:9, 3:1, 3:3, etc.) — kept distinct from الله/Elohim. Underlies the compound entries word_of_the_lord, from_the_presence_of_the_lord, hurled_great_wind, and salvation_belongs_to_the_lord below.
Jesus
Approved rendering: يسوع
Transliteration: Yasūʿ
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: عيسى
Inherited from Romans package. Does not occur in the Hebrew text of Jonah itself, but is essential teaching-material vocabulary connecting the sign of Jonah (Matthew 12:39-41; Luke 11:29-32) to Christ’s own death and resurrection. Never substitute عيسى.
Salvation
Approved rendering: الخلاص
Transliteration: al-khalāṣ
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: النجاة, الفوز بالجنة
Inherited from Romans package. Underlies the climactic confession salvation_belongs_to_the_lord (Jonah 2:9); maintain full theological weight of deliverance secured entirely by God’s initiative, against the mizan (deeds-weighing) framework of mainstream Islamic soteriology.
Resurrection
Approved rendering: القيامة
Transliteration: al-qiyāmah
Doctrine: Resurrection of Christ
Inherited from Romans package. Applied typologically via the sign of Jonah; carries the same apologetic-scaffolding requirement as the Romans package — establish the historicity of Christ’s crucifixion (denied by Quran 4:157) before the Jonah-to-resurrection link can function as evidence rather than empty analogy.
Jonah
Approved rendering: يونان
Transliteration: Yūnān
Doctrine: Prophetic Office and Its Limits
Rejected alternatives: يونس
Original: יוֹנָה / Ἰωνᾶς
Category: Prophecy
Established Christian Arabic Bible form. NEVER substitute the Quranic form يونس — same risk pattern as يسوع vs. عيسى. Quranic Yunus (10:98; 21:87-88; 37:139-148; 68:48-50) is an honored, vindicated prophet-figure with no reluctance/anger arc and no resurrection-sign typology; readers may pre-load that narrative onto ‘Yunus’ if the Quranic form is used.
Divine Names Yhwh Elohim
Approved rendering: الرب / الله
Transliteration: al-Rabb / Allāh
Doctrine: Gentile Worship and Fear of the True God
YHWH → الرب; Elohim → الله, reused exactly per baseline. Jonah deliberately alternates between the narrator’s/Jonah’s covenant-name usage (YHWH) and Gentile characters’ generic theism (Elohim, e.g. 1:5 ‘each cried to his own god’; 3:5-10’s Nineveh addressed as Elohim). Track which Hebrew name underlies each occurrence throughout all four chapters; collapsing the distinction flattens a meaningful narrative signal.
Believed Faith
Approved rendering: آمنوا / الإيمان
Transliteration: āmanū / al-īmān
Doctrine: Universal Faith Response of the Nations
Original: וַיַּאֲמִינוּ … בֵּאלֹהִים / ἐνεπίστευσαν τῷ θεῷ
Category: Repentance and Mercy
REUSE baseline faith = الإيمان exactly. Nineveh’s immediate, city-wide trust in God’s word (3:5), with no prior covenant or law — a direct OT anticipation of the Gentile-inclusion-by-faith pattern Romans later develops doctrinally. Must convey genuine personal trust, not Islamic iman’s creedal-assent-plus-practice framework; the speed and totality of the response is itself doctrinally significant.
Turn Repent Human
Approved rendering: يرجع (نصي) / التوبة (تعليمي)
Transliteration: yarjiʿ (verse-level) / al-tawbah (doctrinal)
Doctrine: Repentance and Divine Mercy
Rejected alternatives: يتوب (verse-level)
Original: שׁוּב
Category: Repentance and Mercy
Van Dyck precedent uses يرجع (‘turn back’) at the verse level (3:8, 3:10) rather than the Islamically-loaded root ت-و-ب. Reserve التوبة (the standard NT rendering of μετάνοια) for doctrinal-teaching discussions only, always paired with notes distinguishing gospel-shaped repentance (response to revealed mercy, not itself the ground of forgiveness) from Islamic tawba’s self-initiated remorse-restitution-resolve sequence, held to secure forgiveness through the sincerity/completeness of the human act itself.
