While the Biblical story of Jonah is for grown ups, we are often more familiar with the Sunday School version. I remember a drawing of Jonah seated on a chair at a desk with a candle…all inside of the fish. It seems that when God prepared the fish, he included furniture. Perhaps we should call this article “Jonah Revisited”.
The book of Jonah is set in history. The events that it records are presented that way and Jesus himself said that these things really happened. The story includes a series of miracles and is all about divine intervention. We don’t have to go looking for historical parallels to believe that it is true.
When the scriptures say that God prepared a fish…that explains why Jonah had air to breathe, escaped hypothermia and did not dissolve in stomach acid. God kept him alive.
Now Jonah was a prophet of God during the reign of Jeroboam 2nd. He prophesied sometime between 783-741 BC. We know this because he is mentioned in II kings 14:25…where he predicted that God was going to give victory to Israel and relief from their enemies…
- God was going to do this despite the sinfulness of Israel…who persisted in calf worship at Dan and Bethel, and for periods of time even bowed down to the Phoenician gods of Baal and Asherah
But the point is, that by the time that God sent Jonah to Nineveh, he already had a reputation. People must have thought that he was a godly man and perhaps even a man after God’s own heart. He was a prophet whom God had depended upon and as such, a known quantity. But looks can be deceiving.
Now every other prophet that we know of who God sent to Israel, warned them of punishment to come. But Jonah was the only one who was able to say that God was going to be patient with them and would bless Israel despite their constant rebellion. So…his message was popular – it was what Israel wanted to hear. And this is the man who appears again in the book of Jonah.
Now it comes out – that Jonah’s relationship with God actually mirrors Israel’s relationship with Him. Both were sinful and rebellious. Both refused to do what they knew that God wanted. And in both cases, God kept working on them to bring them to faith and repentance. God gave them time.
We also know that in the case of Israel, that it did not work…but it might have with Jonah. You see, if the prophet Jonah wrote the book of Jonah – which is not at all complimentary of him, then maybe he wrote it at a time when he had come around to God’s point of view. And while it only took a few days for the city of Nineveh to repent, it took Jonah a whole lot longer.
The book of Jonah is not just about God’s efforts to make believers out of gentiles. it is also about God reaching out to his own people, to make believers out of them. And very specifically, it is about a prophet of God who is not yet ‘a man of God’. It is about a recipient of God’s grace who did not want to pay it forward. And its about a man whose salvation hangs in the balance – just as much as the people to whom he has been sent.
Some general observations:
As far as I recall, Jonah is the only prophet in Old Testament times who was sent as an evangelist or an advocate to a foreign nation. There were plenty of Gentiles during those days who became converts and believers, but as a prophet sent by God, Jonah was unique…as is God’s appeal to a pagan city.
The Old Testament seems to say that God intended for Israel’s influence in that pagan world to work passively. He intended them to be a ‘light to the nations’, a divine demonstration of what it meant to be ‘the people of God. But nowhere does God command them to go and try to convert others. So the active evangelistic aspect of Jonah’s mission is one of a kind.
The Story
When God sent Jonah to Nineveh, He should have gone north and east. Jonah went south and sailed west. He did it because he figured out, that if God was just going to destroy the city, he would do it without warning. The only reason for sending a prophetic warning…was to get Nineveh to repent. God wanted one thing and Jonah wanted another.
Jonah said nothing. He did not say no, but what he did said no. And of course that principle is still true: that what we do actually speaks for us. What we confess faith with our lips and renounce it with our behaviour. It is like saying “Lord, Lord”…and then doing as we please. But God is not fooled, nor is He mocked. We will reap what we sow.
And while Jonah didn’t talk back to God…he seems to have bragged a bit to others. When he boarded the ship for Spain, he told the sailors that he was running from God and may have gotten a good chuckle. In the long run, it was no laughing matter.
In the book Jonah, the prophet’s rebellion is described as a downward path. He went down to Joppa. Found a ship going down to Tarshish. He went down into the boat. He then laid down and fell asleep in the bottom of the boat. And finally he went down into the sea – inside the fish.
The bible often uses physical distance or some spatial measure to indicate spiritual distance. Priests were ‘those who drew near’….to God at the altar and temple. Gentiles are those who are ‘afar off’. So while the language at the start of Jonah is about a physical descent, it is really about the condition of Jonah’s heart and the spiritual distance he was creating between himself and God.
God is up – Jonah is down. He went down but could not get away. He was like a lot of people who have gone as far from God as they can, but cannot get away from the image of God within or from the God who is everywhere at once. As sinners, we can run from God, all of our lives…and never get away. When life is over, God will summon us again and call us to account. In Jonah’s case, He did not wait that long.
Like Jonah we may find, that running from God and disobeying him is exhausting. It is way harder to fight God than it is, to do his will. And because he cares for us, God does not give up on us. He keeps pushing us toward repentance, but He won’t make us do anything
Jonah rebelled…you could say that his heart left town well before he did. He was willing to heed God as long as he approved of what God said. He even acted as if God needed his approval. It was almost as if God’s voice was only one among many. Jonah would rather face the disapproval of God than that of his friends and neighbours.
