Amittai

Amittai is named only as the father of the prophet Jonah. The patronymic appears in the historical book of Kings and at the opening of the prophetic book that bears Jonah's own name.

Father of Jonah

The book of Jonah opens by introducing the prophet through his father: "Now the word of Yahweh came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying," (Jon 1:1). The same patronymic is repeated in the historical record of Jeroboam II's reign, where Jonah's earlier prophetic ministry stands behind the king's territorial recovery: "He restored the border of Israel from the entrance of Hamath to the sea of the Arabah, according to the word of Yahweh, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his slave Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was of Gath-hepher" (2Ki 14:25). The two notices together place Amittai in the northern kingdom in the eighth century, with his son tied to Gath-hepher in Galilee and active under Jeroboam II before the Nineveh commission.