TO GO DOWN, descend — the verb that tracks Jonah's flight like a plumb line. ⚠ He goes DOWN to Joppa, DOWN into the ship (1:3), DOWN into the innermost hold (1:5), and — the same root in the noun — DOWN to 'the roots of the mountains' inside the fish (2:6); a related form has him fall into a dead sleep. The descent is geographic, moral and almost physical: to flee God is, in this book, to go steadily downward, until the fish vomits him back UP onto dry land and the direction of the story reverses. The opposite motion, 'arise' (qum), is what God (1:2) and the captain (1:6) both command and Jonah keeps resisting. → first discussed at Jonah 1:3