But in his heart, Jonah knew better. He knew better without doing better. He knew that his God was superior to the pagan gods of the sailors. As a Hebrew, he had God’s written word, a divine covenant in black and white. His God was God in heaven above and had created the land and the sea. So he looked down upon their ignorance while claiming to ‘fear god’. But he didn’t fear God enough to obey him. He had an superior God and an inferior faith…
In the middle of the storm, it was those poor ignorant sailors who were stunned by his stupidity. They said…what have you done? And when he told them, they said ‘what were you thinking”? How can you run away from the God who created the earth and the sea…by getting on a boat?
And look what you have done to us. We are financially ruined and we are going to die, because of you. You’ve got nothing to brag about.
Which brings us to another contrast…the faith of the sailors. They sailors prayed – but Jonah did not. They sacrificed while he slept.
When they begged him to pray to his god, he refused. He literally did not care what happened to them, even though he admitted that the storm was his fault.
The sailors rowed for their lives…and tried to get Jonah back to shore. But Jonah did not row, he did not pray, he did not care. He didn’t humble himself before God nor intercede for pagan sinners.
Instead – Jonah said, you’ve got to throw me overboard. Its the only thing that will satisfy God. In other words…God won’t save us both…unless I go down, we all go down.
You see, instead of repenting and asking God to spare himself and the lives on board, he said…just take my life. As he would say later on…’God, if you are going to spare Nineveh, then go ahead and kill me”
Why was it always someone else who had to kill him? If going overboard was the only solution, why did Jonah not just jump? Why did his blood have to end up on someone else’s hands? Jonah wanted to force the sailors to sin in order to be saved. How utterly selfish. And it left the impression that God would not or could not save them all…which was a lie.
As a sinner, Jonah played the ‘victim card’. He made it look as if God had done him wrong by sending him to save Nineveh. The sailors were going to have to do him wrong – by finishing the job. And the payoff for Jonah was that then, God could not make him go.
So, this was not about saving the sailors, it was about defying God and forcing others to sin. Or, at the very least, it was about leaving an utterly false idea about who God is, so that others would never repent.
Let’s think about this for a minute:
- Is it possible that in our own way – we would rather not go on living, if we have to do what God has commanded?
- Do we hold certain convictions with such zeal that we are ready to defy God?
- And are some of these convictions identical to those of our society, before whom we desperately do not want to lose face?
- Would we rather lead them to sin or leave them in sin – than obey God?
The whole world knew how wicked and cruel Nineveh was and Jonah made up his mind to play no part in their salvation. But coming back for a moment to the sailors in the storm and on their knees in prayer. It is fair to ask…is it possible that sometimes those who worship gods that do not exist, pray more, than those who worship the One who does?
Well, in this story, pagan sailors became believers…despite the prophet’s unbelief. They saw God in the storm, in the casting of the lots and then in the calm. And having seen Jonah swallowed whole they sought God’s favour and offered sacrifices to Him. They worshipped God, despite all of the obstacles that Jonah put in their way.
That was how Jonah ended up in the fish, the one that God had prepared. Jonah had a death wish, that did not come true. God rescued him from drowning and gave him a bit more time.
It was then and only then…that Jonah prayed. In his prayer he said that God had cast him out of his sight. He admitted that he was as good as dead, and yet even in the depth of the sea, God heard him.
How far down do we need to go…before we pray? When we do we pray, is it as we should, or only still on our own terms?
Jonah’s prayer was not a prayer of repentance. He did not repent and he did not pray for others. What he did was to cast himself upon the mercy of God. He appealed to the nature of God. He prayed for deliverance – to which God said yes. But his heart was still hard and his attitude unchanged. This comes out later.
It seems to me, that after 3 days, the fish had had enough of Jonah and puked him up onto the shore. He became the puked up prophet.
God had promised that if his people ever became like the Canaanites, the land of promise would puke them out. Vomiting symbolized violent rejection, that God was disgusted. God’s prophet had been puked out, with the hope that he would get the point.
When God sent Jonah the second time, Jonah went. God pretty much said the same thing as before…and Jonah did as he was told
Now Jonah’s sermon when he got to Nineveh was very, very short. Only 7 words. Effective sermons might just be inversely proportionate to their length. Short and to the point may be more convincing and easier to remember. But in this case, it was more likely true that God had been working on the hearts of the Ninevites before Jonah arrived. God knew that the time was right, so he sent a preacher.
There is power in God’s word despite who it is that does the preaching. A disobedient preacher who declares the truth can still save souls. He may not save his own…but he may save others.
That’s how it was when the apostle Paul wrote to the church in Philippi, in ch. 1:15-18 . He said that while he was locked away in prison, that some preached out of ‘envy and strife’, but that people were still being saved…so he thanked God for that. Of course, no matter how obedient we are, when we preach God’s truth, we will always preach better than we live. No preacher ever rises to the ultimate standard of God’s message. But an obedient man of God can save himself and others.