Relent Divine
Approved rendering: يندم (عن غضبه) / يرجع عن
Transliteration: yandam (ʿan ghaḑabihi) / yarjiʿ ʿan
Doctrine: Divine Relenting and God’s Unchanging Character
Rejected alternatives: يتوب (never used for God’s own action)
Original: נִחַם
Category: Repentance and Mercy
God’s relenting from the announced disaster (3:9-10). Must never be taught as God discovering error or morally repenting like a human — this is a change of declared, temporal disposition, the outworking (not revision) of God’s fixed compassionate character (4:2, echoing Exodus 34:6). Acute collision risk with Islamic qadar theology, which holds Allah’s decree and knowledge as eternally fixed; change-of-mind language can be read as implying divine imperfection unless taught explicitly.
Three Days Three Nights
Approved rendering: ثلاثة أيام وثلاث ليال
Transliteration: thalāthat ayyām wa-thalāth layāl
Doctrine: Jonah as a Sign Foreshadowing Christ’s Resurrection
Original: שְׁלֹשָׁה יָמִים וּשְׁלֹשָׁה לֵילוֹת
Category: Resurrection Typology
The duration of Jonah’s time in the great fish (1:17/2:1 Heb.), cited by Jesus in Matthew 12:40 as ‘the sign of Jonah.’ Must be rendered with exact numeric and durational precision; the entire typological argument depends on this correspondence being visible in both testaments’ wording.
Salvation Belongs To The Lord
Approved rendering: الخلاص للرب
Transliteration: al-khalāṣ lil-Rabb
Doctrine: Salvation as God’s Sovereign Work
Original: יְשׁוּעָתָה לַיהוָה
Category: Resurrection Typology
Jonah’s climactic confession from inside the fish (2:9). REUSE baseline salvation = الخلاص and lord = الرب exactly. Deliverance secured entirely by God’s initiative, not Jonah’s own effort or escape; maintain full theological weight, never soften into ‘the LORD helps.‘
Sign Of Jonah
Approved rendering: آية يونان
Transliteration: āyat Yūnān
Doctrine: Jonah as a Sign Foreshadowing Christ’s Resurrection
Original: σημεῖον Ἰωνᾶ (Matthew 12:39-41; Luke 11:29-32)
Category: Resurrection Typology
NT reception term (Matthew 12:39-41; Luke 11:29-32), not present in the Hebrew text itself. Introduce explicitly as Christ’s own interpretive claim, cited from the Gospels, rather than presenting it as if the phrase occurs in Jonah itself. Must connect explicitly to great_fish and three_days_three_nights above, and to baseline resurrection = القيامة.
High Risk Terms
Faith
Approved rendering: الإيمان
Transliteration: al-īmān
Doctrine: Faith
Rejected alternatives: الاعتقاد, الثقة
Inherited from Romans package. Directly underlies believed_faith below (Jonah 3:5, Nineveh ‘believed God’) — the book’s OT anticipation of the Gentile-inclusion-by-faith pattern Romans later develops doctrinally.
Prophet
Approved rendering: نبي
Transliteration: nabī
Doctrine: Inspiration of Scripture
Original: נָבִיא / προφήτης
Category: Prophecy
Inherited from Romans package. Jonah’s office as נָבִיא; pair with fuller context (typological pointer to Christ, Matthew 12:39-41) so ‘prophet’ is not read as Jonah’s complete or final identity — the khatam an-nabiyyin (seal of the prophets) sensitivity applies.
Sin
Approved rendering: الخطية
Transliteration: al-khaṭīyah
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability
Rejected alternatives: الذنب, الإثم
Inherited from Romans package. Relevant background for Nineveh’s named violence/wrongdoing (חָמָס, 3:8) and moral ‘evil way’ (רָעָה, 3:10); Nineveh is taught to turn from real, named wrongdoing, not affirmed in a fitrah-compatible natural innocence.
Called
Approved rendering: المدعوون
Transliteration: al-madʿuwwūn
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Rejected alternatives: المُنتخَبون
Inherited from Romans package. Jonah himself is called to the prophetic office (1:1, 3:1). Distinguish from calling as human da’wah-style invitation — see calling entry below.
Calling
Approved rendering: الدعوة
Transliteration: al-daʿwah
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Inherited from Romans package. God’s sovereign summons of a resistant prophet (1:1-3, 3:1-3) runs the opposite direction from da’wah, the Islamic term for human invitation of others to Islam — especially pointed in Jonah, since the prophet himself resists the very summons he is given.
