JONAH, NAHUM, HABAKKUK, AND ZEPHANIAH are four of the minor prophets. Although they are “minor” in length (each is about fifty verses), they are a crucial portion of God’s revelation to his people. Originally, they were part of one scroll called “The Book of the Twelve,” which included Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. These twelve cover approximately three hundred significant years (750 B.C. to 450 B.C.) of Israel’s prophetic tradition. Their canonical order is based on biblical references to the prophets’ political activity. The first five prophets (Hosea to Jonah) were active sometime during the reign of Jeroboam II (d. 746 B.C.), king of the ten northern tribes. Micah was active just after that time (Micah 1:1), probably until 701 B.C., when Jerusalem almost fell to the Assyrians (see Isa. 36–39).
After a period of seventy years, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah speak, during the new crisis of the rise of Babylon, which destroyed Nineveh (Nahum’s prophecy) and would later destroy Judah (Habakkuk’s and Zephaniah’s prophecies). Jeremiah was a contemporary of these prophets. None of the minor prophets prophesied during the seventy-year Babylonian exile. The last three (Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi) coincide with the return from exile and the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple. The four books covered in this commentary are at the center of “The Book of the Twelve.”1 They call God’s people to consider what it means to be faithful when violent enemies press upon them.
Jonah’s Content and Messages
THE BOOK OF Jonah contains only fifty-eight verses, but those few verses include a storm at sea, the conversion of sailors, a miraculous rescue, a song of praise, the repentance of Israel’s archenemy, and an intensely honest dialogue between the Yahweh and Israel’s most reluctant prophet. They reveal the nature of Yahweh’s relationship to the Gentile sailors, to Israel’s enemy Nineveh, to nonhuman creation (the wind, a fish, vine, worm, and cattle), as well as to his messenger Jonah. The book is, in many ways, a microcosm of God’s relationship to his whole creation in history. Although the narrative is sometimes melodramatic, it covers serious subject matter. It provides an occasion for discussion of what no one really wants to talk about: God’s role in the persistence of evil in the world. Jonah is engaged in an earnest protest (his running away from Nineveh) and discussion (in ch. 4) with God about the violent Ninevites.
The theme of life and death is developed in all four chapters, as the narrative explores life in relationship to Yahweh. The text considers the Ninevites’ evil and their repentance, Jonah’s response to God’s difficult call, and the sailors’ trust in and worship of the true God. Jonah 1 is about the threatened death and saved life of the sailors and Jonah. 2 concerns Jonah’s death and life within Yahweh’s great fish. Chapter 3 is about the death and life of the Ninevites and their animals. Chapter 4 focuses on the life and death of the vine as God’s object lesson for the Ninevites’ and Jonah’s life in the presence of the Creator.
The book is also about the struggle of all peoples to come to terms with God’s reputation. Jonah was reluctant to go and preach against Nineveh (Jonah 1:1–4) because of their legendary violence and terror. He knew that if they should repent, God would likely relent from his fierce anger. His preference was that they should be destroyed. As Jonah said, “I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity” (4:2b).
Jonah runs from Yahweh’s presence (in Israel) by boarding a ship for Tarshish, and Yahweh “hurls” a great wind to slow him down. The storm causes the sailors, whose lives are on the line (1:5–12), to cry out to their own gods, lighten the ship, and cast lots to discover whose sin caused such a violent storm. They interrogate Jonah, hear his witness, and are terrified, since his god is Yahweh, who “made the sea and the land.” Finally, they ask Yahweh’s prophet what to do. He acknowledges his guilt and offers himself as a sacrifice for their safety.
The sailors’ relationship to Yahweh then moves to the foreground (1:13–16). With charity toward Jonah, they attempt to row out of their difficulty, but the sea grows “even wilder than before,” and they cry out to Yahweh for mercy. When they throw Jonah overboard, the sea stands still, and the sailors believe, offer sacrifices, and make vows to the God of heaven, sea, and earth. With the sailors worshiping onboard, the text’s attention turns to Jonah in the water. Yahweh’s great fish swallows him, and Jonah, like the sailors, prays a prayer of thanksgiving (1:17, 2:1–10).
In Jonah 2 Jonah gives thanks for his life, from within the belly of the great fish. It begins with a summary of his “distress and cry” and continues with four more stanzas (verses) that describe Jonah’s distress in the water before he was swallowed (2:3–6). The waves at the surface swept over him, and he longed for the temple, sunk to the seaweed on the bottom, and finally to the ocean floor (2:6). The song of thanks concludes with Jonah’s refrain, and he declares that “salvation comes from the LORD.” Yahweh’s fish then vomits Jonah onto dry land (2:7–10).
