Psa. 139:7-11 (NIV) Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? ⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths,^ you are there. ⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, ¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. ¹¹If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,”

Despite the literary sophistication of the text, many modern readers still dismiss the work because the text tells us that Jonah was saved from the storm when swallowed by a “great fish” (Jonah 1:17). How you respond to this will depend on how you read the rest of the Bible. If you accept the existence of God and the resurrection of Christ (a far greater miracle), then there is nothing particularly difficult about reading Jonah literally. Certainly many people today believe all miracles are impossible, but that skepticism is just that—a belief that itself cannot be proven.2  Not only that, but the text does not show evidence of the author having made up the miracle account. A fiction writer ordinarily adds supernatural elements in order to create excitement or spectacle and to capture reader attention, but this writer doesn’t capitalize on the event at all in that way. The fish is mentioned only in two brief verses and there are no descriptive details. It is reported more as a simple fact of what happened.3 So let’s not get distracted by the fish.

The careful structure of the book reveals nuances of the author’s message. Both episodes show how Jonah, a staunch religious believer, regards and relates to people who are racially and religiously different from him. The book of Jonah yields many insights about God’s love for societies and people beyond the community of believers; about his opposition to toxic nationalism and disdain for other races; and about how to be “in mission” in the world despite the subtle and unavoidable power of idolatry in our own lives and hearts. Grasping these insights can make us bridge builders, peacemakers, and agents of reconciliation in the world. Such people are the need of the hour.

Yet to understand all of these lessons for our social relationships, we have to see that the book’s main teaching is not sociological but theological. Jonah wants a God of his own making, a God who simply smites the bad people, for instance, the wicked Ninevites and blesses the good people, for instance, Jonah and his countrymen. When the real God —not Jonah’s counterfeit—keeps showing up, Jonah is thrown into fury or despair. Jonah finds the real God to be an enigma because he cannot reconcile the mercy of God with his justice. How, Jonah asks, can God be merciful and forgiving to people who have done such violence and evil? How can God be both merciful and just?

That question is not answered in the book of Jonah. As part of the entire Bible, however, the book of Jonah is like a chapter that drives the Scripture’s overall plotline forward. It teaches us to look ahead to how God saved the world through the one who called himself the ultimate Jonah (Matthew 12:41) so that he could be both just and the justifier of those who believe (Romans 3:26). Only when we readers fully grasp this gospel will we be neither cruel exploiters like the Ninevites nor Pharisaical believers like Jonah, but rather Spirit-changed, Christ-like women and men.

Most people are so familiar with the story of Jonah that nothing in it surprises them anymore, including the fact that it begins with the word “and.” If I opened one of my books with the word “and,” the editor would probably wonder if something had been lost, including my ability to use the English language.

Jonah is one of fourteen Old Testament books that open with the little word “and.” These books remind us of God’s “continued story” of grace and mercy. Though it’s comprised of sixty-six different books, the Bible tells only one story; and God keeps communicating that message to us, even though we don’t always listen too attentively. How long-suffering He is toward us!

What is the Book of Jonah about? Well, it’s not simply about a great fish (mentioned only four times…3 verses out of a total of 84!), or a great city (named nine times), or even a disobedient prophet (mentioned eighteen times.) It’s about God! God is mentioned 38 times in these four short chapters, and if you eliminated Him from the book, the story wouldn’t make sense. The Book of Jonah is about the will of God and how we respond to it. It’s also about the love of God and how we share it with others.

Why should we study the book of Jonah?

1. Because it is God’s inspired word. All scripture is worthy of serious study because of its origin – it comes directly from God!

(2 Tim 3:16-17)  All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, {17} so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

This study will enable us to become completely furnished for every good work. It will enlighten us concerning instruction which is in righteousness. It will be profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training.

The Old Testament scriptures are a valuable source of study for modern believers:

(Rom 15:4)  For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

2. Because it is relevant to our modern needs. Have you ever been angry with God? Have you ever allowed your personal feelings to become a wall between you and another? Have you ever become so disgusted that you just wished you would die? Have you ever sunk to the depths of self-pity? How often have you relied upon your directions instead of God’s directions for your life? Jonah was a man who experienced anger, resentment, prejudice, inflated trust in self-direction, discouragement, self-pity, joy, faith in God and a host of other emotions.
3. It presents us not only a true picture of ourselves, but also a clear picture of our great and glorious God in heaven. Jonah thought he had a good idea of who God was and what He was like, but as we read the book we see that Jonah conceived of God only what he wanted and not as God really was (again a problem which we all share in common if we are honest):

• God is the great Creator of the world
• He’s in control of everything, even using the natural elements to achieve His ultimate will
• He’s pictured as One who delivers the penitent, no matter who they are
• He cares for all His creatures…pagan seamen and inhabitants of Nineveh just as much as He does Jonah
• He is pictured as a God of goodness…refuting modern thinking that “God of Old Testament is bad and God of New Testament good”
• God’s heart is large enough to care for all; His hand is adept at providing for all needs

(Jonah 4:2)  He prayed to the LORD, “O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.

(Acts 10:34-35)  Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism {35} but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right.

(Rom 3:29)  Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too,

We all have stereotypes, and many of these should probably be shattered as well. Jonah is a prophet who does not fit into the stereotypical mold of our thinking when it comes to a prophet of God. He is decidedly different from the other prophets which we find in the Scriptures.[1] The Book of Jonah is written to shatter the stereotype which we have of prophets, especially the prophet Jonah.

Jonah is unique in several ways. First, Jonah is a prophet more by what he is and does than by what he says. Given the biblical content of Jonah’s words as recorded in Scripture, we would have difficulty making a paragraph out of his prophetic messages. (His protests would add more words, but they are not direct words of prophecy. They are more pathetic than prophetic.) Jonah was a man of very few words, but his works, his deeds, were highly prophetic.

The Book of Hosea portrayed Gomer as a picture of Israel, and Hosea, her husband, as a reflection of God. Joel used the plague of locusts to prophesy of the coming of the armies of Israel’s enemies, who would swarm into the land in judgment. So, too, Jonah was a graphic representation of the nation Israel. Just as Jonah received a clear command from God and disobeyed, so Israel was characterized by her disobedience to the commandments which God had given through Moses.

Prophecy is much more than verbal proclamation; it is often dramatization. The Book of Jonah dramatizes the sad spiritual state of Israel, a condition which was reflected in her disobedience to God’s commands and to her divine calling, a condition which would require divine discipline.

Second, Jonah was the only prophet who is recorded as having run away from God. Jonah is not known for his piety, but for his prodigality. Jonah, in his rebellion and disobedience, in his hardness of heart, was a man who typified the rebellion of the nation Israel. As the Lord said to Moses, centuries earlier, “I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people” (Exod. 32:9).

Third, Jonah is a prophet who is unique not only by his waywardness, but also because the book never portrays him as having repented and as having been restored to the “joy of his salvation.” We see the failures of many men in the Old Testament, but usually these men come to the point of repentance and restoration. David sinned greatly, but he repented. Abraham, Jacob, and Elijah, all had their times of failure, but they grew to maturity, to faith and obedience. Such is not the case with Jonah. Other than the likely possibility that Jonah was the author of this prophecy, we would have little basis for assuming that Jonah ever repented.It is at this point that I must inform you that I do not see any repentance in Jonah in this short book.

Our predisposition to the “pious bias,” that tendency to assume that Old Testament saints must have been doing the right thing for the right reasons—a great fallacy—is very evident in the Book of Jonah. Most all of the commentaries want to see Jonah repenting somewhere in the book, some as early as chapter 1. Frankly, I do not see any repentance, which I think is one of the significant lessons of the book. Beware of making excuses for Jonah. The book is intended to cause the reader to feel more empathy for the pagan (the sailors in chapter 1, the Ninevites in chapters 3 and 4 than for this prodigal prophet.

I believe that Jonah, at virtually every point in this brief book, typifies Israel’s hardness of heart and unrepentant spirit. The book is not written to leave us with a warm, fuzzy, good feeling, but rather to leave us very discomforted, for just as the Book of Jonah closes with no solution to Jonah’s sin, so the Old Testament closes with no solution for Israel’s sin. Only the coming of Christ gives us the sense of relief, repentance, and restoration which God wants us to experience.

2.       About the Prophet Jonah

Those who consider the Book of Jonah an allegory or a parable should note that 2 Kings 14:25 identifies Jonah as a real person, a Jewish prophet from Gath Hepher in Zebulun who ministered in the Northern Kingdom of Israel during the reign of Jeroboam II (793-753 b.c.). They should also note that our Lord considered Jonah a historic person and pointed to him as a type of His own death, burial, and resurrection (Matt. 12:41; Luke 11:32).

The reign of Jeroboam II was a time of great prosperity in Israel; the nation regained lost territory and expanded both its boundaries and influence. But it was a time of moral and spiritual decay as the nation rapidly moved away from God and into idolatry. Jonah’s contemporaries Hosea and Amos both courageously denounced the wickedness of the rulers, priests, and people. It’s worth noting that Hosea and Amos also showed God’s concern for other nations, which is one of the major themes of Jonah.

While Jonah had a ministry to Nineveh, a leading city in Assyria, he also had a ministry to Israel through this little book. He discovered God’s compassion for those outside Israel, even those who were their enemies. God had called His people to be a blessing to the Gentiles (Gen. 12:1-3), but, like Jonah, the Jews refused to obey. And, like Jonah, they had to be disciplined; for Assyria would conquer Israel and Babylon would take Judah into captivity. Jonah’s book magnifies the sovereignty of God as well as the love and mercy of God. Jehovah is the “God of the second chance,” even for rebellious prophets!