Israel
Approved rendering: إسرائيل
Transliteration: Isrāʾīl
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Inherited from Romans package. Jonah is an Israelite prophet sent to Israel’s Gentile imperial enemy; frame Nineveh’s deliverance against this national-enmity backdrop without collapsing into contemporary political framing of ‘Isra’il.‘
Grace
Approved rendering: النعمة
Transliteration: al-niʿmah
Doctrine: Grace
Rejected alternatives: الفضل, الرحمة
Inherited from Romans package. Retained strictly for contrastive teaching: NEVER substitute for lovingkindness_chesed or gods_character_formula below. Chesed (Jonah 4:2) is God’s covenant-loyal steadfast compassion, an OT character trait; النعمة is the specific NT soteriological category of unmerited justifying favor apart from works. Do not conflate.
Nineveh
Approved rendering: نينوى
Transliteration: Nīnawā
Doctrine: God’s Compassion for the Nations
Original: נִינְוֵה
Category: Geography
Established proper name. Contemporary political sensitivity: modern Nineveh province (Mosul, Iraq) carries acute living memory of sectarian violence, ISIS occupation (2014-2017), and persecution of religious minorities. Apply the compassion-for-the-nations doctrine with deliberate pastoral framing, not as a neutral ancient toponym.
Violence Wrongdoing
Approved rendering: العنف / الظلم
Transliteration: al-ʿunf / al-ẕulm
Doctrine: Repentance and Divine Mercy
Rejected alternatives: حماس-adjacent spellings
Original: חָמָס
Category: Repentance and Mercy
The violence/wrongdoing from which Nineveh is called to turn (3:8, חָמָס). AVOID any Arabic spelling resembling حماس: etymologically and semantically unrelated (an acronym, not derived from this root), but the visual/phonetic proximity risks unwanted contemporary political distraction for Arabic readers. Practical, non-doctrinal but mandatory rendering caution; confirm with native-speaker proofreading before batch publication.
Evil Calamity Dual Sense
Approved rendering: الشر (أخلاقي) / البلاء، الكارثة (عقاب)
Transliteration: al-sharr / al-balāʾ, al-kārithah
Doctrine: Repentance and Divine Mercy
Original: רָעָה
Category: Repentance and Mercy
The same Hebrew word רָעָה is used within a single verse (3:10) for both the Ninevites’ moral ‘evil way’ and God’s threatened ‘evil/calamity’ — a deliberate pun Arabic cannot preserve with one word. Split into distinct Arabic terms but flag the lost wordplay explicitly in teaching notes, since the pun carries the verse’s doctrinal logic (God relents of the calamity because they turned from the wickedness).
Gods Character Formula
Approved rendering: حنون / رحيم / رؤوف
Transliteration: ḥanūn / raḥīm / raʾūf
Doctrine: God’s Compassion for the Nations
Original: חַנּוּן וְרַחוּם (Jonah 4:2, quoting Exodus 34:6)
Category: Compassion for Nations
The Exodus 34:6 character formula Jonah cites as the very reason he fled (4:2). Genuinely overlaps, positively, with Islam’s الرحمن and الرحيم, two of Allah’s most prominent names — a real bridge point. But the doctrine here extends this compassion specifically and effectively to a violent Gentile enemy nation with no covenant claim; teach this outward direction explicitly rather than assume it as already shared ground.
Lovingkindness Chesed
Approved rendering: كثير الرحمة
Transliteration: kathīr al-raḥmah
Doctrine: God’s Compassion for the Nations
Original: רַב־חֶסֶד
Category: Compassion for Nations
‘Abounding in lovingkindness’ (רַב־חֶסֶד, part of the Exodus 34:6 formula quoted in 4:2). Standard Van Dyck OT idiom. Distinguish sharply from grace = النعمة above: chesed names God’s covenant-loyal, steadfast character trait, not the NT soteriological category of unmerited justifying favor apart from works. Do not substitute one for the other.
Pity Compassion Chus
Approved rendering: يرثي / يرقّ / يحنّ
Transliteration: yarthī / yarriqq / yaḥinn
Doctrine: Jonah’s Anger versus God’s Universal Love
Original: חוּס
Category: Human Reluctance
Used of Jonah’s pity for the plant and, in the book’s closing rhetorical question, God’s compassion for Nineveh (4:10-11). Must be preserved as an open, convicting question, not resolved into a flat statement; the contrast is deliberate — Jonah pities a short-lived plant that cost him no effort while resenting God’s compassion toward 120,000 human beings.
Sheol The Pit
Approved rendering: الهاوية / الجب
Transliteration: al-hāwiyah / al-jubb
Doctrine: Death and Deliverance Typology
Original: שְׁאוֹל / שַׁחַת
Category: Resurrection Typology
The realm of the dead / the pit of corruption, describing Jonah’s experience inside the fish as death and burial (2:2, 2:6). This poetic death-language is precisely what makes the resurrection typology textually credible; do not import a full Islamic barzakh intermediate-state framework — this is experiential/poetic language, not a developed afterlife doctrine here.