Jonah 3 concerns the Ninevites’ (and their animals’) relationship to the Creator. When Yahweh’s word comes to Jonah “a second time,” he obeys immediately, and he completes the mission on the first day: “The Ninevites believed God” (3:1–5). The king hears how the city has been overturned in repentance. He, too, responds in belief and in hope that God will “with compassion turn from his fierce anger.” God does (3:6–10).
Chapter 4 returns to Jonah’s relationship with God and highlights Jonah’s anger and God’s abiding love. Jonah has fulfilled his calling to Nineveh only under the threat of his own death (see ch. 2). Now his anger with Yahweh’s way is made fully manifest (4:1–5). In an attempt to demonstrate his compassion and make his point, Yahweh sends a vine to shade him, then a worm to destroy the shade, and finally a scorching wind (4:6–8). The book concludes as Yahweh reasons with Jonah, declaring his concern for all he has created, including 120,000 Ninevites as well as their cattle (4:9–11).
Interpretations
THROUGH THE CENTURIES Christians have held many diverse and wide-ranging interpretations of the primary message of Jonah. The narrative’s rich imagery and plentiful themes help explain this diversity. Commentaries have, unfortunately, often focused on one salient message or another as if it were the message of the whole. Four general messages have been developed through the centuries of interpretation that continue to influence our understanding of Jonah today, although each limits the book in its own way.2
The Sovereignty of God and a Moral Tale: John Calvin and Disney’s Pinocchio
THIS TRADITION OF interpretation presents Jonah as a negative example. Calvin suggests that Jonah wrote this account in order to teach us the futility of fleeing from God. Jonah is severely chastised by Calvin for his “disgraceful obstinacy” in fleeing his duty for the pleasures of Tarshish.3 In a secular twist on this view, Walt Disney’s movie Pinocchio (which rewrote the original book with Jonah-like themes) portrays a rebellious puppet who is swallowed by a whale. The moral fairy tale of “the sufferings of the disobedient” plays out a warning similar to Calvin’s reading of Jonah.4 The characters of both Jonah and Pinocchio are portrayed as negative moral examples, whose behavior and attitudes we are to avoid in order to thwart suffering. The purpose of Jonah is to make us obedient through the fear of Yahweh.
A related vein of interpretation has been to see Jonah as an allegory for the church’s responsibility to missionary outreach. When one is called to ministry or mission, resistance is futile. This approach does not take into account the vibrant biblical tradition of vigorous conversation and even protest that God invites (with Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and many of the prophets). Neither does it consider Jesus’ positive assessment of Jonah as an example in relation to himself (Matt. 12:39–41; Luke 11:29–32).
Repentance and Forgiveness of the Ninevites
THE AMAZINGLY SWIFT repentance and deliverance of the Ninevites is a strong message in Jonah 3. The miracle of their repentance from evil is in many ways as astounding as the fish that swallows Jonah. There are several lessons in this theme. Sometimes God’s grace breaks in unexpectedly, people turn to him, and God forgives. If the Ninevites can repent, anyone can. Their model of repentance has been presented as the main theme of Jonah in the history of interpretation by both Christian and Jewish commentators.5 Jonah is an antihero in this tradition of interpretation. He is opposed to the repentance (and even the survival!) of Israel’s violent enemy, the Ninevites. According to this view, the purpose of Jonah is, therefore, to demonstrate the love of God for all people and to bring us to repentance before a gracious and merciful God. This God will not condemn anyone who seeks him.
The limitation of this theme is its relative absence in chapters 1, 2, and 4. The sailors in chapter 1, for instance, simply cry out to their gods and to God to be saved from the storm (not necessarily for repentance). Jonah does not repent in his prayer in chapter 2 but simply gives thanks for his unexpected deliverance. Jonah once again does not repent in chapter 4 (though we may wish he would) but remains angry and defiant before God. In addition, Yahweh’s rationale (in ch. 4) for pardon is not that the Ninevites should be accepted because of their repentance (even though that is necessary). He argues, rather, that they are to be pitied as his ignorant creation (4:11). Certainly repentance is an important theme, but it does not carry the weight of all four chapters.
Jonah Is Submitted to Scientific Proofs
POPULARIZED BY REV. E. PUSEY’S 1860 commentary, this relatively recent tradition focuses on the size and species of the fish/whale, the size of the fish’s larynx and stomach, the availability of breathable air, and so on.6 In this view Jonah is a litmus test of one’s belief in science as a means of proving the veracity of the Bible. This approach limits the message of Jonah to two verses and a specific nineteenth-century view of reality (1:17: “But the LORD provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights”; 2:10: “And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.”).