Very little is said of the prophet Jonah outside of the Book of Jonah itself. In 2 Kings 14:25, Jonah is said to have prophesied that the southern kingdom of Israel would expand its borders during the reign of Jeroboam, a wicked king. It does seem safe to conclude that this “Jonah” is the same person as the “Jonah” who is the subject of the Book of Jonah, especially since both are identified as “the son of Amittai”[2] (cp. 2 Kings 14:25; Jonah 1:1). The prophecy of Jonah to Jeroboam conveys some important background material to enhance our understanding of this book.

We are told, In the fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of Joash king of Judah, Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel became king in Samaria, and reigned forty‑one years. And he did evil in the sight of the LORD; he did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel sin. He restored the border of Israel from the entrance of Hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the LORD, the God of Israel, which He spoke through His servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was of Gath‑hepher. For the LORD saw the affliction of Israel, which was very bitter; for there was neither bond nor free, nor was there any helper for Israel. And the LORD did not say that He would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, but He saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash (2 Kings 14:23‑27, emphasis mine).

Jonah was therefore a prophet of the northern kingdom of Israel, whose predecessors were Elijah and Elisha. Hosea and Amos would likely have been Jonah’s contemporaries. Assyria, whose capital city was Nineveh, had already begun to exercise her dominance in the near East, but for a time her control would wane, allowing Israel, under Jeroboam’s leadership, to expand her borders.

In the text cited above, it is stated clearly that Israel’s prosperity during this period was solely due to the grace of God and to His compassion on His people, who were greatly afflicted. It was not godliness on the part of the nation, or its leadership, which could be viewed as the basis for God’s blessings. Thus, just as Jonah’s ministry in Nineveh would result in an outpouring of God’s grace, so his ministry in Israel would result in God’s grace – with one exception, that is; Israel did not repent of her evil deeds, and God blessed the nation anyway, while the Ninevites sincerely repented of their sins. In this sense God’s grace was even greater to the Israelites than it was to the Ninevites, for God had promised to forgive those who repent (cf. Jer. 18:7‑8).

Israel’s prosperity would not last long. Amos, Jonah’s contemporary, warned of God’s coming day of judgment on Israel. He condemned Israel for her oppression of the poor and her perversion of justice (5:11‑13). All the while, the people of Israel continued to practice the ceremonial rituals of worship, but God said,

“I hate, I reject your festivals, Nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them; And I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings. Take away from Me the noise of your songs; I will not even listen to the sound of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters And righteousness like an ever‑flowing stream” (Amos 5:21‑24).

Because of her sin, God promised judgment:

“Therefore, I will make you go into exile beyond Damascus,” says the LORD, whose name is the God of hosts (Amos 5:27).

While the warning of Amos is general in nature, speaking only of Israel’s future exile, Hosea specifically indicated that Israel’s captor would be Assyria:

They will not return to the land of Egypt; But Assyria—he will be their king, Because they refused to return to Me. And the sword will whirl against their cities, And will demolish their gate bars And consume them because of their counsels (Hosea 11:5‑7).

Some scholars find it more difficult to “swallow” the miraculous accounts of this little book than the fish found it to swallow the prophet. I am not going to spend much time or effort to prove the miracles, since these are ultimately a matter of faith. The God who is the Creator of the universe would have no difficulty in accomplishing the miracles described in this book. From our study of this book, it will become evident that the most difficult miracle is that of softening the hardened heart of the prophet. All that is necessary to observe is that our Lord understood the account of the Book of Jonah to be literal (Matt. 12:39‑41), and so we need only follow in His steps and do likewise.

THE DATE OF THE BOOK: c. 800-780 B.C.

1. During Jeroboam’s Reign – 800-755 B.C. (2 Kings 14:25). “He was the one who restored the boundaries of Israel from Lebo Hamath to the Sea of the Arabah, in accordance with the word of the LORD, the God of Israel, spoken through his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher.”
2. Assyria’s Period of Internal Strife. Gieke states that from 800 B.C. till Tiglath-pileser’s accession to the throne in 745 B.C. Assyria was torn with internal strife and by wars with revolting provinces, (Hours with the Bible, Vol. IV, pp. 183-184).
3. The Book of Jonah Is a Book of Miracles
4. The storm and consequent stilling.
5. The preservation of Jonah in the belly of the fish.
6. The gourd in a night.
7. The worm that smites the gourd.
8. Jesus endorsed the second of these miracles (Matthew 12:38-41; 16:4; Luke 11:29-32).

 

THE TEACHING OF THE BOOK

1. Its Theme: The willingness of God to save the heathen nations
2. Its Message: The Lord is the One Universal God, the God of the whole earth
3. Its Comfort: God will be gracious to all who will repent
4. Its Permanent Lessons:
5. We cannot run away from God (Psalm 139:7-11).
6. It is possible to hate what God hates and not love what He loves.

3.       Jonah Goes AWOL (1:1‑3)

1 The word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh the great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.” 3 But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare, and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.

The Unlikely Emissary

Our story begins when “the Word of the Lord came” to Jonah. This is the usual way to begin an account about one of the biblical prophets. God used them to convey his words and messages to Israel, especially in times of crisis. But already by verse 2 the original readers would have realized that this was a prophetic account unlike any that they had heard before. God called Jonah to go “to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim . . .” This was stunning on several levels.

It was shocking first because it was a call for a Hebrew prophet to leave Israel and go out to a Gentile city. Up until then prophets had been sent only to God’s people. While Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Amos all pronounced a few prophetic oracles addressed to pagan countries, they are brief, and none of those other men was actually sent out to the nations in order to preach. Jonah’s mission was unprecedented.

It was even more shocking that the God of Israel would want to warn Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire, of impending doom. Assyria was one of the cruelest and most violent empires of ancient times. Assyrian kings often recorded the results of their military victories, gloating of whole plains littered with corpses and of cities burned completely to the ground. The emperor Shalmaneser III is well known for depicting torture, dismembering, and decapitations of enemies in grisly detail on large stone relief panels. Assyrian history is “as gory and bloodcurdling a history as we know.”2  After capturing enemies, the Assyrians would typically cut off their legs and one arm, leaving the other arm and hand so they could shake the victim’s hand in mockery as he was dying. They forced friends and family members to parade with the decapitated heads of their loved ones elevated on poles. They pulled out prisoners’ tongues and stretched their bodies with ropes so they could be flayed alive and their skins displayed on city walls. They burned adolescents alive.3  Those who survived the destruction of their cities were fated to endure cruel and violent forms of slavery. The Assyrians have been called a “terrorist state.”4

The empire had begun exacting heavy tribute from Israel during the reign of King Jehu (842–815 BC) and continued to threaten the Jewish northern kingdom throughout the lifetime of Jonah. In 722 BC it finally invaded and destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel and its capital, Samaria.

Yet it was this nation that was the object of God’s missionary outreach. Though God told Jonah to “proclaim against” the city for its wickedness, there would have been no reason to send a warning unless there was a chance of judgment being averted, as Jonah knew very well (4:1–2). But how could a good God give a nation like that even the merest chance to experience his mercy? Why on earth would God be helping the enemies of his people?

Perhaps the most surprising element of this narrative was who it was that God chose to send. It was “Jonah the son of Amittai.” No background information is given, meaning he needed no introduction. 2 Kings 14:25 tells us Jonah ministered during the reign of Israel’s King Jeroboam II (786–746 BC). In that text we learn that, unlike the prophets Amos and Hosea, who criticized the royal administration for its injustice and unfaithfulness, Jonah had supported Jeroboam’s aggressive military policy to extend the nation’s power and influence. The original readers of the book of Jonah would have remembered him as intensely patriotic, a highly partisan nationalist.5 And they would have been amazed that God would send a man like that to preach to the very people he most feared and hated.

The book of Jonah opens with a description of God’s mission for Jonah to the great city of Nineveh (1:1–2) and an outline of Jonah’s plan to disobey God’s call (1:3). No reason is given for Jonah’s disobedience. Given Nineveh’s reputation in the ancient world for being a city of brutality and oppression, the original readers might have found God’s proposed mission to such a notorious place as distasteful as the prophet did. The stage is set for a conflict between the Lord and his prophet over what should be done with Nineveh and whether it is possible to flee from God’s call (cf. Amos 9:1–3; Ps 139:7–8). Others questioned God’s call (Amos 3:8; Isa 6:5; Jer 20:7–18), but few are so immediately and stubbornly disobedient. As the book unfolds, it will not be the greatness of Nineveh that is at stake, or the prophet who disobeys his God, but the greatness of the one who calls the prophet. Just as the two angels had the opportunity to save Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19:1–29), so Jonah has a mission to save one of the ancient world’s urban centers.

1:1 The superscription is as brief as the book. The title The word of the Lord also appears in the opening of Hosea, Joel, Micah, and Zephaniah. Jonah means “dove” and Amittai means “truth” but the book makes no symbolic use of either name. On the name “Lord,” see the General Introduction, p. 15. Jonah also appears in 2 Kings 14:25 as a prophet who advocated the expansion of North Israel.

1:2 The command is to go (cf. similar wording in 1 Kgs 17:9; Jer 13:6), repeated again in 3:2. The city’s importance is echoed in 3:3 where it is “a very important city” and 4:11 where it is called a “great city.” Nineveh, a major Assyrian city and sometime capital, was located on the banks of the Tigris River, 500 miles northeast of Samaria. Prophets were called to preach, but normally to Israel not a foreign nation. Elijah and Elisha journeyed to Damascus (1 Kgs 19:15; 2 Kgs 8:7–13), but Jonah travels even further. Jonah’s call to preach was typical for a prophet, although he is not called a prophet in the book. Jonah was summoned because of Nineveh’s wickedness. The Lord knew about their evil just as the deeds of Sodom and Gomorrah had come to his attention (Gen 18:20–21; cf. Gen 4:10; Lam 1:22). The details of Nineveh’s wickedness are not specified here (just as Joel never names the sin he opposes), but later Nahum 2:11–12; 3:1, 19 describe the evils of the city.

