Jonah sailed to Tarshish instead of preaching against the evils of Nineveh as
the Lord bade him. But the Lord sent a mighty storm to punish him for fleecing,
so “that the ship was like to be broken,” the frightened sailors aboard deciding
that he was an evil influence, a loser, real bad luck. “And they said . . .
Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon
us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah” (Jonah 1:7). After they
jettisoned Jonah, calm returned to the seas, but Jonah, of course, was swallowed
by a whale and after three days and nights “vomited out upon dry land,”
whereupon he did what he was supposed to do in the first place. A Jonah still
means a bringer of bad luck that spoils the plans of others, the phrase so
popular that it has even become a verb, as in “Don’t jonah me!”.