Medium Risk Terms
Gentiles
Approved rendering: الأمم
Transliteration: al-umam
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Rejected alternatives: الكفار
Inherited from Romans package. Nineveh functions in Jonah as the paradigm Gentile-nation recipient of God’s compassion and warning; connect explicitly to the curriculum’s organizing doctrine, God’s Compassion for the Nations.
Providence
Approved rendering: العناية الإلهية
Transliteration: al-ʿināyah al-ilāhiyyah
Doctrine: Providence
Rejected alternatives: القدر
Inherited from Romans package. Directly relevant to the fourfold appointed_prepared pattern (fish, plant, worm, wind) — God’s personal, purposive care for specific occasions, not impersonal qadar-style fatalism.
Mission
Approved rendering: الإرسالية
Transliteration: al-irsāliyyah
Doctrine: Mission to the Nations
Rejected alternatives: الرسالة
Inherited from Romans package. Jonah’s sending to Nineveh (1:1-2, 3:1-2) is the book’s own mission-to-the-nations narrative in miniature; avoid الرسالة to prevent comparison with Muhammad’s own prophetic risalah.
Power Of God
Approved rendering: قوة الله
Transliteration: quwwat Allāh
Doctrine: Power of God for Salvation
Inherited from Romans package. Broadly compatible with the Sovereignty of God over Creation doctrine’s demonstrations (storm, fish, plant, worm, wind); the Jonah package tracks this theme primarily under appointed_prepared and hurled_great_wind below.
Word Of The Lord
Approved rendering: كلمة الرب
Transliteration: kalimat al-Rabb
Doctrine: Prophetic Calling and Recommissioning
Original: דְּבַר־יְהוָה
Category: Prophecy
The technical prophetic-commissioning formula (1:1, 3:1). Guard against unintended conflation with the Johannine title ‘the Word’ (الكلمة/Logos); the prophetic-commissioning sense must remain clear from context.
Arise Go
Approved rendering: قم، اذهب
Transliteration: qum, idhhab
Doctrine: Prophetic Calling and Recommissioning
Original: קוּם לֵךְ
Category: Prophecy
The divine command given identically at Jonah’s original commissioning (1:2) and his recommissioning (3:2). Must be rendered with identical Arabic wording at both occurrences so the deliberate verbal parallel between the disobeyed and the obeyed command remains visible.
From The Presence Of The Lord
Approved rendering: من أمام وجه الرب
Transliteration: min amām wajh al-Rabb
Doctrine: Human Reluctance versus God’s Universal Love
Original: מִלִּפְנֵי יְהוָה
Category: Human Reluctance
The stated object of Jonah’s flight (1:3), echoing Cain’s flight from God’s presence (Genesis 4:16). Frame as rejection of relational proximity to God, not mere geographic avoidance of a task.
Hurled Great Wind
Approved rendering: أرسل الرب ريحاً عظيمة
Transliteration: arsala al-Rabbu rīḥan ʿaẕīmah
Doctrine: The Sovereignty of God over Creation
Original: וַיָּטֵל יְהוָה רוּחַ־גְּדוֹלָה
Category: Sovereignty over Creation
God’s direct, active causation of the storm (1:4). Ensure the Arabic verb conveys deliberate divine action, not a passive meteorological event; the Sovereignty of God over Creation doctrine depends on active divine command from the book’s opening scene.
Proclaim Proclamation
Approved rendering: ينادي / يعلن
Transliteration: yunādī / yuʿlin
Doctrine: Prophetic Calling and Recommissioning
Original: קָרָא / קְרִיאָה
Category: Prophecy
Root קרא serves multiple senses in Jonah (proclaim a message, 3:2/3:4; cry out in fear, 1:14; call a fast, 3:5); track sense per occurrence. Do NOT use الدعوة, which the baseline reserves strictly for God’s technical salvific summons. NT κήρυγμα Ἰωνᾶ (‘the preaching of Jonah,’ Luke 11:32) is the direct Greek-layer link.