1:3 Without any explanation, Jonah goes in the opposite direction. In Hebrew, the command in verse 2, “go” and the opening verb in verse 3, ran away, are preceded by the same word, קוּם (qûm, “rise up,” cf. KJV). Jonah obeys the command, but in the wrong direction. “Ran away” gives the first insight into the prophet’s thinking as he heads to Tarshish, often identified as a city in southwestern Spain (cf. Jer 10:9; Ezek 27:12).¹ Tarshish was as far away from Nineveh in the ancient world as Timbuktu is in ours, although the text says he is not running from Nineveh but from the Lord. Joppa (cf. 2 Chr 2:16; Josh 19:46; Ezra 3:7), now a southern suburb of Tel Aviv, was the seaport for Jerusalem 35 miles to the southeast. The word fare also means reward, wages, or payment (Gen 15:1; 30:18, 28; Exod 2:9). Ships linked to Tarshish appear elsewhere in the OT (see especially footnotes in 1 Kgs 22:48; 2 Chr 9:21; 20:36–37; Ps 48:7; Isa 2:16; 23:1, 14; 60:9; Ezek 27:25).^[3]

Nothing about this mission made any sense. Indeed, it seemed almost to be an evil plot. If any Israelite had come up with this idea, he would have been at least shunned and at worst executed. How could God have asked anyone to betray his country’s interests like this?

Jonah, the prophet of God, was given a divine commission: “Arise, go to Nineveh the great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.” The command of God is clear. Jonah was to go to Nineveh, which had been founded by Nimrod (Gen. 10:11). Nineveh was called a “great city,” which no doubt refers to its size and its influence. Those who have lived in big cities like Dallas or Fort Lauderdale can identify with the meaning of the term “great.” Its sins were “great,” too.[4] Jonah was commanded to denounce the sins of this city, for they were so great they were said to have “gone up” before God, and the time for judgment was near.

Instead, Jonah went AWOL, catching a ship heading in the opposite direction:

But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare, and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD (vs. 3).

Refusing God

In a deliberate parody of God’s call to “arise, go to Nineveh,” Jonah “arose” to go in the opposite direction (verse 3). Tarshish, it is believed, lay on the outermost western rim of the world known to Israelites of the time.6  In short, Jonah did the exact opposite of what God told him to do. Called to go east, he went west. Directed to travel overland, he went to sea. Sent to the big city, he bought a one-way ticket to the end of the world.

Why did he refuse? A full accounting of Jonah’s reasoning and motives must wait for Jonah’s own words later in the book. But at this point, the text invites us to make some guesses. We can certainly imagine that Jonah thought the mission made neither practical nor theological sense.

God describes Nineveh both here and later as that “great” city, and indeed it was. It was both a military and a cultural powerhouse. Why would the populace listen to someone like Jonah? How long, for example, would a Jewish rabbi have lasted in 1941 if he had stood on the streets of Berlin and called on Nazi Germany to repent? At the most practical level, the prospects of success were none, and the chances of death were high.

Jonah would not have been able to see any theological justification for this mission either. The prophet Nahum had some years before prophesied that God would destroy Nineveh for its evil.7  Jonah and Israel would have accepted Nahum’s prediction as making perfect sense. Wasn’t Israel God’s chosen, loved people through whom he was fulfilling his purposes in the world? Wasn’t Nineveh an evil society on a collision course with the Lord? Wasn’t Assyria unusually violent and oppressive, even for its time? Of course God would destroy it—that was obvious and (Jonah would have thought) settled. Why, then, this call to Jonah? Wouldn’t a successful mission to Nineveh only destroy God’s own promises to Israel and prove Nahum a false prophet? What possible justification, then, could there be for this assignment?

Nineveh was located on the Tigris River, over 500 miles to the northeast of Israel, but Jonah went west. His destination was Tarshish, which seems to have been a city located on the western coast of Spain.[5] We are told that Jonah fled “from the presence of the LORD,” an expression twice repeated in verse 3. I do not understand this to mean that Jonah thought he could get away from God, but rather as a technical expression, referring to his attempted “resignation” as a prophet.[6] He was turning in his mantle. No more prophetic ministry for him! While the omnipresent God would be in Nineveh, Jonah would not, and so he could hardly carry out his task from this location.

A teacher was explaining to her class the phrase concerning God’s angels which reads “…ministers of His who do His pleasure and asked: “How do the angels carry out God’s will?” Many of the children offered an answer:

• They do it directly
• They do it with all of their heart
• They do it well
• They do it without asking any questions

It is that last response I want us to discuss for a few moments.  This is the lesson that must be understood or the rest of this marvelous book will prove unnecessary.

We often read a command of God and respond with WHY should I obey this? These opening two verses tell us why we should obey God unquestionably:

1. Because it is the command of God. We’re not told in what manner that command came but we know God worked in the past differently than He does today.

(Heb 1:1-2)  In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, {2} but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.

God’s word  has been made known to us just as it was to Jonah. What will we do about it?

• Do we pick and choose what we want to believe?
• Do we allow this communications with God to be interrupted?

(Luke 10:41-42)  “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, {42} but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

2. Because YOU are needed by others. The population of this great city is estimated at over 600,000 if the 120,000 in 4:11 is taken to refer to children (which I think it is). This city was known for its cruelty, immorality and wickedness.
   1. Gerasene demoniac who was cleaned by Christ

(Mark 5:10-19)  And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area. {11} A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. {12} The demons begged Jesus, “Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them.” {13} He gave them permission, and the evil spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. {14} Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. {15} When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. {16} Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man–and told about the pigs as well. {17} Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region. {18} As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. {19} Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.”

3. Because God’s message is the only message with promise.
4. Because of the urgency of the command.
5. (John 9:4) As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.
6. Because wickedness prospers.

Jonah the prophet disobeyed God’s call (Jonah 1:1-3).

Jonah got into trouble because his attitudes were wrong. To begin with, he had a wrong attitude toward the will of God. Obeying the will of God is as important to God’s servant as it is to the people His servants minister to. It’s in obeying the will of God that we find our spiritual nourishment (John 4:34), enlightenment (7:17), and enablement (Heb. 13:21). To Jesus, the will of God was food that satisfied Him; to Jonah, the will of God was medicine that choked him.

Jonah’s wrong attitude toward God’s will stemmed from a feeling that the Lord was asking him to do an impossible thing. God commanded the prophet to go to Israel’s enemy, Assyria, and give the city of Nineveh opportunity to repent, and Jonah would much rather see the city destroyed. The Assyrians were a cruel people who had often abused Israel and Jonah’s narrow patriotism took precedence over his theology.^1-2 Jonah forgot that the will of God is the expression of the love of God (Ps. 33:11), and that God called him to Nineveh because He loved both Jonah and the Ninevites.

Jonah also had a wrong attitude toward The Word of God. When the Word of the Lord came to him, Jonah thought he could “take it or leave it” However, when God’s Word commands us, we must listen and obey. Disobedience isn’t an option. “But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46, nkjv)

Jonah forgot that it was a great privilege to be a prophet, to hear God’s Word, and know God’s will. That’s why he resigned his prophetic office and fled in the opposite direction from Nineveh.^1-3 Jonah knew that he couldn’t run away from God’s presence (Ps. 139:7-12), but he felt he had the right to turn in his resignation. He forgot that “God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable” (Rom. 11:29, niv). At one time or another during their ministries, Moses, Elijah, and Jeremiah felt like giving up, but God wouldn’t let them. Jonah needed Nineveh as much as Nineveh needed Jonah. It’s in doing the will of God that we grow in grace and become more like Christ.

Jonah had a wrong attitude toward circumstances; he thought they were working for him when they were really working against him. He fled to Joppa^1-4 and found just the right ship waiting for him! He had enough money to pay the fare for his long trip, and he was even able to go down into the ship and fall into a sleep so deep that the storm didn’t wake him up. It’s possible to be out of the will of God and still have circumstances appear to be working on your behalf. You can be rebelling against God and still have a false sense of security that includes a good night’s sleep. God in His providence was preparing Jonah for a great fall.

Finally, Jonah had a wrong attitude toward the Gentiles. Instead of wanting to help them find the true and living God, he wanted to abandon them to their darkness and spiritual death. He not only hated their sins—and the Assyrians were ruthless enemies—but he hated the sinners who committed the sins. Better that Nineveh should be destroyed than that the Assyrians live and attack Israel.

Two Ways of Running from God

Jonah runs away from God. But if we for a moment stand back and look at the entirety of the book, Jonah will teach us that there are two different strategies for escaping from God. Paul outlines these in Romans 1–3.

First Paul speaks of those who simply reject God overtly and “have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity” (Romans 1:29). In chapter 2,

however, he talks of those who seek to follow the Bible. “You rely on the law and boast . . . in God. . . . You know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law” (Romans 2:17–18). Then, after looking at both pagan, immoral Gentiles and Bible-believing, moral Jews, he concludes in a remarkable summation “that there is no one righteous, not even one. . . . All have turned away” (Romans 3:10–12). One group is trying diligently to follow God’s law and the other ignores it, and yet Paul says both have “turned away.” They are both, in different ways, running from God. We all know that we can run from God by becoming immoral and irreligious. But Paul is saying it is also possible to avoid God by becoming very religious and moral.

The classic example in the gospels of these two ways to run from God is in Luke 15, the parable of the two sons.9  The younger brother tried to escape his father’s control by

taking his inheritance, leaving home, rejecting all his father’s moral values, and living as he wished. The older brother stayed home and obeyed the father completely, but when his father did something with the remaining wealth that the older son disliked, he exploded

in anger at his father. At that point it became obvious that he, also, did not love his father.

The elder brother was not obeying out of love but only as a way, he thought, of putting his father in his debt, getting control over him so he had to do as his older son asked. Neither son trusted his father’s love. Both were trying to find ways of escaping his control. One did it by obeying all the father’s rules, the other by disobeying them all.