Preoccupation with the big fish (the Heb. has “big fish,” not “whale”) has had both a positive and negative effect on the interpretation of Jonah in communities of faith. Positively, the great fish has kindled imagination and interest in Jonah as a book. Negatively, however, the great fish has so dominated this interpretation that the discussion of the book has been limited to this question: “Was Jonah really swallowed by that whale?” This question has served as a distraction from God’s Word. For some, it is a test of literary sophistication, and to answer “yes” excludes you from the company of the supposedly well-read. Answer “no,” and many will assume that you do not believe in miracles, or worse, in the authority of Scripture. When this litmus test is over, many assume that everything important about Jonah has been settled.
As to the question whether Jonah was really swallowed by the “whale,” people of faith offer two possibilities: Either it really happened, or this is a literary device in a parable, telling a wonderful story of instruction. Some Christian interpreters have used this second approach in an attempt to rescue the book of Jonah for people of faith. Their motivation was to save the message (kerygma) of biblical books by demythologizing texts like Jonah.
I personally have no difficulty believing that the prophet was actually engulfed, housed, and vomited by a great fish. This miracle is easier to believe than the greater miracle of the Ninevites’ immediate repentance. But the actuality of the fish is not an article of Christian faith. Many people of faith believe the bodily resurrection of Jesus and all his miracles, yet regard Jonah as similar to Jesus’ story of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:29–37). It is even possible to hold to the doctrine of the inerrancy of the original manuscripts of Scripture and regard Jonah as a unique parable about a real prophet (2 Kings 14:25). In any case, no other prophetic book is so focused on the prophet and filled with such parable-like writing.
As much as I believe the events described in the book, we should resist the use of the “whale” question as a litmus test for orthodoxy. Such a question obfuscates the Word of God in Jonah and preempts a reader’s discovering God’s message for today. That message must not be eclipsed by our modern preoccupations with physical phenomena. The powerful messages of reconciliation with God, his creating power, and his persistent call for his people to speak to unbelievers concerning the Lord of all creation are essential themes of Jonah. How does the miracle of the big fish serve the message of the book? This unanticipated deliverance was a surprise to Jonah, who expected to die in the water. His own miraculous physical deliverance, when all hope was lost, caused him to rethink his views on God’s way with evil men.
Jonah and Typologies: Like a Reluctant Israel or Like Christ?
IN A FOURTH interpretation, Jonah has been reshaped as a type or example of a prideful and haughty Jew (or Israel). Especially at the end of the Middle Ages in Europe this anti-Semitic typology began to take hold in sermons and commentary.7 Jonah becomes a stingy prophet who refuses to share the word of Yahweh with the non-Jew. This view goads believers not to be narrow-minded in relation to God’s forgiveness and grace. Unfortunately, this interpretive method often succumbs to the implication “narrow-minded, like the Jews” and leads to human judgment and disdain (anti-Semitism), the inversion of the forgiveness and grace of God. Such a typology with its inherent anti-Semitism deconstructs its own purpose and ought to be avoided.
The Jewish holocaust of the twentieth century requires a fresh assessment of Christian interpretation. The biblical facts of the Jonah text simply do not support the split Jew-Gentile reading. No judgment is given in Jonah against the (Gentile pagan) sailors who pray to their own gods, nor for their subsequent sacrifice to Yahweh that takes place on the ship, rather than in Jerusalem. “Gentiles” (goyim) are never mentioned or even alluded to as Jonah’s problem. Jonah’s issue with Nineveh is its violence and wickedness (see comments on Jonah 1:2; 3:8, 10). These problems pertain to Israel as well, as we see in the other prophetic books.
Another typology has its origin in the New Testament. Jesus compared himself to Jonah in a positive light. The early church fathers followed this interpretation of Jonah as a sign (or type) of Jesus’ own ministry, death, and resurrection (Matt. 12:39–41; Luke 11:29–32). Jonah—in the ship, in the water, in the fish, and back on dry land (Jonah 1 and 2)—is compared to Jesus’ incarnation, suffering, death, and resurrection. Jonah’s success in his preaching in Nineveh and its people, resulting in salvation through repentance (chs. 3 and 4), is compared to Jesus’ success in preaching and saving humanity. The limitations of any typology apply to this reading as well. If Jonah is read Christologically, it is no longer read as Jonah. Yet, Jesus has pointed out a positive lens through which the prophet ought to be (but almost never is) viewed. The positive application of this theme will be explored in the Contemporary Significance section of chapter 1.
It is presently in fashion to claim that since Jonah does not state a purpose or single theme, since it contains so many theological themes and possibilities, and since it has such a long and diverse history of interpretation, determining a single theme is imprudent. The complexities and diverse wonders of the text should all be faithfully considered.8 Jonah certainly is rich in text and in interpretation. This commentary attempts to reflect some of that great inheritance. At the same time, limitations of space and the commitment to edify the church require at least some general proposal of theme.
The Rehabilitation of Jonah’s Reputation in Our Eyes
UNDERSTANDING JONAH AS a true prophet of God, in its original biblical context, is a challenge for evangelical readers. As long as we insist that Jonah is an example of a “bad” prophet, we will never understand why Jesus used him as a twofold “good” example. Jesus’ favorable view of the prophet invites us to remove our modern theological lenses and examine Jonah’s biblical roots and the context of other faithful prophets. Jesus’ positive appraisal of Jonah leads us to consider him as a faithful example of preaching (Jonah 3) and challenges our preconceptions of the prophet’s motivations for fleeing to Tarshish.
Jonah was a faithful prophet because God was deeply involved in his life at every stage. Jonah’s frailty in running from God’s call is not hidden from view, but Jesus neither vilifies nor blames him for it. His reputation as a true prophet is not tarnished. Few biblical figures are iron-clad in their faithfulness (perhaps Joseph or Daniel comes the closest). Most of them confirmed God’s call on their lives first by resisting it. This pattern of “call—resistance—call confirmed with a sign” is repeated in the lives of many people whom God called to difficult tasks, including Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Jeremiah, Jonah, and even the apostle Peter.
God visited Abraham four times with the promise that he would make him a great nation (Gen. 12:1–3; 15:1–6; 17:1–21; 18:1–15). After Yahweh’s first call (Gen. 12), Abram went forth from Haran, but in Egypt he relied on trickery to save himself, thereby jeopardizing Sarai in Pharaoh’s harem (12:10–20). Called a second time (Gen. 15), Abram argued with God and suggested that Eliezer of Damascus be his heir. God, unperturbed, simply repeated to Abram the promise of a son and gave him a terrifying dream to confirm it (15:12–20). Called a third time, Abraham (by this time God had changed his and Sarah’s names) fell down laughing and pleaded that God bless Ishmael, the son of his concubine, instead of persisting in blessing the nations through Sarah’s son (17:17–18). Again, Abraham was not chastised for his differing viewpoint; God accepted and understood his perspective, while insisting on his own.
In Genesis 18 Abraham negotiated with God over the fate of Sodom, asking nine questions (18:23–33). God welcomed Abraham’s participation, which he had initiated (18:17–21). Finally, before Isaac was conceived, Abraham and Sarah again jeopardized God’s calling when Abraham lied and Sarah moved into Abimelech’s tent (20:1–18). All wombs were closed and an epidemic broke out. After Sarah was restored to Abraham, she conceived and bore Isaac (21:1–3).
A similar summary can be written for the call of Moses, who resisted God’s call with many arguments until God became angry with him (Ex. 3:11–4:17). Later he passively resisted God by not circumcising his son. Without the intervention of his wife, Zipporah, he would have been killed (4:24–26). Nonetheless, Moses was not considered a bad example for his resistance. It is a necessary part of the narrative and is a biblical view of the relationship between God and the people he calls. God’s call comes with abundant grace to strengthen the frail of heart. Jonah’s story is in many ways similar.
The prophet Jeremiah struggled to the point of death with his call and messages from Yahweh:
O LORD, you deceived me, and I was deceived;
you overpowered me and prevailed.
I am ridiculed all day long;
everyone mocks me.
Whenever I speak, I cry out
proclaiming violence and destruction.
So the word of the LORD has brought me
insult and reproach all day long.
But if I say, “I will not mention him
or speak any more in his name,”
his word is in my heart like a fire,
a fire shut up in my bones.