In Jonah’s case, he might have been brief because he did not want to succeed. He never hinted that repentance will do the least bit of good. What he said was all about destruction. “Yet 40 days and Nineveh is destroyed”. He made it sound as if as far as God was concerned, it was a done deal.
And then surprise, surprise, Nineveh repented. It was a nightmare to Jonah and just what God wanted.
But why did they do it? Why repent? Well, they repented first of all as the text explains, because they believed in God. (3:5)
Perhaps they recognized the truth when they heard it. How easy for us to assume, that unbelievers will never listen. They have in the past and will keep on surprising us.
It might also have been the boldness of Jonah. He just had to be the real deal, for who else would dare show his face in Nineveh and say what he said. They were just as apt to skin him alive as to listen to him. He was either a lunatic or a prophet, and he did not sound like a nut-case.
Some think that Jonah was such a sight…after 3 days in the fish that he was downright scary. So, believe they did. And then, believing, they repented. They repented because they knew that they were sinners. They were violent and knew that it was wrong and had known it all along. They deserved to get what they had done to others…so they repented.
And they repented understanding that God is not evil…but good. So when they repented they renounced their evil ways. They humbled themselves and threw themselves upon God’s mercy. They did more than Jonah who had yet to repent.
When they heard God’s message, they took an important next step in their thinking. They reasoned, that if God really is good, then he is also compassionate. If God’s punishment is selective and reserved for those who are wicked, then perhaps a turn toward goodness might make a difference. They said: “Who knows, God may turn and relent, and turn from His burning anger so that we will not perish.”
And they were right for chapter 3 ends by saying that “When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their evil way, then God relented of the disaster which He had declared He would bring on them. So He did not do it“.
3 key steps:
- They repented.
- God saw that they really did repent
- Then God relented.
In matters of salvation, God’s actions are conditioned upon ours. Condemnation is not inevitable, nor is salvation. God forgives the worst sinners when they repent to pursue righteousness. And God also condemns the most righteous, who repent of their righteousness.
So Nineveh believed and repented to do God’s will…and Jonah did not. God wanted his prophet to also become a ‘man of God’. And because he was not, it greatly displeased Jonah, that God did not destroy Nineveh
It is only then in his great displeasure – that Jonah prayed for the second time, and what a prayer:
“Please Lord, was this not what I said when I was still in my own country?
Therefore in anticipation of this I fled to Tarshish, since I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in mercy, and One who relents of disaster. So now, Lord, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.”
In other words – God, what a disaster. How could you not kill off this wicked nation? They deserve it and your justice demands it. How can you go back on your own words? God you promised.
And what about me? I have wasted my time. I have been through the wringer and now you have bailed on me. I look like an idiot and what am I going to say when I get home? I don’t want to be that guy...the guy who saved Nineveh. And besides that, you obviously don’t love me. So if you are going to treat me like this, then just go ahead and kill me. God you are going to have to choose between me and Nineveh.
And God said, Jonah, easy choice. There are over 100,000 innocent children in that city. The only question is – Jonah, are you in or out?
Coming back to scripture, Jonah said in effect, God, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in mercy, and One who relents of disaster.
What Jonah knew, he knew from scripture. He quoted scripture and threw it in God’s face. But he only quoted the first part of a key passage in the history of Israel. He quoted the part about forgiveness and skipped the part about Judgment. But they’ve got to be taken together to understand who God is.
The passage comes from a time just after Israel had worshipped the golden calf at Sinai and that happened just days after God made a covenant with them. God wanted to destroy them. He offered to start over again with Moses and raise up a great nation from him. But Moses interceded, asking God to take his life in place of theirs.
So God delayed his decision. It was during that delay and in response to a request from Moses to see the glory of God, that God described himself this way in Ex 34:6-7:
Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in faithfulness and truth; who keeps faithfulness for thousands, who forgives wrongdoing, violation of His Law, and sin;
The glory of God is not so much the dimensions of his being – his power and might as it is about His goodness and compassion, his mercy and his grace. The nation of Israel survived the wrath of God only because, God is “compassionate and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in faithfulness and truth”. And it not, there would have been no Jonah.
Well Jonah quoted this first part of what God said but conveniently skipped the rest, which is…”yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, inflicting the punishment of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”
God had been gracious to Jonah and Jonah knew it. God had spared his life when he should have taken it. Jonah was given a second chance, even when he did not repent. And while Jonah was more than okay with that, he did not want others to become the objects of God’s love and compassion.
On our side of the cross, the good news of Jesus Christ balances grace and justice. God has sent us to preach both, with the goal that grace will win in the hearts of those who hear. But if we do not go, they will not hear. And if we do not speak the whole counsel of God, they cannot obey.
The book of Jonah reminds us that we are sinners who have been saved by the grace of God. And it urges us to do all that we can as instruments of God’s grace, to save others.
Barrie ON