Flannery O’Connor describes one of her fictional characters, Hazel Motes, as knowing that “the way to avoid Jesus was to avoid sin.”1 0 We think that if we are religiously observant, virtuous, and good, then we’ve paid our dues, as it were. Now God can’t just ask anything of us—he owes us. He is obligated to answer our prayers and bless us. This is not moving toward him in grateful joy, glad surrender, and love, but is instead a way of controlling God and, as a result, keeping him at arm’s length.

Both of these two ways of escaping God assume the lie that we cannot trust God’s commitment to our good. We think we have to force God to give us what we need. Even if we are outwardly obeying God, we are doing it not for his sake but for ours. If, as we seek to comply with his rules, God does not appear to be treating us as we feel we deserve, then the veneer of morality and righteousness can collapse overnight. The inward distancing from God that had been going on for a long time becomes an outward, obvious rejection. We become furious with God and just walk away.

The classic Old Testament example of these two ways to run from God is right here in the book of Jonah. Jonah takes turns acting as both the “younger brother” and the “older brother.” In the first two chapters of the book, Jonah disobeys and runs away from the Lord and yet ultimately repents and asks for God’s grace, just as the younger brother leaves home but returns repentant.

In the last two chapters, however, Jonah obeys God’s command to go and preach to Nineveh. In both cases, however, he’s trying to get control of the agenda.1 1  When God accepts the repentance of the Ninevites, just like the older brother in Luke 15, Jonah bristles with self-righteous anger at God’s graciousness and mercy to sinners.1 2

And that is the problem facing Jonah, namely, the mystery of God’s mercy. It is a theological problem, but it is at the same time a heart problem. Unless Jonah can see his own sin, and see himself as living wholly by the mercy of God, he will never understand how God can be merciful to evil people and still be just and faithful. The story of Jonah, with all its twists and turns, is about how God takes Jonah, sometimes by the hand, other times by the scruff of the neck, to show him these things.

Jonah runs and runs. But even though he uses multiple strategies, the Lord is always a step ahead. God varies his strategies too, and continually extends mercy to us in new ways, even though we neither understand nor deserve it.

4.       The Ship, the Sailors, the Storm, and the Sinner (1:4‑9)

4 And the LORD hurled a great wind on the sea and there was a great storm on the sea so that the ship was about to break up. 5 Then the sailors became afraid, and every man cried to his god, and they threw the cargo which was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone below into the hold of the ship, lan down, and fallen sound asleep. 6 So the captain approached him and said, “How is it that you are sleeping? Get up, call on your god. Perhaps your god will be concerned about us so that we will not perish.” 7 And each man said to his mate, “Come, let us cast lots so we may learn on whose account this calamity has struck us.” So they cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 Then they said to him, “Tell us, now! On whose account has this calamity struck us? What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?” 9 And he said to them, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the LORD God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land.”

Jonah’s attempt to escape the power of God meets immediate opposition in a storm. It is not clear how far out from port the ship has traveled when the storm strikes. Jonah 1:13 has the sailors attempting to row to shore which suggests that the ship is not far from land. Perhaps the wind picked up just as they left port, or it could be that the ship followed a course close to shore.

Since ships typically do not depart when a storm is brewing, this “violent storm” was totally unexpected and unseen by the experienced sailors who see the gale as supernatural in origin (v. 5). The story contains several unexpected turns: an unexpected storm, unexpected religiosity among the sailors, Jonah’s unexpected nap, the sailors’ unexpected loyalty to their passenger, and finally their unexpected sacrifice to the Lord. The God who had sent his prophet to challenge the “great city” (1:2), who would soon send a “great fish” (1:17), now sends a “great wind” (1:4) clearly pointing to an even greater God who does these things.

Six attempts are made to survive the storm: (1) prayers to the sailors’ gods (v. 5), (2) jettisoning of cargo (v. 5), (3) calling on their passenger to appeal to his God (v. 6), (4) casting lots to determine who is responsible for the storm (v. 7), (5) attempting to row to shore (v. 13), and (6) throwing Jonah overboard (vv. 11–12, 14–15). Only the last effort brings calm.

1:4–5 An unexpected and unexplained storm strikes the ship bearing the fleeing prophet. The NIV sent minimizes the intensity of the Hebrew “hurl” or “cast” (it is the same word translated as “throw” and “threw” in vv. 5, 12, and 15). It is clear that God is responsible for the storm, but not in the storm as with other gods. The catastrophe unfolds in three related events: (1) The Lord sent the great wind. (2) The wind turns into a storm around the ship. (3) The severity of the storm threatens to break up the wooden vessel.² The sailors respond in three ways: fear, prayer, and human effort. The emergency room prayer is sent to any available god. The prayers did not work. Jettisoning the cargo (cf. Ezek 27:25) lightens the ship, but fails to enable the ship to ride out the storm. Allen notes, “religion was no solution, neither is the way of works.”³ The sailors’ frenzy is contrasted with Jonah’s sleep. No reason is given for his slumber. Running from the Lord may have worn him out. As the sailors carted their cargo out of the hold, they may have seen their passenger’s slumber which they reported to the captain. Or perhaps Jonah was deeper in the ship, as suggested by below deck which in Hebrew is the most inaccessible part of the vessel (cf. commentary on Amos 6:10), and only discovered after the cargo was removed. Deep sleep was sufficient for Adam to have surgery (Gen 2:21) suggesting that Jonah was not just uncaring, but unaware.

1:6 Having prayed to all their gods and after removing all the cargo, the captain awakens Jonah to call on him to pray to his god. Jonah does wake up but he does not pray. The captain is likely yet unaware of the nature of Jonah’s God but in desperate straits is seeking to do everything possible to stop the storm. He perhaps thought they had not prayed to all the gods, or to the god who caused storms. Jonah represented an additional prayer resource that could avert tragedy. Take notice is used only here in the Hebrew Bible in the sense of “to think about us.”

1:7 The sailors came to two conclusions: (1) the storm was the result of the action of some person on the ship, and (2) lots could determine the guilty party. Lots were used by ancient peoples to determine the will of deity in the sense of divination and are well represented in Scripture.⁴ How they cast the lots on the rolling ship is not explained, but when the process was complete, Jonah was selected.⁵ Just as the Lord selected him to go to Nineveh, now through the lots God again points to Jonah.

1:8 The sailors who have prayed, thrown off cargo, and cast lots, now raise five quick questions with Jonah. The first seeks to verify their belief that the storm is the result of some action of some person on the ship and to confirm that the result of the lot casting was correct. The final four seek information about Jonah, trying to link his occupation, destination, or nationality to the deity that caused the storm: occupation because his work might be a religious calling, his destination because it might be religiously oriented, and his nationality because deities were closely connected to nations in the ancient world. If they can find a clue about the storm’s cause, they can take the appropriate action. Trouble (1:8), “calamity” (1:7), and “wickedness” (1:2) are all the same Hebrew word (רַע, raʿ), which can mean moral evil (1:2) or amoral problems (1:7–8).⁶

1:9 Jonah who refused to preach to the pagan Ninevites finds himself preaching to the pagan sailors. Jonah responds to the sailors’ five questions with two descriptions of himself and three of his God. He identifies himself first as a Hebrew,⁷ which is used elsewhere to describe the Israelites to foreigners (cf. Gen 40:15; Exod 1:19) and, secondly, as a worshiper of the Lord.⁸ Worship is actually the word fear (the same word as “afraid” in v. 5) and can mean to believe in or worship. Jonah’s verbal acknowledgment of God here is in tension with his rejection of God’s calling in 1:3. He describes God in three ways: (1) God of Heaven (cf. Gen 24:3, 7; 2 Chr 36:23; Ezra 1:2; Neh 1:4–5; 2:4) which proclaims his supremacy, (2) maker of sea, and (3) maker of land. God is described in this way elsewhere in Scripture (Exod 10:13–19; 14–15; Num 11:31; Job 26:12; Ps 95:5; 135:7; Isa 50:2). Given the storm, God, as maker of the sea, is the answer the sailors sought.

God hurled a storm in Jonah’s path, a storm so great that it terrified veteran sailors (literally “salts”) and was in the process of breaking up the ship. The sailors began casting the cargo overboard, in an effort to save the ship and their own lives. At the same time, each sailor was praying to his gods for deliverance. No doubt these sailors would have worshipped gods which were thought to have influence over the seas on which they traveled.

The “cargo” which would have to be thrown overboard to save the ship was below. While the sailors frantically worked and prayed to save the ship, Jonah was below deck, deep in sleep.[7] The pagan ship’s captain was obviously irritated to find Jonah sleeping, while the rest of the crew desperately besought their gods. Jonah was not asked to help cast the cargo overboard, but he was commanded to pray.[8] Imagine this. A heathen sea captain, commanding a prophet of the one true God to pray. Notice that we are never told that Jonah did pray, either. No wonder; if you were Jonah and stubbornly refused to repent, what would you have to say to God?

The seamen saw the storm as a religious matter. They first petitioned their gods for deliverance. When this did not happen, they sought to enlist Jonah and his God. Then, when their prayers were not answered, they seemed to conclude that the reason why their prayers were not answered was due to some unidentified sin, which offended one of the gods: “And each man said to his mate, ‘Come, let us cast lots so we may learn on whose account this calamity has struck us.’ So they cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah” (vs. 7).

The great wonder is that these sailors did not cast Jonah into the sea the moment the lot fell on him. Remember that the ship was in the process of breaking up and the storm was intensifying in force. In spite of the imminent danger, the sailors took time to interrogate Jonah. “Then they said to him, ‘Tell us, now! On whose account has this calamity struck us? What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?” (vs. 8).

Mistrusting God

So Jonah had a problem with the job he was given. But he had a bigger problem with the One who gave it to him.8 Jonah concluded that because he could not see any good reasons for God’s command, there couldn’t be any. Jonah doubted the goodness, wisdom, and justice of God.

We have all had that experience. We sit in the doctor’s office stunned by the biopsy report. We despair of ever finding decent employment after the last lead has dried up. We wonder why the seemingly perfect romantic relationship—the one we always wanted and never thought was possible—has crashed and burned. If there is a God, we think, he doesn’t know what he is doing! Even when we turn from the circumstances of our lives to the teaching of the Bible itself, it seems, to modern people especially, to be filled with claims that don’t make much sense.

When this happens we have to decide—does God know what’s best, or do we? And the default mode of the unaided human heart is to always decide that we do. We doubt that God is good, or that he is committed to our happiness, and therefore if we can’t see any good reasons for something God says or does, we assume that there aren’t any.

That’s what Adam and Eve did in the Garden. The first divine command was: “And the LORD God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die’” (Genesis 2:16–17). There was the fruit, and it looked very “good . . . pleasing . . . and desirable” (Genesis 3:6), yet God had given no reason as to why it would be wrong to eat. Adam and Eve, like Jonah many years later, decided that if they couldn’t think of a good reason for a command of God, there couldn’t be one. God could not be trusted to have their best interests in mind. And so they ate.

I am inclined to view all of the sailors standing about Jonah, each asking one of these questions at the same time. Jonah is swamped with questions. Notice that as the story is narrated in chapter 1, the sailors do most of the talking and Jonah says very little. He gives but a bare minimum response. He is tight-lipped. He is like a child, caught red‑handed by his parents, peppered with questions and giving only cryptic responses. There are some who talk incessantly when guilty, but many, like Jonah, say as little as possible, especially if they are intent on persisting in their evil.

Jonah’s terse response (at least as recorded) was, “I am a Hebrew,[9] and I fear the LORD God of heaven[10] who made the sea and the dry land” (Jonah 1:9).

With this statement, everything suddenly came into focus for the sailors: Jonah was a Hebrew prophet who had fled from God. It was Jonah who caused the storm. Jonah’s sin had endangered the entire ship’s crew.

Jonah the Jew becomes a curse instead of a blessing (Jonah 1:4-10).

God called the Jews to be a blessing to all the nations of the earth (Gen. 12:1-3), but whenever the Jews were out of the will of God, they brought trouble instead of blessing.^1-5 Twice Abraham brought trouble to people because he lied (vv. 10-20; 20:1-18); Achan brought trouble to Israel’s army because he robbed God (Josh. 7); and Jonah brought trouble to a boatload of pagan sailors because he fled. Consider all that Jonah lost because he wasn’t a blessing to others.

First of all, he lost the voice of God (Jonah 1:4). We don’t read that “the word of the Lord came to Jonah,” but that a great storm broke loose over the waters. God was no longer speaking to Jonah through His word; He was speaking to him through His works: the sea, the wind, the rain, the thunder, and even the great fish. Everything in nature obeyed God except His servant! God even spoke to Jonah through the heathen sailors (vv. 6, 8, 10) who didn’t know Jehovah. It’s a sad thing when a servant of God is rebuked by pagans.

Jonah also lost his spiritual energy (v. 5b). He went to sleep during a fierce storm and was totally unconcerned about the safety of others. The sailors were throwing the ship’s wares and cargo overboard, and Jonah was about to lose everything, but still he slept on. “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest—and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man” (Prov. 24:33, niv).

He lost his power in prayer (Jonah 1:5a, 6). The heathen sailors were calling on their gods for help while Jonah slept through the prayer meeting, the one man on board who knew the true God and could pray to Him. Of course, Jonah would first have had to confess his sins and determine to obey God, something he wasn’t willing to do. “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me” (Ps. 66:18).^1-6 If Jonah did pray, his prayer wasn’t answered. Loss of power in prayer is one of the first indications that we’re far from the Lord and need to get right with Him.

Sad to say, Jonah lost his testimony (Jonah 1:7-10). He certainly wasn’t living up to his name,^1-7 for Jonah means “dove,” and the dove is a symbol of peace. Jonah’s father’s name was Ammitai, which means “faithful, truthful,” something that Jonah was not. We’ve already seen that he wasn’t living up to his high calling as a Jew, for he had brought everybody trouble instead of blessing, nor was he living up to his calling as a prophet, for he had no message for them from God. When the lot pointed to Jonah as the culprit, he could no longer avoid making a decision.

Jonah had already told the crew that he was running away from God, but now he told them he was God’s prophet, the God who created the heaven, the earth, and the sea. This announcement made the sailors even more frightened. The God who created the sea was punishing His servant and that’s why they were in danger!

5.       Jonah Goes Overboard (1:10‑15)

10 Then the men became extremely frightened and they said to him, “How could you do this?” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them. 11 So they said to him, “What should we do to you that the sea may become calm for us?”— for the sea was becoming increasingly stormy. 12 And he said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea. Then the sea will become calm for you, for I know that on account of me this great storm has come upon you.” 13 However, the men rowed desperately to return to land but they could not, for the sea was becoming even stormier against them. 14 Then they called on the LORD and said, “We earnestly pray, O LORD, do not let us perish on account of this man’s life and do not put innocent blood on us; for Thou, O LORD, hast done as Thou hast pleased.” 15 So they picked up Jonah, threw him into the sea, and the sea stopped its raging.

1:10 The description of the sailors’ fear intensifies from 1:5. The Hebrew uses a special construction to indicate the intensification and adds the word “great.”⁹ Not only do they face a raging storm, but now they face a running prophet. All the pieces come together as they realize that the God he had told them he was running from is also the God who made the sea and everything else and thus the one causing the storm. Aghast, the sailors find it incomprehensible that a man should disobey such a God. Not only has Jonah talked to the sailors in the midst of the raging storm, but they also exchanged information prior to the storm, perhaps as they embarked from Joppa. Their question is the same one God asked Eve in Genesis 3:13.

1:11 The sailors, who asked Jonah five questions in verse 10, now issue only one. This is the fifth time they have used the Hebrew what? (cf. “how” in v. 6, “what” twice in v. 8, and “what” in v. 10). Having tried prayer and casting off cargo, they now turn to Jonah for an answer, realizing from their previous exchange that he is responsible for the problem and likely knows the solution. Doing something to Jonah will do something about the storm. Calm down is used only in Jonah 1:11–12; Psalm 107:30; and Proverbs 26:20 (“dies down”) in the sense of quiet down. The last part of the Hebrew verse (which appears again in v. 13) about the increase in the storm’s intensity has been moved to the beginning of the verse in the NIV. God elsewhere controls the sea (Ps 89:9; Ezek 28:2; Dan 7:2; Nahum 1:4; Hab 3:8; Matt 8:23–27; Acts 27:13–44).

1:12 Jonah speaks again as he did in verse 9 (the only words of Jonah in ch. one). He offers step by step instructions: (1) Pick me up (literally “lift me up”) uses the verb נָשָׂא (nāśāʾ) that also means “forgive.” Just as God lifts off sin, now the sailors will lift Jonah off the tossing deck. (2) Cast me into the sea. Just as God cast a wind (NIV “sent a great wind” in v. 4) and the sailors earlier “threw the cargo” (1:5) overboard, now they will hurl Jonah into the churning depths (cf. 1:15). (3) The sea will calm. See comments on 1:11. In a sense, Jonah reads his own execution announcement. Being thrown into the sea seemed to be certain death, a death he would rather face than carry out God’s command to preach in Nineveh. Jonah confirms (it is my fault) what the sailors expected: Jonah is responsible for the storm and something must be done to him to prevent a great tragedy. Despite his shortcomings, Jonah believes that his God will calm the storm.

1:13–14 Just as Jonah initially disobeys but later does the Lord’s command (cf. 1:2–3, 3:1–3), so the sailors initially reject Jonah’s instructions only to shortly carry them out. In their rejection of Jonah’s directives, the sailors, unlike Jonah, seek to obey his God. The prayer in verse 14 (the second by the sailors during the storm, cf. 1:5) explains the action in verse 13. Frightened by the power of the Lord who brought the storm, the sailors have no desire to disobey this deity, so seek his will prior to throwing Jonah overboard. While the sailors agree with Jonah that his presence occasioned the storm (“it is my fault” in v. 12), they are uncertain whether his instructions for ending it are sound, for if they become involved in putting him to death, they may also incur God’s wrath. The sailors who have previously made four attempts to survive the storm—prayer (1:3), throwing cargo overboard (1:5), calling on Jonah to appeal to his God (1:6), and casting lots (1:8)—now suspect that God wants Jonah off the ship and so attempt to row to shore. Though they did their best (literally they “rowed hard” or “dug in”), the storm increased (the same Hebrew phrase as verse 11, see opening lines of the NIV in 1:11). Verse 14 reveals that the sailors not only fear the storm, but also fear being punished for the murder of Jonah, of possibly being held accountable for killing an innocent man (cf. Deut 21:1–9; 2 Sam 1:6–10; 14:7; Jer 26:15). No clearer emergency room prayer appears in Scripture than this one: please do not let us die. The sailors end their prayer by concluding that the Lord did what pleased him, perhaps a reference to the increased raging of the sea in response to their attempt to put to shore (v. 13), or perhaps a hope that throwing Jonah off the ship is actually his pleasure, or perhaps both.

1:15–16 The book which focuses on God’s call to Jonah now centers briefly on the sailors. The sailors’ prayer finds immediate answer. As soon as they put Jonah in the sea, God calms the storm (cf. Ps 107:23–30; Mark 4:41). While the sailors get relief, Jonah’s situation suddenly becomes critical, but treatment of his predicament is delayed to allow some conclusion to the fate of the ship. Jonah, in the process of rejecting the Lord’s mission to Nineveh, inadvertently introduces God to the sailors who become more obedient to him than his prophet. The pagan sailors (1:5), now fearing God (1:16), offer sacrifice and make vows to him (see both in Ps 116:17–18). The text shows no interest in the source of the offering (all the cargo has been thrown overboard, 1:5) or how a fire for the sacrifice could be built on the ship. Perhaps they put ashore and offered sacrifice at the nearest religious installation since people in the ancient world generally went to an established altar to sacrifice rather than making their own, although such immediate sacrifices regularly appear in the early days of Genesis (4:3; 12:8). Vows are found throughout the Bible (Gen 28:20; Lev 7:16; Num 6:2; 30:1–14; Judg 11:30–39; 1 Sam 1:11–21; 2 Sam 15:7; Jonah 2:9; Acts 18:18; 21:23), but the nature of the sailors’ promise is not mentioned.¹⁰ Their promise to the Lord stands in contrast to Jonah’s refusal to obey him. They willingly seek out what he has intentionally rejected. God who calms the storm, showing his power over nature, also moves the sailors to fear and faith (as he will shortly do to the Ninevites), and finally stops the retreat of his prophet.^[11]

The response of the sailors is incredible. They could hardly believe the boldness with which Jonah had disobeyed God. Their response, “How could you do this?” is reminiscent of Abimelech’s rebuke of Abraham, when he passed Sarah off as his sister (Gen. 20:9). Here is a prophet who is so willful, even the pagans are shocked (cf. 1 Cor. 5:1). There was more to the story Jonah revealed than what is written,[12] but what the sailors knew was enough to petrify them. Remember, the storm is still raging and the ship is threatening to come apart (cf. vs. 4).

The sea continued to become more and more tempestuous. Time was running out. Just as Abimelech required the prayers of Abraham, a somewhat prodigal prophet of God (Gen. 20:7), the sailors could only ask Jonah what to do to appease the wrath of his God. After all, he was a prophet. “So they said to him, ‘What should we do to you that the sea may become calm for us?’” (Jonah 1:11).

Jonah told the sailors to pick him up and throw him overboard, into the sea, and then the sea would become calm for them (vs. 12). Why did Jonah not just jump into the sea? It seems as though the sailors had to act in obedience to God’s directive through Jonah. Casting him into the sea would surely have meant death to Jonah. Just as the Israelites had to be the instruments of the death of a sinner against God (cf. Lev. 24:10‑16), so the sailors had to lay hands on Jonah and cast him overboard. In this way, they were dissociating themselves from his rebellion and sin.

Some of the commentators want to see repentance on Jonah’s part here. Thus we read,

He replies at last to a question put to him by the sailors earlier. Yes, he admits his responsibility for the storm. The piety of the seamen has evidently banished his nonchalant indifference and touched his conscience. By now he has realized how terrible is the sin that has provoked this terrible storm. The only way to appease the tempest of Yahweh’s wrath is to abandon himself to it as just deserts for his sin. His willingness to die is an indication that he realizes his guilt before God.

Jonah shows that his repentance is sincere. No longer shall these men suffer for his disobedience. He offers himself as the victim to be sacrificed in order that they might be saved (vs. 12).

No longer does he flee from the Lord! He commits himself, body and soul, to the will of His Lord. Here he shows heroic faith! He is still God’s confiding child, even though he has sinned grievously.[13]

Over against this picture of the insensible Prophet, all unaware of the storm (which may suggest the parallel insensibility of Israel to the impending divine judgments), is set the behaviour of the heathen sailors, or ‘salts,’ as the story calls them. Their conduct is part of the lesson of the book; for, heathen as they are, they have yet a sense of dependence, and they pray; they are full of courage, battling with the storm, jettisoning the cargo, and doing everything possible to save the ship. Their treatment of Jonah is generous and chivalrous. Even when they hear his crime, and know that the storm is howling like a wild beast for him, they are unwilling to throw him overboard without one more effort; and when at last they do it, their prayer is for forgiveness, inasmuch as they are but carrying out the will of Jehovah. They are so much touched by the whole incident that they offer sacrifices to the God of the Hebrews, and are, in some sense, and possibly but for a time, worshippers of Him.

All this holds the mirror up to Israel, by showing how much of human kindness and generosity, and how much of susceptibility for the truth which Israel had to declare, lay in rude hearts beyond its pale. This crew of heathen of various nationalities and religions were yet men who could be kind to a renegade Prophet, peril their lives to save his, and worship Jehovah. ‘I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel,’ is the same lesson in another form. We may find abundant opportunities for learning it; for the characters of godless men, and of some among the heathen, may well shame many a Christian.^[14]

One would think that in such a desperate situation, when the storm grew steadily worse and danger to all increased, that the sailors would have quickly responded to Jonah’s instructions. Instead, they made one final effort to save Jonah’s life. They sought to row to shore, where they would let him off (vs. 13). This was a very risky effort, for the rocky shores, with their hidden reefs, would have been the worst place to be in the midst of the storm. The safest place in a storm is away from shore.[15]

Having made their best efforts to save Jonah, the sailors conclude that his solution is their only alternative. Before casting him into the sea, the sailors pray—again: “We earnestly pray, O LORD, do not let us perish on account of this man’s life and do not put innocent blood on us; for Thou, O LORD, hast done as Thou hast pleased” (Jonah 1:14).

How far these pagans have come. They have forsaken their “gods” for the one true God. They pray to Him before taking the final step with Jonah. And they acknowledge His sovereignty over all. Having thus prayed, they picked up the prophet and cast him into the sea.

Jonah the rebel suffers for his sins (Jonah 1:11-17).

Charles Spurgeon said that God never allows His children to sin successfully, and Jonah is proof of the truth of that statement. “For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives” (Heb. 12:6, nkjv).

We must not make the mistake of calling Jonah a martyr, for the title would be undeserved. Martyrs die for the glory of God, but Jonah offered to die because selfishly he would rather die than obey the will of God!^1-8 He shouldn’t be classified with people like Moses (Ex. 32:30-35), Esther (Es. 4:13-17), and Paul (Rom. 9:1-3) who were willing to give their lives to God in order to rescue others. Jonah is to be commended for telling the truth but not for taking his life in his own hands. He should have surrendered his life to the Lord and let Him give the orders. Had he fallen to his knees and confessed his sins to God, Jonah might have seen the storm cease and the door open to a great opportunity for witness on the ship.

It’s significant that the heathen sailors at first rejected Jonah’s offer and began to work harder to save the ship. They did more for Jonah than Jonah had been willing to do for them. When they saw that the cause was hopeless, they asked Jonah’s God for His forgiveness for throwing Jonah into the stormy sea. Sometimes unsaved people put believers to shame by their honesty, sympathy, and sacrifice.

However, these pagan sailors knew some basic theology: the existence of Jonah’s God, His judgment of sin, their own guilt before Him, and His sovereignty over creation. They confessed, “For You, O Lord, have done as You pleased” (Jonah 1:14, niv). However, there’s no evidence that they abandoned their old gods; they merely added Jehovah to their “god shelf.” They threw themselves on God’s mercy and then threw Jonah into the raging sea, and God stopped the storm.

When the storm ceased, the men feared God even more and made vows to Him. How they could offer an animal sacrifice to God on board ship is a puzzle to us, especially since the cargo had been jettisoned; but then we don’t know what the sacrifice was or how it was offered. Perhaps the sense of verse 16 is that they offered the animal to Jehovah and vowed to sacrifice it to Him once they were safe on shore.

The seventeenth century English preacher Jeremy Taylor said, “God threatens terrible things if we will not be happy.” He was referring, of course, to being happy with God’s will for our lives. For us to rebel against God’s will, as Jonah did, is to invite the chastening hand of God. That’s why the Westminster Catechism states that “the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” We glorify God by enjoying His will and doing it from our hearts (Eph. 6:6), and that’s where Jonah failed.

Jonah could say with the psalmist, “The Lord has chastened me severely, but He has not given me over to death” (Ps. 118:18, nkjv). God prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah and protect his life for three days and three nights.^1-9 We’ll consider the significance of this later in this study.

6.       The Sea Is Silenced, but Not the Sailors[16] (1:15‑16)

15 So they picked up Jonah, threw him into the sea, and the sea stopped its raging. 16 Then the men feared the LORD greatly, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows.

As the sailors watch Jonah sink beneath the waves, they note that the winds cease and the sea calms. They immediately grasp that all they had surmised was true. Jonah’s God was the only true God. He had brought the storm on account of Jonah’s running away. And, just as Jonah had spoken, casting him into the sea did still the storm. Thus, the chapter concludes with a report of the sailors’ worship. “Then the men feared the LORD greatly, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows” (Jonah 1:16). The pagans have become saints, while the prophet is still a prodigal. In trying to avoid preaching to the Ninevites, Jonah has unwillingly preached to the sailors, and thus they have come to faith in his God.

Jonah’s means of transport changes from a ship to a fish. One protected him from the storm and the other from the sea. One led him away from God, and the other brought him back to God. Inside the fish Jonah has a change of heart. Just as the sailors prayed twice (1:5, 14), so this is the first of two recorded prayers by Jonah (2:1–9 and 4:2). After a prose introduction in 1:17, the next nine verses are poetry (2:1–9) followed by a prose conclusion (2:10). The poem comes to a climax with “salvation comes from the Lord,” recalling that the Lord saved both the sailors by calming the storm and Jonah by sending a fish, and anticipating that he would shortly save Nineveh (3:10).

Chapters one and two both end with prayers, sacrifices, and vows. Disbelieving but obedient seamen prayed to the Lord and received salvation. Believing but disobedient Jonah prays to the Lord and receives salvation. God answers even emergency room prayers (ch. 1 and 2). Both sailors and prophet respond to answered prayer by offering sacrifices and making promises to the Lord. Those who reject the Lord face certain death, whether they are prophets like Jonah or wicked enemies like the people of Nineveh. The same God who forgives his prophet can also forgive the prophet’s enemies.

The poem is similar to psalms of thanksgiving. Each follows this form: an introduction (2:2), description of past distress and rescue (2:3–6), an appeal to God (2:7), and praise (2:8–9).¹¹

1:17–2:1 The storm calmed when Jonah was thrown overboard. In the midst of the sea, the prophet encounters God’s punishment in the turbulence and God’s grace in the fish where he remains conscious enough to seek the Lord in prayer. The generic word “fish” (דָּג, dāg) does not point to a particular species of sea life, although the Greek translation has κῆτος (kētos, also used in Matt 12:40), which may suggest whale or shark.¹² It was large enough to swallow the prophet and hold him in its stomach (the Hebrew word refers to an internal organ, clearly the stomach here). Provided comes from a word that means “to count” in the sense of a census (1 Chr 21:1) or appointing (or “numbered”) for a special purpose (Isa 53:12). The reason for the length of Jonah’s stay is unexplained, some suggesting that it took the fish that long to swim to the location where Jonah was to be delivered, or that it was the standard time in the ancient world beyond which survival was impossible, something like our phrase “nobody could survive there that long.”¹³ “Three days” occurs frequently in Scripture (cf. Gen 30:36; 40:12–19; 42:17; Exod 3:18; Num 10:33; Josh 1:11; 1 Sam 9:20; Matt 15:32; 26:61; 27:40, 63; on three days and three nights, see 1 Sam 30:12; Matt 12:40). Regardless of the nature of the fish and the length of time, these events, like the coming and calming of the storm, are the work of the Lord. While on the ship Jonah slept (1:5), but in the fish Jonah prayed.

2:2 Introduction. Jonah’s thanksgiving begins with an introduction to prayer using synonymous parallelism where each line repeats the basic thought of the other: distress echoed in depths, called (the first one based on the Hebrew word קָרָא [qārāʾ]) reflected in called (translating שָׁוַע [šāwaʿ]), answered linked with listened. Jonah finds himself in the depths of the grave.¹⁴ He refers to the terrifying moment when, as he was thrown into the sea, he felt he was facing certain death. Likely unaware of exactly where he was, he now feels rescued. Jonah reveals that he prayed as he was being hurled overboard, and his survival prompts his thanks for the answer to that prayer. Jonah prays in a crisis as did Hezekiah (Isa 38:10–20).^[17]

7.       Conclusion

There are many important lessons to be learned from this first chapter of the Book of Jonah. Let me highlight a few of these lessons and suggest their application to our lives. Our stereotypes of prophets and of pagans do not fit the account of Jonah. One commentator put it this way:

Some stereotyped conventions of the Hebrew religious ideology have been thrown overboard with Jonah. The listeners have been induced to turn completely against an Israelite prophet and to view Gentile dogs with increasing admiration and respect. These attitudes are seeds the narrator has sown to harvest later.[18]

Let’s face it, don’t you find that our text has reversed the heroes and the villains? Going into the chapter, we would have expected Jonah to be the hero, while the heathen sailors would certainly have been expected to be the villains. This was certainly the perspective of Jonah, and of the Israelites, whom he typified. Yet in our text it is the sailors who pray, while Jonah does not. The sailors sought to deal with sin on the ship, not Jonah. The sailors end up worshipping God, not Jonah. The sailors have compassion on Jonah, while he seems to have little concern for the danger in which he has put them. Clearly this chapter turns our expectations inside‑out.

My emotional response to this chapter is somewhat similar to what I experienced in the Book of Genesis, related to Jacob and his brother Esau. Esau may have been a godless man, but I find that I like him more than I do Jacob, who is a swindler and a con artist. If I had to choose a next‑door neighbor between Jacob and Esau, I’d take Esau every time. So, too, with the sailors and Jonah. I would much prefer to have these men as my neighbors than to have Jonah living next door. Only in this case, the sailors are believers in God, unlike Esau.

Notice the many points of contrast between Jonah and the sailors in the first chapter of Jonah:

Sailors	Jonah
Prayed	Did not appear to pray
Active to save ship, selves	Deep in sleep
Compassion on Jonah	Indifferent to sailors, their plight
Tried to save Jonah	No great concern to save sailors
Wanted to live	Wanted to die
Wanted to find “sin”	Wanted to persist in sin
Obedient to what they knew	Disobedient though he knew much
Worshipped God	No worship
Shuddered at Jonah’s sin	Seemingly untouched by his sin
Growing fear of God	No evidence of fear

There seems to be one thing on which Jonah and the sailors agreed, and about which both were wrong. Both seemed to think stereotypically and compartmentally. Both were sectarian in their thinking. The questions which the sailors asked reveal their thought process. Their questions, as reported in verse 8, concerned Jonah’s: (1) occupation (“What is your occupation?”); and (2) racial and ethnic origin (“and where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?”).

Is it not true that the Israelites became so proud of their ancestry (“We are the seed of Abraham”) and of their priestly status as a nation that they felt more pious than other peoples? And isn’t it Jonah’s nationality and occupation in which he takes pride?

This chapter informs us that these are not the ultimate issues. There are really two principle issues which are crucial to God. The first issue is “loving God,” the second, “loving man.” Jonah would have shown his love for God by obeying him. Jonah did not obey, and showed himself to lack the love for God which the law required. Secondly, Jonah did not love men, as is reflected by his lack of compassion for the sailors.

In the New Testament, our Lord reiterates these two priorities—loving God and loving men—as the essence of the Old Testament law, and of the New Covenant as well (cf. Matt. 22:34‑40). Jesus told His disciples that if they loved Him, they would keep His commands and they would love one another (cf. John 13:34; 14:15; 15:9‑13).

It should not come as a surprise to us that in the gospels the religious leaders of Israel, like Jonah the prophet, were the “bad guys” rather than the “good guys.” Jonah prophetically prototypes the wickedness of Israel’s leaders in the days of our Lord. While we would have expected them to welcome Jesus, they rejected Him, and instigated His death. These were those who “devoured widows’ houses,” and were thus the objects of His most severe rebuke (cf. Matt. 23).

Jonah 1 reminds us that God is not concerned about our race, our origins, or our occupation, but with what we are doing with what He has commanded us to do. As the Apostle Paul tells us, God is not as interested in whether or not we possess the law (as the Jews) as He is with whether or not we practice it.

11 For there is no partiality with God. 12 For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law; and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law; 13 for not the hearers of the Law are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified. 14 For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, 15 in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, 16 on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.

17 But if you bear the name “Jew,” and rely upon the Law, and boast in God, 18 and know His will, and approve the things that are essential, being instructed out of the Law, 19 and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, 20 a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, having in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth, 21 you, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that one should not steal, do you steal? (Rom 2:11-21)

Paul’s point is simply that possessing the Law and preaching it, as the Jews did, is not enough. Men must obey the law. Jonah, like the Israelites of his day, prided himself in the possession of the Law, but did not practice it. Thus, the heathen sailors are the heroes of our story because they practiced all that they knew to be God’s will, while Jonah disobeyed God’s command given to him.

The sailors were saved (both physically and spiritually, I believe) because they obeyed what they knew to be God’s will, and thus the “gospel” for them. They had learned that their “gods” were no‑gods, that they could not answer their prayers nor could they control the sea. They knew that sin brought divine judgment. They learned that the God of Israel was the Creator of heaven and earth. And they were told that they would be saved by the “death” of Jonah, a Jew.

The gospel for men and women today is the same, in principle, but more specific. Jesus Christ is truly God, the Creator and Sustainer of all creation (cf. Col. 1:16‑17). It is through faith in Christ, in His death, burial, and resurrection, that we are saved. We, like the sailors on board that ship, are in danger of divine judgment. We, like them, are saved by the death of another, a Jew. Jesus Christ bore the wrath of God so that we might be saved. Jonah, like Jesus, died and thus others were saved. Unlike Jonah, Jesus was sinless, and He voluntarily gave up His life on the cross of Calvary to save all who would believe in Him.

Let the faith of these sailors serve as a lesson to us that hypocrisy is no excuse for unbelief. Jonah was a hypocrite, and I believe that the sailors learned this. Nevertheless, Jonah’s hypocrisy did not keep these sailors from trusting in God and obeying His word. Jonah’s failure to abide by God’s word did not keep the Gentile sailors from doing so. Do not attempt to excuse your disobedience to God by pointing to the disobedience of one of God’s children. We all are accountable only for obeying what God has commanded us to do.

Sin endangers others and thus must be removed. Jonah was life‑threatening to the sailors. His sin prompted the wrath of God and all who were on board that ship with him were in great danger. It was only by casting Jonah overboard that the sailors were saved.

What a beautiful illustration of church discipline we have in this story. Just as Jonah’s sin endangered the entire ship, so the sin of a saint endangers and corrupts the entire church. As Paul put it, “a little leaven leavens the whole lump” (1 Cor. 5:6). Thus, for the church to fail to deal with the sins of one of its members is to endanger the whole church. Just as Jonah had to be thrown overboard, so the willful, wayward saint must be “put out” (cf. 1 Cor. 5:5, 9‑13).

It is not our position nor our profession, but our practice that proves us to be the children of God. Those who held the highest positions were often those who were most disobedient to their calling. To whom much is given, much is required. May we be unlike Jonah, who disobeyed what he knew, and rather be like the sailors, who obeyed all that they knew to be the will of God.

“Having peace” is not always proof of being in the will of God. Jonah rested peacefully in the hold of the ship, but no one was ever more clearly disobedient to the will of God. While it is true that “having peace” may be an evidence of being in the will of God, it is not always so. Jonah’s peace was the result of a hardened heart and a seared conscience. Those in such a spiritual state feel secure in times of greatest danger.

The sins of which we have been speaking have symptoms, which should be noted by all saints. The following are some of the symptoms of Jonah’s sins of which we should take note:

1. Lack of prayer
2. Absence of joy and praise
3. Lack of appreciation for life / death looks good
4. Lack of sensitivity to sin in one’s life
5. Lack of sensitivity to consequences of one’s sin for others
6. Lack of compassion for others
7. Disobedience to the clear commands of God

May these symptoms not be present in our lives, and if they are present, may we deal with them seriously.

