At first, Jonah, who here speaks for the first time in the story, appears to ignore the first question and merely answers the last one. He replies “I am a Hebrew.” This is a term that is seldom used in the Old Testament, which prefers the expression “Israelite.” It is frequently used by foreigners, especially Egyptians and Philistines, or by Israelites in speaking to foreigners such as these sailors. This is the only place in the Old Testament where someone says “I am a Hebrew,” though Joseph implies it in Gen 40.15. In the New Testament Paul describes himself as a Hebrew in Phil 3.5. There is a tendency among translators to render I am a Hebrew as simply “I am a Jew” (for example, Living Bible). Such a rendering is of course technically incorrect, because the term “Jew” refers essentially to persons from the southern part of Israel, not from the northern kingdom. It is important, therefore, to reproduce some kind of transliteration of Hebrew, even though this may not appear to be the more common designation of present-day Jews.
The statement I am a Hebrew may, however, require some expansion in certain languages; for example, “My race is Hebrew,” or “I belong to a family of Hebrews,” or “My nation is called Hebrew.”
Jonah had not been asked about his religion, but he volunteers the information that he is a worshiper of (or “one who fears” Revised Standard Version) Yahweh, the maker of sea and land. An American Translation has “I stand in awe of the LORD.” The combination of the two parts of his answer may be taken in either of two ways: (1) since he is a Hebrew, he must therefore be a worshiper of Yahweh, or (2) he is a Hebrew, and in the restrictive sense, one of those who worships Yahweh. The first of these two is more likely. Yahweh is the personal name of the God of Israel and is generally represented in English translations by “the LORD.” (Jerusalem Bible is an exception in this respect.) “The LORD” is a title, whereas Yahweh is a name, which might seem to favor using a name approximating in sound to Yahweh in a modern translation. But against this it may be argued that in the reading of the Scriptures, the Jews have substituted the title ʾadonay, “the Lord.” This procedure was followed in early translations of the Old Testament, beginning with the Septuagint. Some, for example, Living Bible, would prefer the name “Jehovah” (see Exo 3.15; 6.3; and the footnotes on those passages in New English Bible). This is the traditional English method of representing the sacred name, going back to medieval practice, and has been followed in other languages, for example, Chinese. But it is an artificial form that combines the Hebrew consonants of Yahweh with the vowels of ʾadonay, meaning “Lord,” and though printed in that form in Hebrew Bibles, it is not meant to be pronounced in that way.
Though there would be certain distinct advantages in reproducing “Yahweh” as a proper name, translational practice is generally opposed to this, especially since the term “Yahweh” has been associated with a somewhat more liberal theological tradition. Therefore in a number of so-called missionary areas of the world the introduction of such a proper name would seem to be theologically tainted. If, however, one is to employ the expression “Lord,” it is important to combine features of importance and control, that is to say, a term should suggest that the person involved is a very important individual, and that in some senses he governs or controls individuals who address him as “Lord.” An equivalent in some languages is simply “ruler”; in other cases, “master”; and there are some situations in which the closest equivalent indigenous term is “leader.” More frequently, however, the equivalent expression is “chief.”
Though traditional translations have usually rendered the Hebrew expression literally “I fear the LORD,” a literal rendering of such an expression may be quite misleading, since it would suggest, even as it does in English, that people were “scared of the Lord.” In this type of context the Hebrew term that is often translated “fear” identifies an individual as the worshiper of a particular god.
In apposition to the name “Yahweh,” which is placed in an emphatic position, is the descriptive title God of heaven. This title occurs mainly in late books of the Old Testament, but also in Gen 24.3, 7. Heaven is the dwelling place of God, but this expression God of heaven also suggests the supremacy of Israel’s God over all rivals. As God of heaven he is also concerned with the earth, since he made the sea and the dry land (the Hebrew order here, as against Good News Translation), which makes up its surface (Gen 1.9, 10), and hence controls the storms. The writer leaves us to infer the lack of logic in Jonah’s position; how could he hope to escape such a God by traveling westward?
The phrase God of heaven is most frequently rendered by an expression that means “God in heaven,” for a literal rendering of God of heaven might only refer to a god who controls the heavens and nothing else, that is to say, the sky god in contrast with the god of the earth. Fortunately the context makes it quite clear that though this is “the God of heaven,” he also made both the land and the sea.
In choosing a term to translate made, it is important to use an expression that would be appropriate to both land and sea, that is to say, “formed” or “caused to exist.” In some cases a term such as “made” refers only to artifacts, and such an expression would normally be inappropriate in speaking of the land and sea.
In some languages there is no generic term for land, and therefore it may be necessary to use a phrase such as “fields and mountains.” In the case of sea, there may be additional problems in distinguishing between (1) bodies of water that are surrounded by land (that is to say, lakes) and (2) bodies of water that are not surrounded, therefore equivalent more or less to “oceans.” It would be this latter term that is appropriate in this context.
Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. et al. A Handbook on the Book of Jonah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1978, 1982, 1993. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .