The Book of Jonah A subversive story about a rebellious prophet who hates God for loving His enemies. Jonah’s unique among the prophets of the Old Testament because they’re typically collections of God’s words spoken through the prophet. But this book doesn’t actually focus on the words of the prophet; rather it’s a story about a prophet, a really mean and nasty prophet. Jonah appears only one other time in the Old Testament; it’s during the reign of Jeroboam II, one of Israel’s worst kings. And Jonah prophesized in his favor; promising that he would win a battle and regain all his territory on Israel’s’ northern border. Now it’s important to know, that the prophet Amos also confronted Jeroboam and through him God specifically reversed Jonah’s prophesy; promising that Jeroboam would lose all those same territories because he was so horrible. So before the story of Jonah even begins, we are suspicious of Jonah’s character. The book of Jonah has a
beautiful design with all this literary pairing and symmetry. So you have chapters 1and 3, telling the story of Jonah's encounter with non-Israelites, first with, some sailors and then with Jonas hated
enemies, the Ninevites. And each part offers a comic contrast between Jonah's selfishness and the pagans humility and repentance. Chapters two and four
contain prayers of Jonah; one is a prayer of repentance, kind of, and the other is a prayer in which Jonah chews out God for being too nice. Now this
careful design of the book is matched by a really unique style of narration. The story's full of all of these stereotyped characters, who ironically do
the exact opposite of what you think they would do. So you have the prophet,
the man of God, who rebels and hates his own God. You have the sailors who are
supposed to be really immoral but actually they have soft repentant hearts
and turn to God in humility. You have the king of the most powerful murderous
empire on the planet and he humbles himself before God
because of Jonah's five-word sermon. And even the king's cows repent. This kind of
story fits what today we would call satire. These are stories about well-known
figures who are placed in extreme circumstances and they use humor and
irony to critique their stupidity and character flaws. Let's just dive in and we'll
see how all the pieces work together. The story opens as God addresses Jonah and
commissions him to go preach against the evil and injustice in Nineveh, the
capital city of the Assyrian Empire, Israel's bitter enemy. But instead of
going east to Nineveh, Jonah goes in the opposite direction, finding a ship going
as far west as you can go to Tarshish. Now the big question here is, why? Why does Jonah run?
Is he afraid? Does he just not like the Ninevites? And were not told yet. So the man of God tries to run from God. And he boards a ship full of pagan sailors. He goes down into the ship and then he falls asleep. So God sends a huge storm to wake up His prophet. Well, ironically the sailors above-board are wide awake to everything that's happening. They can discern that there's a divine power at
work here. So they throw the dice and they discovered that Jonah, he is the culprit. So they ask Jonah to explain himself and Jonah spouts off a whole
bunch of religious mumbo-jumbo he says "Yeah, I'm Hebrew and I worship the LORD
the God who made the sea and the dry land." What a joke, right? God made the sea and the dry land
alright, and Jonah's dumb enough to run from this God by getting on a boat? And
when the sailors ask Jonah what they should do, he says "kill me, by throwing me
overboard." Which kind of seems noble at first until you realize this could
actually be his most selfish move yet. I mean what better way to avoid going to
Nineveh. So he puts his blood on these innocent sailors hands by trying to
force them to kill him. They're reluctant, of course. And they
repent to God even as they tossed him over. The storm subsides and they end up
fearing the God of Israel. And unlike Jonah, they actually worship God. But God
foils Jonah's plans to escape Nineveh. As Jonah's sinking, God provides this
strange watery tomb for him, the stomach of a large fish. Now, of course under normal circumstances this would be certain death, but in this story, everything's upside down. And so Jonah's
submarine death becomes his passage back to life. Cramped in the stomach of this beast,
Jonah utters a prayer; where he never technically says that he's sorry but he does
thank God for not abandoning him and he promises that he will obey God
from this point on no matter what. And God's response is quite comic: the whale vomits Jonah back onto dry land. So once again God
commissions Jonah to go and preach in Nineveh and Jonah complies. We're told
that Nineveh was a gigantic city; it would take days to walk through. So Jonah gets
one day in and here is his message "Forty more days and Nineveh will be
overturned." It's five words in Hebrew. Now, his sermon is very short and it's also
odd; I mean look at what's missing. There's no mention of what the Ninevites
have done wrong or of what they should do to respond. There's no mention of who
might overturn them. And most noticeable, there's no mention of God. What's going on here? Has Jonah intentionally given the bare minimum of information? It's like he's trying to sabotage his own message or ensure the Ninevites destruction. There's just no effort on
Jonas part here. Whatever his motives are, the plan doesn't work. Because no sooner does he
utter this five-word sermon that the king of Nineveh, the entire city including
all its cows, repent in sorrow and ashes. So for the second time, these evil pagan
show themselves to be more responsive than God's own prophet. So God forgives the Ninevites. And He doesn't bring destruction on the city Now here's the
brilliant part of the story. The last word of Jonah's short sermon
"overturned" means just that "turned over". And it can refer to a city being
overthrown or destroyed, like Sodom and Gomorrah. But it can also be used of
something being transformed, like turned over and changed into its opposite. And so
comically Jonah's words actually came true but not in the way that he intended. Nineveh does get turned over as Jonah's enemies repent and find God's mercy. The
final chapter brings all the pieces together. Jonah, he's fuming mad. And he utters his second prayer. He first tells God why he ran away back in chapter one. It was not because he was
afraid. Rather it was because he knew that God was so merciful. And this is great,
Jonah actually quotes God's own description of Himself from the book of
Exodus and he throws it back in God's as an insult. He says he knew that
God is compassionate and that He would and that He would find some way to forgive these horrible Ninevites. You can just hear the disgust in Jonah's voice. Jonah then cuts off the conversation. And he prays that God would kill him on the spot He'd rather die
than live with the God who forgives His enemies. Fortunate for Jonah, God doesn't
comply and simply asks if Jonah's anger is even justified. Jonah ignores the
question and he goes outside the city to camp on a nearby hill waiting to see
what might happen, you know, the Ninevites might repent of their repentance and get roasted after all. What happens next is very odd. God provides this viney plant
to shade Jonah from the sun and that makes him quite happy. But then God
sends a tiny worm to eat up the plant and so Jonah loses his shade. And there in the
heat of the sun, Jonah asks again that God kill him. So God again, asks Jonah if his
anger is justified and Jonah barks back "Absolutely just let me die!" And those
are Jonah's last words in the story. God's final words or what concludes
the book. He says that this whole vine incident
was an attempt to get through to Jonah. Right, Jonah got all concerned and
emotional over this vine, which he only enjoyed for a day. And God asked Jonah "you know, aren't humans a bit more valuable than
vines? I mean, isn't it ok if God might feel the same kind of emotion and
concern for the city of Nineveh, that's full of thousands of people, who have
lost their way and also their cows?" And that's how the book ends, with God asking
Jonah for permission to show mercy to His enemies. And what is Jonah's answer? The
story doesn't say. Because that's not the point. The point is that the book is
trying to mess with you. And God's And God's questions here actually addressed to you,
the reader. Are you ok with the fact that God loves your enemy? And so this book holds a mirror up
to the one who reads it. In Jonah we see the worst parts
of our own character magnified, which should generate humility and gratitude
that God would love his enemies and put up with the Jonah in all of us. And so this strange story
actually becomes a message of good news about the wideness of
God's mercy that ought to challenge us to the core. And that's the book of Jonah.
