2 Kings14:23–29

The only other Jonah son of Amittai verbal / quotation: confirmed

Outside his own book, the prophet of v. 25 appears here and nowhere else. The Verifier records two shared lexemes with Jonah 1:1, and one of them, אֲמִתַּי (’ămittay, H573), occurs in just two verses in the whole canon. Cambridge argues from that scarcity that identity is unavoidable: "it is impossible to believe that there were two persons of this name, both prophets and both sons of Amittai," and concludes that Jonah is the earliest of the prophets whose writings survive. Barnes uses the same link the other way, to date Jonah inside Jeroboam's reign.

Jonah 1:1

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H573 ʼĂmittay (in 2 vv, rare) and H3124 Yôwnâh (in 17 vv). This is a rare onomastic identity, not a quotation of one text by the other.

Isaiah 15 and 16 as Jonah's missing prophecy: a disputed claim flagged: verify source

Because the word of the LORD by Jonah cited in v. 25 survives nowhere, a nineteenth century proposal identified it with the oracle now standing as Isaiah 15 and 16. Ellicott reports it from Hitzig and Knobel, allows that a later prophet may adopt an earlier one's work, and then closes the door: "But it is easier to prove that these chapters are not Isaiah's, than that they belong to Jonah." Barnes reports the same proposal and rejects it as "without sufficient grounds." ⚙ We record the link only to mark it as contested and unproven. No lexical basis is claimed for it, and the honest position is that the prophecy this verse cites is simply not preserved.

Isaiah 15:1 · Isaiah 16:1

basis: Contested provenance. The identification of Isaiah 15 to 16 with Jonah's oracle is Hitzig's and Knobel's conjecture, reported and rejected by both Ellicott and Barnes. No Verifier lexeme pair supports it and none is claimed; listed here so the reader can see the claim and its refusal together.

Gath-hepher: a name that occurs twice verbal / quotation: confirmed

The prophet's town is named only here and at Joshua 19:13 (as Gittah-hepher), in the tribal lot of Zebulun. The Verifier confirms the shared lexeme, which appears in two verses of the canon. Cambridge and Pulpit both place it near Nazareth and identify the present El-Meshhed; K&D says the same. Gill draws the consequence for John 7:52, that the first of the writing prophets was a Galilean.

Joshua 19:13

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H1662 Gath-ha-Chêpher (in 2 vv, rare). A place-name link, not a citation.

"Shut up and left": the Song of Moses inside the rescue verbal / quotation: confirmed

K&D states that the phrase ’epes ‘āṣûr wə’epes ‘āzûḇ in v. 26 is "verbatim from Deuteronomy 32:36," the verse of the Song of Moses at which, in K&D's words, the kingdom is shown to have "been brought to the utmost extremity of distress predicted there by Moses." We ran the pair: the Verifier returns three substantive shared lexemes plus the verb of seeing. Poole, Geneva, Gill and Cambridge all send the reader to the same place (with 1 Kings 14:10 for the idiom). The effect is that the narrator diagnoses Israel's condition in Moses' own words at the moment God acts on Moses' own terms.

Deuteronomy 32:36 · 1 Kings 14:10

basis: Verifier (pair run on 2 Kings 14:26 / Deuteronomy 32:36): shared Hebrew lexemes H657 ʼepheç (in 43 vv), H6113 ʻâtsâr (in 45 vv), H5800 ʻâzab (in 206 vv), H7200 râʼâh (in 1200 vv). The 1 Kings 14:10 reference is the commentators' idiom parallel, not a Verifier-computed link.

The Mosaic threat God declines to speak structural / thematic: confirmed

Barnes calls "blot out the name from under heaven" a Mosaic phrase "found only here and in Deuteronomy" (9:14; 29:20). Our pair run against Deuteronomy 29:20 returns four substantive shared lexemes, including the relatively rare verb mâchâh, so the whole idiom is reproduced. The Verifier's own computed tier for the pair was structural rather than verbal, and we keep its tier rather than raise it: this is an idiom held in common, and no text claims to be quoting the other. What the allusion does is exact. The covenant curse is verbally present in the verse that says God has not pronounced it.

Deuteronomy 29:20 · Deuteronomy 9:14

basis: Verifier (pair run on 2 Kings 14:27 / Deuteronomy 29:20): shared Hebrew lexemes H4229 mâchâh (in 32 vv), H8064 shâmayim (in 395 vv), H8478 tachath (in 450 vv), H8034 shêm (in 771 vv). Verifier tiered this structural; we do not raise it. Deuteronomy 9:14 is Barnes's citation, not a Verifier-computed pair.

The saviour promised two chapters earlier structural / thematic: confirmed

Cambridge says flatly of v. 27, "Jeroboam was the saviour spoken of in 2 Kings 13:5," and Pulpit develops it: Joash began the salvation, Jeroboam completed it, and he was "the true 'savior'" for whom his father paved the way. Our pair run confirms the shared verb yâshaʻ, though it is a common one. ⚙ We would hold the identification loosely: 13:5 does not name its deliverer, and the link is inference from the verb and the situation, which is how Cambridge and Pulpit reached it too.

2 Kings 13:5

basis: Verifier (pair run on 2 Kings 14:27 / 2 Kings 13:5): shared Hebrew lexemes H3467 yâshaʻ (in 198 vv), H8478 tachath (in 450 vv), H3027 yâd (in 1445 vv). Common lexemes plus a shared narrative situation; the identification of the unnamed saviour is the commentators' inference.

