Jonah 2:8

"They that regard lying vanities

Forsake their own mercy."

The prophet's deep-seated hatred of idolatry appears in this. He had just observed the distressed mariners each appealing to his god; but, as yet, Jonah's attitude toward them would appear to be colored by that detestation in which all the Jews held other peoples. That this was the case appears in Jonah's displeasure when the Ninevites actually repented and were spared by the Lord.

"Lying vanities ..." Dummelow pointed out that this is in every way the equivalent of "idol gods"[36] (Deuteronomy 32:21). The word "vanity" means literally "something evanescent and worthless."[37] It exemplifies a strange trait of human nature that Jonah who himself was not at that time out of danger should nevertheless have uttered these derogatory remarks about the pagan sailors (who seem to be in his thoughts), even addressing such remarks to God himself! Despite the fair and even magnanimous actions of the sailors toward himself, Jonah appears in this passage not to have entertained any generous thoughts concerning them.

Banks pointed out the relevance of the teaching against idolatry in this verse by affirming its relevance to our own times:

"We do not bow and scrape before heathen images, but we are also idolaters. Not in the crude way of Jonah's time, but in a more subtle, sophisticated, and therefore a more sinister way. We have merely made some substitutions. In the place of Ashtaroth, Baal, Chemosh, Dagon, Diana, Isis, Mammon, Molech and Nebo we have put alcohol, ambition, automobiles, greed, Hollywood, jazz, money, nicotine, pleasure, science, sports and sex. Moreover, many in "Christian" America classify themselves as Buddhists, Muslims, etc.; and hundreds of millions in other lands still worship the heathen gods."[38]