NOTES CHAPT ER 1:

Running from God

1. 1. The translation of Jonah I use throughout is derived from my ow n exegetical w ork and from that of those w ith greater skill in Hebrew than I . But it is heavily influenced by the insights of Jack M. Sasson, Jonah: A New Translation with I ntroduction, Commentary, and I nterpretation, The Anchor Bible (New Y ork: Doubleday, 1990); and Phyllis Trible, Rhetorical Criticism: Context, Method, and the Book of Jonah (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1994). All citations of the text

of Jonah, therefore, are of my translation. All other Biblical quotes and citations from the rest of the Bible follow the

New I nternational Version.

2. 2. Erika Bleibtreu, “G risly Assyrian Record of Torture and Death,” Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 1991, pp. 52–61, quoted in James Bruckner, The NI V Application Commentary: Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah (G rand Rapids, MI : Zondervan, 2004), p. 28.
3. 3. Bruckner, NI V Application Commentary, pp. 28–29.
4. 4. Bruckner assembles three pages of historical records of w hat he calls the Assyrian empire’s “Terror-Mongering,” NI V Application Commentary, pp. 28–30.
5. 5. Leslie C. Allen, The Books of Joel, O badiah, Jonah, and Micah (G rand Rapids, MI : Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1976), p. 202; Rosemary Nixon, The Message of Jonah (Dow ners G rove, I L: I nterVarsity Press, 2003,) pp. 56–58.
6. 6. See Allen, The Books of Joel, pp. 204–5.
7. 7. The majority of biblical scholars date the prophecy of Nahum earlier than Jonah. See T. G lasson, “The Final Question in Nahum and Jonah,” Expository Times 81 (1969), pp. 54–55. Leslie Allen adds that Jonah’s hostility to Nineveh is perfectly understandable if w e remember “the religious and psychological impact of the old Assyrian capital upon a community that had received the book of Nahum as part of its religious heritage” (Allen, The Books of Joel, p. 190).

8. 8. “[A]s in Job, the relevant lesson [of the book of Jonah] is about the incapacity of mortals to understand, let alone to judge, their G od.” Jack M. Sasson, Jonah: A New Translation, with I ntroduction, Commentary, and I nterpretation,The Anchor Bible (New Y ork: Doubleday, 1990), p. 351.
9. 9. For an exposition of this parable, see Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith (New Y ork: Dutton, 2008). I use the w ord “prodigal” in its more original meaning of being “recklessly extravagant.” While the younger brother is w astefully so w ith money, the father show s himself to be extravagant w ith his grace.
10. 10. Flannery O’Connor, Wise Blood: A Novel (New Y ork: Farrar, Straus and G iroux, 1990), p. 22. I treat this subject of using religion to avoid G od in more depth in chapter 3, “Redefining Sin,” in The Prodigal God, pp. 34–54.
11. 11. “Jonah effectively view s himself as G od, turning the true G od into an element in a larger equation that Jonah himself w ants to control.” Daniel C. Timmer, A Gracious and Compassionate God: Mission, Salvation and Spirituality in the Book of Jonah (Dow ners G rove, I L: I nterVarsity Press, 2011), p. 144.
12. 12. Timmer points out that because Jonah has already been the “younger brother” and has asked for forgiveness, his relapse into being an elder brother is all the more shocking. “Jonah w ants to receive G od’s grace w ithout being changed by it, and at the same time to snatch it aw ay from those w hose lives are in fact changed by it.” Timmer, Gracious and Compassionate God, p. 133.

¹ “Generally the prophetic stories in the OT seek to glorify the man of God in the sense that he is revealed as a noble mediator of God’s own power and glory. But Jonah is no hero: he is deliberately portrayed in a very poor light. The concern of a number of OT prophetic narratives is to trace the process whereby a divine oracle was fulfilled. This book, on the contrary, breaks the pattern surprisingly by showing how and why a divine oracle, concerning the destruction of Nineveh, was not fulfilled.” Leslie C. Allen, The Books of Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1976), p. 175.

[2] The name “Jonah” means “dove,” although we would probably be inclined to think of this prophet as a “hawk.” “Amittai” means “[My] true one.”

¹ Stuart chooses to translate Tarshish as the “open sea,” Hosea-Jonah, p. 451. “Tarshish” comes from a Hebrew word for “stone.”

^[3] Harold Shank, Minor Prophets, The College Press NIV Commentary (Joplin, MO: College Press Pub. Co., 2001–), 336–338.

[4] “Nineveh’s wickedness comprised, besides her idolatry, her inordinate pride (cp. Is. 10:5‑19; 36:18‑20), and her cruel oppression of the conquered nations in deporting the entire populace to distant lands (2 Kings 15:29; 17:6; Is. 36:16, 17), her inhuman warfare.” Theodore Laetsch, The Minor Prophets (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1956), p. 221.

[5] “His intention to flee to Tarshish, an ancient Phoenician colony on the southwest coast of Spain, the farthest city to the west known at that time, ‘out of the world.’” Ibid., p. 221.

[6] “He fled ‘from the presence of the LORD.’ To stand in the presence of someone is often used in the sense of acting as one’s official minister. (Cp. Gen. 41:46; Deut. 1:38; 10:8; 1 Sam. 16:21f.; 1 Kings 17:1; 18:15; 2 Kings 3:14, etc.) To flee from His presence = to refuse to serve Him in this office.” Ibid., p. 222.

NIV New International Version, 1984

² On the Lord as sovereign over sea, see Exod 10:18–19; 14–15; Num 11:31; Job 26:12; Ps 89:9; 135:6; Isa 50:2; Nahum 1:4; Mark 4:37–39.

³ Allen, The Books, p. 207.

⁴ The word for “lot” is used 77 times, including Num 26:55; Josh 14:2; 1 Sam 10:20–24, 14:40–42; 1 Chr 24:5; 25:8; 26:13; Ps 16:5–6; Prov 16:33; Mark 15:24; Acts 1:24–26.

⁵ Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, p. 459, suggests that dice-like objects, with light and dark colors representing yes and no, were cast in front of each occupant of the ship until yes came up for Jonah.

⁶ Cf. the commentary at Jonah 4:1–6.

⁷ ”Hebrew” is thought to come either from the name Eber (Gen 10:24; 11:16), or from the word “to pass” so that the name means “people from the other side.”

⁸ On the name “Lord,” see the General Introduction, p. 15.

[7] “‘Fast asleep,’ used only in Niphal, denotes lying in deep, stupor-like sleep (Jonah 1:5, 6; Ps. 76:7, A.V., 6), ‘dead sleep’ (Judg. 4:21; Dan. 8:18; 10:9); the noun occurs in Gen. 2:21; 15:12; Prov. 19:15, etc.” Ibid., p. 223.

[8] “Get up and call … —Jonah must have thought he was having a nightmare: these were the very words with which God had disturbed his pleasant life a few days before.” Allen, pp. 207‑208.

[9] “‘I am a Hebrew,’ the usual term by which Israelites were known to foreigners (Gen. 14:13; 39:14, 17; 1 Sam. 29:3; Acts 6:1).” Laetsch, p. 225.

[10] “The epithet God of heaven which Jonah appends to the divine name, although an ancient one (Gen. 24:3, 7), sprang into popularity in the Persian period after the exile. It identified Yahweh as the supreme deity, the ultimate source of all power and authority. Jews used it especially in contacts with Gentiles, who it was assumed possessed a knowledge of Yahweh’s universal sovereignty as distinct from the Jews’ insight into the purposes of Yahweh as ‘God of our fathers.’ By this title Yahweh is presented as no mere local deity, but one to whom all peoples may look for help. This universalistic note is reinforced by the claim that Yahweh is maker of land and sea.” Allen, pp. 209‑210.

⁹ On the way to the great city, a great storm leads to a great fear which causes the sailors to send Jonah toward the great fish.

NIV New International Version, 1984

NIV New International Version, 1984

NIV New International Version, 1984

¹⁰ See Lev 27, Num 30, and Deut 23:21–23 on vow requirements.

^[11] Harold Shank, Minor Prophets, The College Press NIV Commentary (Joplin, MO: College Press Pub. Co., 2001–), 339–345.

[12] Ibid., pp. 210‑211. Allen seems to modify this somewhat in his footnote, not making Jonah much of a hero, for he is the villain, but I see Jonah as simply wanting out of his duty by death, as he tried to escape by flight. His suicidal plea later on in chapter 4 adds weight to this possibility.

[13] Laetsch, p. 227.

^[14] Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: Ezekiel, Daniel and the Minor Prophets (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2009), 181.

[15] Why didn’t God save Jonah through the efforts of the seamen? Allen (p. 211) rightly, I think, suggests that it is because He wants Jonah to know that He has saved him by a miraculous act of pure grace. Jonah needs a “salvation” that will parallel that which the Ninevites will receive. Jonah will delight in his deliverance, but not in that of the Ninevites.

[16] I have to smile at the title which Allen (p. 205) gives in his heading of vv. 4‑16, “Jonah’s Punishment: Heathen Homage.”

¹¹ Claus Westermann, Praise and Lament in the Psalms (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1965), pp. 103–104. For similar thanksgiving psalms, see Ps 30, 32, 34, 92, 116, 118, 138.

¹² Wolff, Obadiah and Jonah, p. 132.

¹³ See Wolff’s citation of quotations to this effect from ancient literature, ibid., p. 133.

¹⁴ ”Grave” translates the Hebrew “Sheol” which was the realm of the dead. Cf. Prov 1:12; Isa 5:14.

^[17] Harold Shank, Minor Prophets, The College Press NIV Commentary (Joplin, MO: College Press Pub. Co., 2001–), 345–347.

[18] Allen, p. 212.