I am weary of holding it in;
indeed, I cannot. (Jer. 20:7–9)
Jeremiah resisted Yahweh to the point that he cried out for his own death (Jer. 20:14–18), much like Jonah (Jonah 1:12; 4:3, 8, 9). This is an integral part of the life of prophets who are called to the most difficult tasks. Jonah’s flight from Israel was not moral rebellion as it is sometimes described. It was prophetic resistance, in the classical Old Testament tradition, to an extremely difficult word from Yahweh (forgiveness of the terror-mongers of Nineveh). God honored Jonah’s resistance, as he honored the resistance of Abram, Moses, and Jeremiah. Yahweh confirmed his call by facing him and delivering him from death.9
If we return Jonah to his Old Testament context, our modern “iron-clad” view of him and of prophets in general may be rehabilitated. In Scripture God does not work with automatons but with people of intelligence and integrity, whose authentic humanity is part of his difficult work in the world. Jonah’s protest in running was both a genuine protest and a theological rebellion (sin). Nonetheless, God is not surprised (as we are) that those whom he calls struggle with that call. If we rehabilitate our view of Jonah, we may also find ourselves and our own hidden protests against God rehabilitated as well. We may find hope for our struggles against the persistence and longevity of violent persons and nations who inflict terror on civilian populations. When we consider that God’s plan is that even these people come to repentance and be forgiven, we may have a new appreciation for Jonah’s flight.
Historical Context
THE PROPHET JONAH, son of Amittai, is mentioned twice in the Old Testament (2 Kings 14:25; Jonah 1:1). In 2 Kings 14:23–27 he is described as a true prophet:
In the fifteenth year of Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah, Jeroboam son of Jehoash king of Israel became king in Samaria, and he reigned forty-one years. He did evil in the eyes of the LORD and did not turn away from any of the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit. 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.
The LORD had seen how bitterly everyone in Israel, whether slave or free, was suffering; there was no one to help them. And since the LORD had not said he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam son of Jehoash.
Dating Jonah
COGENT ARGUMENTS AND warrants have been given by scholars for dates in each of the centuries between the eighth and the fourth centuries B.C. The dating of the final form of the composition of Jonah is widely disputed and includes a vast array of suggestions.10 Mainstream scholarship argues for the fifth-fourth century range. Arguments for this later dating include Jonah’s familiarity with Jeremiah (seventh-century B.C.) and Aramaic spellings, words, and grammatical constructions common to postexilic writing (after 538 B.C.). Further, Persian influences (538–333 B.C.) are seen in two descriptions of Ninevite practice: the decree given “by the decree of the king and his nobles” (Jonah 3:7) and “but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth” (3:8a). This commentary does not seek to summarize those arguments or to offer a new suggestion for the writer’s or the editor’s correct quarter century.
Jonah’s disagreement with Yahweh concerning the forgiveness of violent enemies was an enduring theological dialogue that could have been discussed in Israel as early as Jonah’s lifetime (770 B.C.). Forward from this time the manuscript could have been edited and preserved through the centuries of Assyria’s power and fall (612), still being relevant in the time of the Babylonian exile (587–538) and in the subsequent struggle of reconstruction under the Persians (538–333). The messages of the book continued to be relevant while the Jews were under the thumb of the Greeks (333–163) and the Romans (163 B.C.–A.D. 70) until it found its present place in the Hebrew canon (about A.D. 90).
The dispute in Jonah concerning the forgiveness of the violent Ninevites would have been more readily accepted at a time after Assyria was no longer a threat to Israel (after 612 B.C.). It is no surprise that after the destruction of Nineveh, Jonah’s perspective in his dispute with Yahweh was taken seriously by Israel (that Nineveh should have been destroyed). Nineveh’s evil did, in fact, outlast its repentance, as it was overturned in destruction by the Babylonian-Mede alliance in 612 B.C. Scholarly agreement on a date for Jonah is less important (and less possible) than awareness of the historical suffering of Israel at the hands of the Assyrians and their overzealous violence. The inspiration of this book enabled Israel to consider the same question of forgiveness with each of its subsequent oppressors (Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, etc.). The layers of history may echo the same enduring question, regardless of date: “If the violent repent, should God forgive them without consequence for their actions?” Jonah’s objection is always relevant.
Time Chart: Historical Events and the Canonical Order of the Twelve Minor Prophets
THE CANONICAL SETTING of the book is essential for understanding why Jonah ran from Yahweh’s call to Nineveh. The narrative of Jonah is set (by the biblical canon) in the eighth century B.C. during the days of Jeroboam II (786–746 B.C.). “Jonah son of Amittai” is the prophet of 2 Kings 14:25, and the style and content of Jonah easily fit following the Elijah and Elisha narratives of 1 Kings 17–2 Kings 13. Jonah follows Hosea and Amos, his contemporaries, who also prophesied during the reign of Jeroboam II. Micah follows Jonah since Micah prophesied after the death of Jeroboam II (Mic. 1:1).
