However the boat is beset by terrible storms and the sailors determine by casting lots that it is Jonah's fault, so Jonah tells them to toss him overboard. They do, and God arranges for a giant fish to swallow Jonah. While inside the fish for three days, Jonah has time to chant a psalm of thanksgiving, whereupon the fish vomits him out onto dry land. Jonah then goes to Nineveh and preaches that the city will be destroyed in forty days, whereupon the inhabitants relent from their wicked ways. As a result God decides to spare the city. However Jonah thinks God's judgment is wrong. He goes out into the desert where it is very hot, and God causes a plant to grow and give him shade. Then God causes a worm to devour the plant, leaving Jonah at the mercy of the elements. Whereupon God uses the example of the plant -- which Jonah took concern for though he did not cause it to grow or die -- to show that God was right in his judgment on Nineveh. Jonah is mentioned in two Gospels, Matthew and Luke, where Christ alludes to Jonah's three days in the fish as a prefiguration of the resurrection. Christ also compares his generation to the city of Nineveh, implying that God is displeased with them but they still have a chance to repent.

EGYPT

Egypt is the country that stands to this day where the Nile delta empties into the Mediterranean. It therefore existed at the time of the Old Testament and the New Testament both, and first appears to play a prominent role in Genesis: Egypt is where Abraham goes from Ur during a time of famine, and where Joseph is sold into slavery but eventually becomes important to the Pharaoh through his oneiromancy....

Obviously the most noteworthy references to Egypt in the Old Testament come in Exodus, during the enslavement of the Israelites by Pharaoh, and the attempts of Moses to free them from bondage. Egypt then plays a peripheral role throughout the rest of the Old Testament, where it is usually as a regional political rival to Israel, often with an uneasy alliance (as indeed it remains in the twenty-first century) as when Solomon contracts an alliance with Egypt by marrying the Pharaoh's daughter in 1 Kings.
In terms of the actual non-Biblical history of Egypt, the first Pharaoh probably ruled around 3100 BC, unifying separate civilizations in Upper Egypt (on the Nile Delta) and Lower Egypt (further south along the Nile). The civilization and rule by Pharaohs was occasionally marked by periods of collapse, usually as a result of drought and poor harvests. Eventually the Pharaoh's throne was taken by Alexander the Great, whose early death left its last dynasty in the hands of his general Ptolemy. The last Pharaoh of Egypt in this lineage was, of course, Cleopatra, who committed suicide after being defeated by Augustus Caesar at the Battle of Actium in 30 BC. After this, Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire, as it was during the time of Christ: the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 2, relates Joseph and Mary taking the infant Jesus to Egypt to avoid Herod, which Matthew sees in fulfillment of a prophecy by Hosea.

Works Cited

Allen, Leslie C. The Books of Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, and Micah. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976. Print.

Hartley, John E. The Book of Job. Second Edition. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988. Print.