Overthrown Overturned
Approved rendering: تُخرَّب / تنقلب
Transliteration: tukhrab / tanqalib
Doctrine: Divine Judgment and Gracious Warning
Original: נֶהְפָּכֶת (√הפך)
Category: Repentance and Mercy
Jonah’s warning oracle (3:4), using the identical Hebrew verb root (√הפך) applied to Sodom and Gomorrah’s destruction (Genesis 19:25). Select one primary sense for the verse itself; this necessarily loses the root’s dual ‘overturned/destroyed’ vs. ‘turned back’ wordplay that the narrative’s outcome ironically fulfills — flag this loss explicitly in teaching notes.
Fast
Approved rendering: الصوم
Transliteration: al-ṣawm
Doctrine: Universal Faith Response of the Nations
Original: צוֹם
Category: Repentance and Mercy
Nineveh’s spontaneous, city-wide fast (3:5). Broadly compatible with Islamic صوم/صيام as a virtue-category, but this is a spontaneous, unscheduled act of urgent contrition, not the fixed, calendar-governed, obligatory practice of Ramadan; make this contrast explicit in teaching material.
Great Fish
Approved rendering: الحوت (العظيم)
Transliteration: al-ḥūt (al-ʿaẕīm)
Doctrine: The Sovereignty of God over Creation
Original: דָּג גָּדוֹל / κῆτος
Category: Sovereignty over Creation
The great fish/sea creature God appoints to swallow Jonah (1:17/2:1 Heb.). Established Van Dyck term, matching Matthew 12:40’s κήτος exactly (‘بطن الحوت’); keep identical across Jonah and any Gospel cross-references, since the resurrection-sign typology depends on this vocabulary link. Not scientifically ‘a whale’ — an unidentified large sea-creature.
Appointed Prepared
Approved rendering: أعدّ / عيّن
Transliteration: aʿadda / ʿayyana
Doctrine: The Sovereignty of God over Creation
Rejected alternatives: قُدِّر له (generic decree phrasing)
Original: מָנָה
Category: Sovereignty over Creation
Used across the book for the fish (2:1/1:17 Heb.), the plant, the worm, and the wind (ch.4) — a fourfold repetition anchoring the Sovereignty of God over Creation doctrine. Render identically at each of the four occurrences. Avoid generic qadar-style ‘قُدِّر له’ phrasing, which would strip these events of their specific, personal, occasion-bound purpose.
Hundred Twenty Thousand
Approved rendering: أكثر من مئة وعشرين ألف إنسان لا يميزون بين يمينهم وشمالهم
Transliteration: akthar min miʾat wa-ʿishrīn alf insān lā yumayyizūn bayna yamīnihim wa-shimālihim
Doctrine: God’s Compassion for the Nations
Original: הַרְבֵּה מִשְׁתֵּים־עֶשְׂרֵה רִבּוֹ אָדָם אֲשֶׁר לֹא־יָדַע בֵּין־יְמִינוֹ לִשְׂמֹאלוֹ
Category: Compassion for Nations
The book’s closing description of Nineveh’s population (4:11), likely referring to spiritual/moral immaturity or ignorance of the true God rather than literal infancy alone. Retain the tender, non-condemning tone; God’s mercy reaches people who, by any covenant standard, have no prior claim to know him.
Low Risk Terms
Prophecy
Approved rendering: نبوءة
Transliteration: nubūʾah
Doctrine: Fulfillment of Prophecy
Inherited from Romans package. Low independent risk; relevant to Jonah’s oracular warning to Nineveh (3:4) functioning as a genuine, repentance-inviting prophecy, not a fixed, unappealable decree.
Thanksgiving
Approved rendering: الشكر
Transliteration: al-shukr
Doctrine: Thanksgiving
Inherited from Romans package. Relevant to the tone of Jonah’s prayer of deliverance (ch.2), though the chapter’s dominant note is confession/petition rather than thanksgiving proper.
Tarshish
Approved rendering: ترشيش
Transliteration: Tarshīsh
Doctrine: Human Reluctance versus God’s Universal Love
Original: תַּרְשִׁישׁ
Category: Geography
Established proper name; a distant port city representing the geographic opposite direction from Nineveh, establishing the deliberateness of Jonah’s flight (1:3).
Went Down
Approved rendering: نزل
Transliteration: nazala
Doctrine: Human Reluctance versus God’s Universal Love
Original: וַיֵּרַד (√ירד)
Category: Human Reluctance
The repeated descent verb (√ירד) marking Jonah’s spiritual trajectory away from God — down to Joppa, into the ship, into the hold, into the depths. Render with a single consistent Arabic verb across all occurrences so the descent-motif, contrasted with God’s repeated call to ‘arise,’ remains visible.