Regardless of when Jonah reached its final form, it is presented in the Book of the Twelve as a book to be understood and interpreted in an eighth-century context. In the eighth century Assyria had already established a hundred-year-old reputation throughout the ancient Near East as a cruel enemy. Near the end of Jonah’s life Assyria was rising to its greatest height of power and terror. The following chart demonstrates Jonah’s canonical (biblical) context.
| Event | Date B.C. |
|---|---|
Death of Ashurnasirpal II (Assyria), who boasted of his violence and torture |
859 |
Battle of Qarqar: Shalmanezer III* (Assyria) defeats King Ahab (Israel) |
853 |
Death of Jeroboam II** |
746 |
Beginning of Assyrian domination of ancient Near East |
745 |
Israel pillaged by Tiglath-Pileser III (Assyria) (2 Kings 15) |
734–732 |
Building of Nineveh into a “great city” by Tiglath-Pileser III |
727 |
Israel’s northern ten tribes are destroyed/enslaved by Shalmanezer V |
722 |
Prophet Micah’s arrival in Jerusalem (after Jeroboam) |
before 701 |
Sennacherib of Assyria besieges (but does not capture) Jerusalem and sacks Judean cities (2 Kings 18–19) |
701 |
Josiah (Judah) reforms Jerusalem in the ways of Yahweh (2 Kings 22–23) |
621 |
Nahum active in Jerusalem, prophesies Assyria’s (Nineveh’s) fall |
615 |
Nineveh’s fall to Babylonians and Medes |
612 |
605 |
|
Zephaniah prophesies of Judah’s judgment and surviving remnant*** |
622 |
Babylonians capture Jerusalem and first exiles deported |
597 |
Jerusalem falls again after rebellion; major deportation |
586 |
Babylon falls to Cyrus (Persian); exiles begin to return to the land |
539 |
Haggai and Zechariah prophesy during reign of Darius I (Persia) |
520 |
Malachi prophesies during the Ezra-Nehemiah mission |
460–430 |
* According to Shalmanezer III, Ahab lost 2000 chariots and 10,000 men; Israel paid tribute to Assyria.
** Prophets Hosea, Joel, Amos, and Obadiah (with Isaiah) were active during some part of the reign of Jeroboam II (Israel). Jonah prophesied correctly during this reign that Jeroboam II would restore Israel’s borders (2 Kings 14:25–27).
*** Placed out of sequence in the biblical canon probably because the remnant had hope in his prophecy.
The Terror-Mongers of Nineveh, Assyria
THE ASSYRIAN KINGS were proud of their cruel and terrible reputation and went to great trouble and expense to record their exploits for posterity.11 Archaeologists have uncovered many reliefs (large stone wall panels with carved depictions) of grisly post-battle scenes, which were erected in palaces so that they could be seen daily. In addition, written descriptions of post-battle tortures of prisoners were preserved on obelisks and cylindrical pillars. Discovered in these pictorial and written displays are gruesome details and horrific boasting. “It is as gory and bloodcurdling a history as we know.”12
Assyrians boasted of their cruelty to captured peoples following the siege of their town or city, and their victims were not limited to combatants. (Warning: What follows is rated “R” for gore and violence.) Records brag of live dismemberment, often leaving one hand attached so they could shake it before the person died. They made parades of heads, requiring friends of the deceased to carry them elevated on poles. They boasted of their practice of stretching live prisoners with ropes so they could be skinned alive. The human skins were then displayed on city walls and on poles. They commissioned pictures of their post-battle tortures where piles of heads, hands, and feet, and heads impaled on poles—eight heads to a stake—were displayed. They pulled out the tongues and testicles of live victims and burned the young alive.
