Understanding the Bible: Head and Heart

Jonah Prose Summary: The Great Fish that Swallows An Interesting, Instructive Short Story Unlike other prophetic books, the Book of Jonah is presented as a short story. It recounts the story of a petulant and prejudiced prophet who does everything in his power to avoid prophesying to the Ninevites. Jonah detests Nineveh and does not want the Lord to spare a detested gentile city. This ironic twist of a prophet not wanting his hearers to repent makes for an interesting, instructive story. Jonah’s Resistance Jonah resists Yahweh’s call that he go to Nineveh and “cry out against its wickedness” (1:2). Instead, he boards a ship at Joppa bound for Tarshish, the opposite direction from Nineveh. But the prophet’s effort is thwarted by a great storm that begins to overwhelm the ship. While the pagan sailors pray for deliverance, Jonah lies in the hold of the ship fast asleep. The captain of the ship awakens Jonah and chastises him for not calling on his god for help. Casting lots reveals that Jonah is the cause of the storm. The prophet confesses that he is a Hebrew who believes in “the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land” (1:9). The sailors are incredulous that Jonah is not praying for deliverance from the storm. Though put out with him, the humane sailors resist tossing him overboard, as the suicidal Jonah has requested. When all else fails, however, they reluctantly do so while praying for forgiveness. The Great Fish Yahweh prepares a Great Fish to swallow Jonah and to keep the prophet in its belly for three days and three nights. In the belly of the Great Fish, Jonah offers up a seemingly sanctimonious prayer confirming his belief in Yahweh. It seems sanctimonious because it is not his lack of belief but his abhorrence to the idea of going to Nineveh that causes him to disobey Yahweh’s call. The fish encounter prods Jonah into going even though he still fears that Yahweh may relent and not destroy the unrighteousness people of Nineveh, those hated Gentiles who violently attack Israel from time to time. Presumably, he now fears the Great Fish more than he hates the Ninevites. To Nineveh Reluctantly When the Great Fish spits up Jonah on dry land, the prophet reluctantly heads for Nineveh, that great Assyrian city whose limits comprise a three-day journey. As his prophecy indicates, Jonah is not repentant; he has not changed his attitude toward Nineveh. There is no element of mercy or compassion in his words. Jonah laconically announces: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown” (3:4). The prophet does not clue in the Ninevites about Yahweh’s usual merciful response to a people’s repentance, the famous if clause: if you repent the Lord will surely show mercy. He does not include the if clause in his prophetic announcement because he does not want the Lord to spare Nineveh. Ironically, Jonah’s greatest fear is that the Ninevites will repent and that God will spare them. He cannot bear the thought of God’s sparing these despised gentiles. Jonah wants “justice”; he wants the hated gentile transgressors dead! But Yahweh wants to teach Jonah a lesson, and the author wants to teach the reader a lesson. Irony is the vehicle to carry the lesson. Instruction Through Irony Much to Jonah’s chagrin, the people of Nineveh begin to fast and put on sackcloth in repentance. The King of Nineveh issues a decree commanding everyone “to turn from his evil way . . . who can tell if God will relent and turn away from His fierce anger, so that we may not perish?” (3:9). When Yahweh sees the change in Nineveh, He relents and does not carry out the prescribed destruction. Ironically, this is just what Jonah has feared and why he attempted to run away from Yahweh’s call in the first place. “I know,” he says, “that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness, One who relents from doing harm” (4:2). Through this astounding piece of irony, the author underscores Jonah’s pettiness by juxtaposing how he should be with how he is! Also note the further irony: whereas, the Israelites usually ignore the warnings of their prophets, the gentile Ninevites take Jonah’s prophecy to heart. Jonah’s Pettiness Angry and depressed because Nineveh has not been destroyed as he had prophesied, Jonah asks Yahweh to take his life. But Yahweh poses a key question to Jonah: “Is it right for you to be angry” (4:4)? Again, Yahweh points Jonah toward a crucial insight, and the author does the same for his reader, assuming that the reader too has a Jonah factor. Yahweh Instructs Jonah Jonah goes to the east side of Nineveh, builds a shelter, and waits to “see what would become of the city” (4:5). Yahweh prepares the Plant to shade Jonah and to assuage his misery; Jonah is very pleased to have the Plant. Then, Yahweh sends a Worm that destroys the Plant leaving Jonah exposed to the hot sun and the harsh east wind. Angrier than ever, Jonah wishes death for himself: “It is better for me to die than live” (4:8). Yahweh tries to instruct his prophet by asking him if it is right to be angry about the fate of the Plant. Jonah stubbornly insists that it is right for him “to be angry, even to death” (4:9). Yahweh patiently continues His instruction by pointing out to Jonah that he has pitied the destroyed Plant which he neither planted nor nourished, yet he is angry with his God who pities Nineveh, “that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants who cannot discern between their right hand and their left [read babies and young children] and also much livestock” (4:11). Implicitly, Yahweh is asking Jonah, “where is your compassion: where is your mercy? Can you pity a mere plant, yet withhold pity from thousands and thousands of persons because they are not Israelites and because they have been your adversaries?” Implicitly, the author is asking the reader a similar question, “does your bias destroy your objectiveness and take away your compassion and mercy?” Moral of the story: the Great Fish that swallows Jonah is biasness, and it is the Great Fish that can swallow us all. The Lesson of Jonah in Context The lesson of Jonah had to be repeated again and again; perhaps it culminates in the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-35). It was difficult for the Israelite to look beyond his own chosen people, the descendants of Abraham bound in a covenant relationship with Yahweh. It was convenient to write off other peoples as unrighteous and unworthy of Yahweh’s mercy. It was convenient to ignore that to be chosen meant to be chosen for service rather than for exaltation. It was convenient to ignore that the covenant and the commandments were to guide the chosen people in setting the example for all the world to follow. It was convenient to be exclusive, rather than inclusive; it was convenient to foster provincial attitudes, rather than universal attitudes. The Jonah lesson is notably repeated in the New Testament. The Good Samaritan parable in Luke specifically instructs a Jewish scribe that in carrying out the commandment “Love thy neighbor as thyself” one must consider everyone a neighbor, even a foreigner. This concept Jonah cannot or will not grasp. Of course, he is not alone among the Israelites; he is not without precedent. For example, when Joshua leads the Israelites into the Promised Land, he sometimes destroys the cities and their inhabitants on the justification that their ungodly ways would seduce the Israelites away from Yahweh and the covenant. Though the rationale may be logical, it places a stretch on Yahweh’s mercy. Certainly, it is convenient to cling to the precedent when the logic no longer applies.