Book of Jonah

Click here for the previous prophet, Obadiah.

CHAPTER 1

Here it is – the last part of the Old Testament that anyone has heard of!  Jonah is one of the 12 Minor Prophets, but he’s completely unlike all the others. The other Minor Prophets are full of, well, prophesy.  There is hardly any prophecy here – maybe a verse or two.  This is just a story, which is why people have heard of Jonah and not the other 11 Minor Prophets.

God calls upon Jonah to be a prophet, but Jonah isn’t interested.  Instead, he runs away.  This is the first of several acts of Jonah where he doesn’t come off very well.  In an attempt to runaway from God, Jonah gets on a ship. 

However, this isn’t a very well thought out plan.  It turns out that God has jurisdiction at sea as well.  (Yeah, Jonah really should’ve thought about that one).  God sends a giant sea storm to endanger the ship.  The sailors throw all their cargo overboard in an attempt to survive.  They pray to their gods for help.  The captain finds Jonah asleep down below and asks him to pray to his god.  – Wait, wait – Jonah was asleep?  There is a storm so serious it’s causing experienced sailors to pray for relief and forcing them to unload their cargo – and landlubber Jonah is just sleeping through this?  My goodness what a sound sleeper! 

Anyhow, Jonah breaks them the big news.  This storm is my fault.  God is punishing me for running away from my duties.  However, in what will be essentially Jonah’s only truly noble act in the Bible, he has a solution.  Since I’m the cause of the problem, I should be the solution – pick me up and hurl me into the sea.  Sacrifice me so that you may survive.  Jonah may not come out very well when he ran away from God, but it’s hard to fault a guy when he’s offering to give up his life to save others.  He’s coming out way ahead so far.

The sailors, to their credit, have mixed feelings on this plan.  Oh, they do it – make no mistake about it.  They throw Jonah overboard, but it’s not their first plan.  They first try to row to shore.  No dice – the storm is too much. Even when they decide to throw Jonah over the side, they pray/apologize to God for what they are about to do.  Both Jonah and the ship’s crew come out of this episode looking very noble. 

Into the drink goes Jonah – and just like that the seas calm down.  The sailors will survive, which is good.  They have done nothing wrong.

CHAPTER 2

This is the part everyone has heard of.  Once he’s in the sea, Jonah gets swallowed by a whale.  To be exact, the Bible says he was swallowed by “a great fish” but yeah, a whale is a great fish. 

For three days and three nights Jonah survives in the fish’s belly.  This doesn’t actually make any sense – but we’ll just roll with it.  While in the fish belly, Jonah prays to God for deliverance.  God hears the prayer and the fish vomits Jonah up on dry land.  I wonder how the logistics of that work.  Did the fish projectile vomit him.  Did the whale beach itself? Eh, whatever – the point is Jonah is back on dry land.  Now he’s learned his lesson and will do his prophetic duty.

CHAPTER 3

And off to give prophecies goes Jonah.  His mission: go to the great city of Nineveh – the capital of the Assyrian empire – and announce a message that God will give Jonah.  Off he goes, and when he gets there it is a fabulous city.  It’s so huge it takes three days to walk through.

But after just one day walking through the city, God gives Jonah the exact message to send out.  Jonah tells the people that for their sins, the city will be overthrown in 40 days.  This is interesting. So far, God has cared about the morality of the Hebrew, but not really anyone else.  The Children of Israel are the ones he’s formed a pact with, not anyone else.  And Nineveh is clearly outside that pact.  Yet God cares.  (I know, it’s a fictional story, but just the fact that this fictional story was written shows the increased importance of ethics to the religion.  By now, ethics are supposed to mean something to everyone).

The response is even more remarkable than Jonah’s message, though.  The people immediately believe Jonah.  We’re told that they proclaim a day of fasting and that they all put on sackcloth.  Wow!  Man, the Hebrew constantly ignore their prophets who preach doom.  But this guy shows up and in five minutes gets them eating out of his hand.  And they don’t even worship God!   Maybe God made a pact with the wrong people.  These guys sound a lot more faithful and devout than the Hebrew. 

Actually, there is another, more obvious explanation.  The story is fiction.  That’s why everyone caves so easily.  This is just a simple plot point to get us to Chapter 4.

But first, more Chapter 3.  The king finds out about it and declares that across all the city there should be fasting.  He declares, “Who knows?  God may again repent and turn from his blazing wrath so that we will not perish.”  Hold on -  what does he mean “again”?  It’s one thing if a Jew says “again.”  There have been plenty of examples of God deciding not to destroy them.  But since when has God repented against the Assyrians? 

Also – since when did Assyrians start worshipping God?  If you took this story literally, there was a mass conversion in their capital to Judaism.  Yeah, that never happened.  Again, this story is completely fictional.

But guess what – God does repent!  He decides to spare them after all.  Right now, everyone in Jonah looks good: Jonah for sacrificing himself, the sailors for their actions, the people of Nineveh for their atonement, and God for his mercy.  So far it’s a very likable bunch. 

CHAPTER 4

But then Jonah has to go ruin it by acting churlish.  You see, when God decides to spare Nineveh, it’s a great thing – but with the unfortunate side effect that now Jonah looks like a world-class dope.  Hey, that bad times he foretold – didn’t happen.  So everyone can ignore the weirdo who spent a few days in a fish’s intestinal tract. 

Jonah prays to God – out of anger!  He’s furious that God didn’t wipe out the city.  This is petty.  This is churlish.  This is childish – and it’s so very human.  Jonah may not come off looking to good here, but …it makes sense, especially in character.  Look, he didn’t want to deliver this damn message.  He didn’t want to be any prophet.  God chose him – forced him, really.  And now that Jonah has given God’s message, God has gone back.  Hey, God – we had a deal!  You jerk!  I spent three days inside a fish and this it is the thanks I get!  Lousy, wishy-washy deity!  This reaction makes a lot of sense in character.  It’s a very human reaction – and the Bible is at its best when it’s at its most human. Also, it’s hilarious.  It’s absurdist, situational humor.  Jonah thinks God is a jerk … because he showed mercy. 

But God sets Jonah straight.  He tells Jonah to calm down, and then God does a bit of Lordly performance art.  He has a plant grow by Jonah, to protect him from the heat and hot wind of where he’s at.  Then God has a worm destroy it, so the elements hurt Jonah once more.  Jonah is upset by this – and that’s the reaction God was going for.  Jonah, you’re more upset about a plant dying because it gave you shade than you are about the possibility of me wiping out a city.  Shouldn’t the lives of 120,000 in the city be more important than a plant that gives you shade?  And that’s how the book ends.

One thing: if Nineveh really is so huge that it takes three days to walk through, shouldn’t it have a lot more than 120,0000 people?  Eh, maybe Jonah is just a slow walker.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

This is a deeply enjoyable book.  Oddly enough, the most famous part – being stuck in the whale – is maybe the most boring. For my money, the real capper is Jonah upset at God for not killing a bunch of people. 

Jonah himself steals the show.  Sure he’s a fictional character – but he comes off so damn human, with his pettiness, his fears, and his flaws.  He might be a prophet, but he’s no saint.  He is, however, an understandable human being.  He might have trouble looking past his own personal interests – even when he’s called to the Lord’s interests – but that makes him relatable.  And like him, we’re supposed to look beyond ourselves and show more concern for our fellow man than we actually do.

Click here for the next book, Micah.