Those who survived the sack of their city were tied in long lines of enslavement and deported to Assyrian cities to labor on building projects. Tens of thousands in hundreds of cities suffered this fate over the two hundred and fifty years of the Assyrians’ reign of terror (c. 883–612). Two Assyrian kings distinguished themselves in boasting of cruelty before the time of the prophet Jonah son of Amittai. Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 B.C.) wrote, for example:
I flayed [the skin from] as many nobles as had rebelled against me [and] draped their skins over the pile [of corpses].… I cut off the heads of their fighters [and] built [with them] a tower before their city. I burnt their adolescent boys [and] girls.… I captured many troops alive: I cut off of some their arms [and] hands; I cut off of others their noses, ears, [and] extremities. I gouged out the eyes of many troops. I made one pile of the living [and] one of the heads. I hung their heads on trees around the city.13
Ashurnasirpal’s son, Shalmaneser III (858–824 B.C.), is famous for his pictorial depictions of cruelty in large stone relief wall panels. A description of one panel is enough:
We see an Assyrian soldier grasping the hand and arm of a [living] captured enemy whose other hand and both feet have already been cut off. Dismembered hands and feet fly through the scene. Severed enemy heads hang from the conquered city’s walls.14
This cultural tradition of boasting of torture continued in Assyrian records in the eighth century, as Assyria expanded its empire. Tiglath-Pileser III (744–727 B.C.) threatened Israel, capturing and deporting some of the population (2 Kings 15:29). Shalmaneser V (726–722 B.C.) sacked Samaria (2 Kings 18:10). Sargon II (722–705 B.C.) finished the job in 722, leading to what we now call the “ten lost tribes of Israel.” He enslaved 27,290 Israelites according to his record. Sennacherib (705–681 B.C.), who moved the capital of Assyria to Nineveh, besieged the people of Jerusalem. Yahweh delivered them miraculously (at the time of King Hezekiah and Isaiah), although the surrounding towns and villages fell and were plundered (2 Kings 19).15
Given this historical context, the prophet Jonah was in a difficult situation. Yahweh asked him to go to his cultural enemies and proclaim judgment in the capital city (“Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned,” Jonah 3:4). He was asked to risk his life preaching and had no guarantees that he would not, like other unwelcomed prophets, be killed. Yet if he succeeded in his mission and they repented, he would not be welcome in Israel. No one, including God’s chosen prophet, desired the possibility and threat of their enduring existence. He was caught between a rock and a hard place. In this situation, many would, like Jonah, act on the third possibility, that of flight.
Literary Elements and Meaning
JONAH IS AN imaginative and superlative narrative. Most of the places, emotions, and events are called “great.” The Hebrew root gdl is used fifteen times in the book in the following ways: Jonah 1:2 (“great city of Nineveh”); 1:4 (“great wind” and “such a violent [lit., great] storm”); 1:10 (“this terrified them”; lit., “they feared a great fear”); 1:12 (“great storm”); 1:16 (“greatly feared the LORD”); 1:17 (“great fish”); 3:2 (“great city of Nineveh”); 3:3 (“a very important city”; lit., “a great city to God”); 3:5 (“from the greatest [person] to the least”); 3:7 (“nobles”; lit., “great ones”); 4:1 (“greatly displeased”; lit., “great calamity”); 4:6 (“very happy”; lit., “greatly joyful”); 4:10 (“make it grow”; lit., “make it great”); 4:11 (“great city”).
This “greatness” gives the story of Jonah timeless appeal to teachers and students. Some have interpreted these unusual superlatives as indicating the fantastical quality of the story, that is, that no one would mistake this “over the top” story for a historical narrative. (Something similar is sometimes argued for the creation story in Genesis 1.) Given the creational subject matter of Jonah, the claim to true “greatness” should not be so easily quarantined. It claims no less than a radical shift in Israel’s orientation toward her enemies. It declares a new ethic in religious and political alignment. It calls Jonah to make God’s word available to the most evil of Israel’s antagonists, at his own peril. This is a story in which the superlatives linguistically undergird its assertion and have perpetuated its telling.
Jonah the Prophet: Lessons of Irony
THE BOOK OF Jonah is in a class by itself. It is not like other books of prophecy, and Jonah does not act like other prophets. Nor is this book filled with the prophet’s poetic oracles. He speaks only a few words of formal prophecy (Jonah 3:4b: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.”). The book is written about Jonah in the past tense, and the book never refers to him as a prophet. It is sometimes called a parable or a satire. It looks like a historical narrative that belongs in 2 Kings, but it is in the “book of the prophets.”
Jonah is most like the book of Job: a dialogue between God and a pious man who does not agree with God’s way in the world. It is a didactic story of the wisdom tradition (included among prophets, because Jonah is a prophet in 2 Kings 14:25). This form of piety is common in the Old Testament, though it is not common in many Christian communities of faith. God invites his people into conversation, and even disputes, concerning his way in the world.
Jonah’s argument with God is not unique, but Jonah runs away in refusal of his call. Ironically, when he is “convinced” to accept it, he is unbelievably successful. The whole city repents without an argument after only one day of a three-day mission. Rather than rejoicing, however, Jonah becomes suicidal, despairing of his own prophetic success.
The book is full of ironies. He is a true prophet who at first refuses to prophesy. Jonah says, “I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land” (Jonah 1:9b), but he runs from God on the sea, to another land (see Bridging Contexts on 1:9). He refuses (ch. 1) and is reluctant (ch. 3) to prophesy, yet the sailors and the Ninevites all turn to Yahweh. He leads the sailors and the Ninevites to the brink of death, but Yahweh saves them all. Pagans (sailors and Ninevites) turn to Yahweh in crisis (1:14; 3:5). Jonah runs (1:3) and walks away (4:5).