Sacrifice And Vows
Approved rendering: ذبحوا ذبيحة للرب ونذروا نذوراً
Transliteration: dhabaḥū dhabīḥatan lil-Rabb wa-nadharū nudhūran
Doctrine: Gentile Worship and Fear of the True God
Original: וַיִּזְבְּחוּ זֶבַח לַיהוָה וַיִּדְּרוּ נְדָרִים
Category: Worship
The pagan sailors’ genuine turn to worship YHWH by name after the storm’s calming (1:16); a small-scale preview of Nineveh’s larger turn in chapter 3. Note the shift from Elohim (‘his own god,’ 1:5) to naming YHWH here.
Great City
Approved rendering: المدينة العظيمة
Transliteration: al-madīnah al-ʿaẕīmah
Doctrine: God’s Compassion for the Nations
Original: עִיר גְּדוֹלָה
Category: Compassion for Nations
Recurring epithet for Nineveh (1:2; 3:2-3; 4:11); render consistently to preserve the rhetorical repetition that magnifies the scope of divine compassion.
Forty Days
Approved rendering: أربعون يوماً
Transliteration: arbaʿūn yawman
Doctrine: Repentance and Divine Mercy
Original: אַרְבָּעִים יוֹם
Category: Repentance and Mercy
The probationary period given to Nineveh (3:4), echoing other biblical forty-day periods (the Flood, Sinai, the wilderness, Elijah, Christ’s fast). Teach as grace-space granted before judgment, not a bare countdown.
Sackcloth
Approved rendering: المسوح
Transliteration: al-musūḥ
Doctrine: Universal Faith Response of the Nations
Original: שַׂק
Category: Repentance and Mercy
Established biblical mourning/humility symbol, worn from the greatest to the least of Nineveh, including the king (3:5-6).
Ashes
Approved rendering: الرماد
Transliteration: al-ramād
Doctrine: Universal Faith Response of the Nations
Original: אֵפֶר
Category: Repentance and Mercy
Mourning/humiliation symbol; the king of Nineveh sits in ashes (3:6). Broadly shared Middle Eastern mourning symbolism.
Slow To Anger
Approved rendering: بطيء الغضب / طويل الروح
Transliteration: baṭīʾ al-ghaḑab / ṭawīl al-rūḥ
Doctrine: God’s Revealed Character (Exodus 34:6 Formula)
Original: אֶרֶך אַפַּיִם
Category: Compassion for Nations
Part of the Exodus 34:6 formula Jonah quotes (4:2). Established OT idiom; low independent collision risk.
Anger Jonah
Approved rendering: غضب / احتد غضبه
Transliteration: ghaḑab / iḥtadda ghaḑabuhu
Doctrine: Human Reluctance versus God’s Universal Love
Original: חָרָה
Category: Human Reluctance
Jonah’s burning anger at God’s compassion toward Nineveh (4:1, 4:4, 4:9). Establishes the emotional register of the book’s central critique: Jonah is angry precisely because God is compassionate to a Gentile enemy nation.
The Plant Qiqayon
Approved rendering: اليقطينة
Transliteration: al-yaqṭīnah
Doctrine: The Sovereignty of God over Creation
Original: קִיקָיוֹן
Category: Sovereignty over Creation
The plant God appoints to give Jonah shade, then withers (4:6-7). Established Van Dyck rendering; exact botanical identity (castor-bean vs. bottle-gourd) is disputed but doctrinally immaterial.
Worm
Approved rendering: دودة
Transliteration: dūdah
Doctrine: The Sovereignty of God over Creation
Original: תּוֹלַעַת
Category: Sovereignty over Creation
The worm God appoints to attack the plant (4:7). No significant collision risk.
East Wind
Approved rendering: ريح شرقية حارة
Transliteration: rīḥ sharqiyyah ḥārrah
Doctrine: The Sovereignty of God over Creation
Original: רוּחַ קָדִים חֲרִישִׁית
Category: Sovereignty over Creation
The scorching east wind God appoints against Jonah (4:8). No significant collision risk.
Lot Casting
Approved rendering: القرعة
Transliteration: al-qurʿah
Doctrine: God’s Sovereignty over Human Affairs and Nature
Original: גּוֹרָל
Category: Sovereignty over Creation
The lot cast by the sailors to identify the cause of the storm (1:7). Standard ancient Near Eastern narrative custom, described rather than commended by the text; low doctrinal collision risk beyond a possible pastoral note on Islamic caution around divinatory practices.
Referenced passages