Jonah, in his plots to escape from the presence of God, boarded a ship at Joppa to

According to Jonah 1:3, when God commanded Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach against its wickedness, Jonah tried to flee from God's presence. He went down to Joppa, a port city on the Mediterranean coast, and found a ship heading to Tarshish. He paid the fare and boarded it, sailing in the opposite direction from Nineveh.

Tarshish was an ancient port city believed to be located in the western Mediterranean, possibly in modern-day Spain. It represented the farthest known destination in the opposite direction from Nineveh (which lay to the east, in modern-day Iraq). Jonah's choice of Tarshish was deliberate: he was trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and the mission God had given him.

Jerusalem was the capital of Judah and a centre of worship. Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel. Lystra was a city in Asia Minor associated with Paul's missionary journeys in the New Testament, centuries after Jonah's time.