GREAT, big — an ordinary adjective that becomes the structural drumbeat of Jonah. ⚠ It tolls through all four chapters attached to almost everything: the GREAT city Nineveh (1:2; 3:2-3; 4:11), the GREAT wind and GREAT storm God hurls (1:4), the sailors' GREAT fear (1:10, 1:16), the GREAT fish (2:1), Nineveh's repentance from GREAT to small (3:5), and Jonah's GREAT displeasure and GREAT joy over the plant (4:1, 4:6). This translation keeps 'great' on all of it rather than varying the English, because the repetition — everything in the book is oversized — is part of what marks Jonah as a pointed, almost comic tale rather than a plain chronicle. → first discussed at Jonah 1:2