Neville Goddard on Jonah 4:2 - Mystical Bible Interpretation

Read Jonah 4 in context

Scripture Focus

2And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.

Jonah 4:2

Biblical Context

Jonah prays to the LORD, recalling his flight and naming God as gracious, merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness. He reveals an inner struggle to accept divine mercy.

Neville's Inner Vision

Jonah’s prayer is a window into a consciousness that already knows God as the I AM, yet resists mercy through fear. When he says, 'I knew that thou art gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness,' he is naming the very power that can relent any inner doom. In Neville’s method, the 'God' he addresses is not a distant figure but the awareness that animates him. The act of fleeing to Tarshish is the inner protest against mercy, the ego clinging to a story that relief must be earned. The remedy is not argument but shift: assume the posture of the gracious I AM here and now, and revise the feeling state until mercy is felt as true. Your present thoughts and emotions become the living God you call forth. As you practice, you invite a turning in your own consciousness—repentance enacted as an inner revision rather than a mere confession. So rest in the knowledge that mercy is your essential nature, and let the I AM dissolve the fear of change. Mercy is not given; it is recognized as your own consciousness.

Practice This Now

Close your eyes, and, as if it were true now, imagine yourself as the gracious I AM. Revise a current resistance by feeling that mercy is already real in you, and let that sensation soften your next action.