The prophets whose books begin in this reign structural / thematic: confirmed

Hosea 1:1 and Amos 1:1 both date themselves by "Jeroboam son of Joash king of Israel," and the Verifier lists both as candidates on the strength of the shared royal names. The lexemes are common, so the link is not verbal in any strong sense; it is the same king serving as the same dateline. Henry and Benson both make the observation that matters: prophecy began to be written in this reign, and Cambridge adds that Jonah must precede or begin it. ⚙ The kingdom's political high-water mark and the beginning of its written indictment are the same years.

Hosea 1:1 · Amos 1:1 · Amos 6:14

basis: Verifier candidates: shared Hebrew lexemes H3379 Yârobʻâm (in 95 vv) and H3101 Yôwʼâsh (in 41 vv), both common; the basis is a shared regnal dateline, not a quotation. Amos 6:14 is added on K&D's and Barnes's argument about the same territorial limits, not on a Verifier pair.

Four generations, and the clock runs out structural / thematic: confirmed

Zechariah's accession in v. 29 completes the promise made to Jehu at 2 Kings 10:30. Gill, Cambridge and Pulpit all say so, and Pulpit adds the statistic: no other royal house held the Israelite throne for more than three generations. ⚙ Reported honestly: we did not run a Verifier pair for this link, and the basis is narrative and commentator-attested rather than lexical. The unit's last word, taḥtāw, "in his place," is the last quiet place in this history; after Zechariah the throne changes hands by assassination.

2 Kings 10:30 · 2 Kings 15:8

basis: Narrative fulfilment stated in the text of 2 Kings 10:30 and attested by Gill, Cambridge and Pulpit; no Verifier lexeme pair was computed for this link, and none is claimed. K&D adds a chronological difficulty at 2 Kings 15:8.

A name not blotted out, and a book of life typological

⚙ Verse 27's image, as Ellicott says, is "taken from blotting out writing": a name rubbed off a skin, and the Hebrews' inks "soon faded, and could easily be wiped off the parchment." The risen Christ speaks in the same picture to Sardis, promising the one who overcomes that his name will not be blotted out of the book of life. This is a cross-Testament link, Greek to Hebrew, so it cannot be tiered verbal and no shared Strong's number can be computed for it. What is shared is the figure of an erasable written name and a divine refusal to erase it. Benson had already read v. 27 in this direction: of the name Israel absolutely, "he never said it, nor will ever do it: for that name still remains under heaven in the spiritual Israel, and will to the end of time."

Revelation 3:5

basis: Cross-Testament (Greek to Hebrew): no shared Strong's lexeme is possible and none is claimed. The basis is a shared figure, the erasure of a written name, plus Benson's spiritual-Israel reading of this verse. Widely held as an image, novel as a direct link between these two verses.

The sign of the prophet of Gath-hepher ancient/widely-held

This verse is the reason we can place Jonah at all. Cambridge concludes he "must be the earliest of those prophets, whose writings have been preserved," and Pulpit says his date "is determined by this passage." That the man sent to Nineveh first served as a prophet of restoration to a rotten northern kingdom is the shape the Gospels take up when Jesus makes Jonah the only sign he will give: three days in the fish, and Nineveh's repentance rising in judgment on a generation that had something greater than Jonah among them. The link is cross-Testament and figural, not lexical. Gill's smaller point belongs beside it: Gath-hepher, named in only two verses of the Old Testament, lies in Zebulun north of Nazareth, which "contradicts a notion of the Jews, that no prophet came out of Galilee" (John 7:52). The first prophet with a book and the Prophet himself were raised within a few miles of each other.

Jonah 1:1 · Matthew 12:39-41 · Luke 11:29-32 · John 7:52

He saved them by the hand of an idolater novel

The saving verb of v. 27, וַיּ֣וֹשִׁיעֵ֔ם (yâshaʻ, H3467), has God as its subject and a calf-worshipping king as its instrument. Cambridge and Pulpit both identify him with the unnamed saviour of 2 Kings 13:5, and Pulpit calls him "the true 'savior'" of that promise. ⚙ Our reading, offered as fallible: the Old Testament repeatedly gives Israel deliverers whose own hearts are not delivered, and each one exposes the limit of the arrangement. Jeroboam restores a border and cannot restore a nation; he dies in his bed and his grandson's line is cut down. The root yâshaʻ is the one that stands inside the name Joshua, and inside the name Jesus, and the New Testament's claim is that the last bearer of that root is not a hand God uses but God saving in person. We mark the specific typology of Jeroboam II as ours and novel; the pattern of the insufficient deliverer is the older observation.

2 Kings 13:5 · Judges 2:16-19 · Matthew 1:21

Mercy with no ground but the seeing of God ancient/widely-held

Verse 26 gives no reason for the rescue except that the LORD saw, and that the affliction was extreme; verse 27 gives no reason except that he had not yet spoken. Henry counts both and credits neither to Israel; JFB puts the whole reprieve down to "the purposes of the divine covenant"; Benson writes that God acted "in mere pity to them," hearing "the cry of their affliction, (for no mention is here made of the cry of their prayers,)". That last parenthesis is the theologically sharpest sentence in the unit's sources: there was no repentance here, and the deliverance came anyway. The apostolic account of mercy toward the undeserving is not a new principle but this one carried to its end, God showing love toward those who had not turned, while they were yet sinners. K&D's observation that the narrator is quoting Deuteronomy 32:36, where the LORD acts when his people's power is gone, ties the logic to Moses.

Deuteronomy 32:36 · Romans 5:6-8 · Titus 3:5