All this irony has a purpose for the reader and the message of the book. Things are not as simple as they seem. Jonah’s protest and dialogue with Yahweh raises complex questions about God’s relationship to the wicked of the world. His ironic responses draw the reader in to take a second look at the prophet who says more by his protestations and conversations than by the few words of his formal prophecy. Jonah reveals God’s identity and way in the world through his conversations, arguments, and whole life of protest and response. He is an atypical prophet, but he is true to his calling, even in protest.
Structure
JONAH HAS A simple parallel structure, with two parallel stories.
• Jonah is with the pagan sailors/pagan Ninevites (chs. 1, 3).
• Jonah speaks to Yahweh (chs. 2, 4).
Seven scenes are established by divisions in the ancient manuscript.16 This commentary further subdivides these seven scenes by rhetorical signs in the text. These traditional scene divisions guide the reader and demonstrate further the two parallel panels (1–3 and 4–6). Comparisons between scene 3 and scene 6 have carried the most significance for commentators (see Bridging Contexts section on 4:1–5).
1. Jonah’s call and reaction (1:1–3) |
4. Jonah’s second call and reaction (3:1–3a) |
2. In the storm at sea (1:4–16) |
5. In Nineveh (3:3b–10) |
3. Prayer in the fish (1:17–2:10) |
6. Prayer in Nineveh (4:1–5)17 |
7. God’s questions outside Nineveh (4:6–11) |
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Theology: Jonah and God’s Way in the World
JONAH HAS A variety of responses to God’s call on his life. The conversation between God and Jonah begins and ends with what ought to be done about wicked and ignorant people in the “great city” of Nineveh (Jonah 1:1; 4:11). Jonah’s perspective on strict justice versus God’s desire to forgive even the most heinous sinners is the subject of debate. Jonah’s last substantive argument summarizes his perspective: “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” (4:2b). Jonah doesn’t like it. God insists on it (see Bridging Contexts section of ch. 4).
As noted above, the Assyrians prided themselves on cruel means of torture and killing. Commonsense logic prevails in Jonah’s perspective—a logic widely shared in his day and commonplace yet today. “What goes around comes around” expresses the view of strict justice. When the perpetrator of a heinous crime says, “I’m sorry, I’ll never do it again,” proponents of this view are not impressed. Most people still believe that the wicked should pay consequences for their crimes, not have the consequences removed through forgiveness. As long as a violent threat exists, it constitutes a present danger.
Jonah learned through a series of personal experiences that God’s compassion and clemency were not weaknesses in God’s justice, but were better justice than human justice. Jonah personally felt the weight of God’s judgment in the storm at sea. He experienced his own false moral superiority (above God’s!) in being willing to die for his position while sinking beneath the waves. His unanticipated rescue by God’s fish caused him to pray and to begin rethinking his adamant position on strict justice. He realized the value of God’s better justice when it was directed toward him. By Jonah’s own standards, he knew he deserved to drown for his rebellion. He was taught that his own purposeful rebellion as well as Nineveh’s ignorant rebellion both required God’s intervention.
Jonah became angry again (ch. 4) at the Ninevites’ escape from death. In realizing the needs and longings of his own humanity, Jonah points out all creation’s basic reliance on God’s forgiveness to temper strict justice and grant undeserved deliverance. Jonah’s special contribution to the canon is in God’s question: “Should I not be concerned?…” (4:11). God’s concern is for the part of his creation that is ignorant of his ways and yet responsible for their actions (see Bridging Contexts section of ch. 4).
The Good News of Jonah
THE PROPHETIC GOOD news of Jonah is found in learning how God thinks. God reveals how he thinks about the ignorant wicked, repentance as a means of salvation, and the discomfort of his disagreeable chosen prophet. Interpreters have divided opinions about the prophet’s theological contribution. Is the good news of Jonah found only in God’s viewpoint (everyone gets second chances, the repentant wicked are forgiven, and God is patiently logical with his disgruntled prophet)? Is Jonah only a flat figure who is disgruntled, disobedient, and angry? Some see him as a comic figure who, among other things, thinks he can successfully run away from God. In this view, he is not a proper prophet who speaks on behalf of God. Most of his words and actions are rebellious.
Nevertheless (and this is the minority opinion, supported in this commentary), Jonah is a mouthpiece for God’s word in the midst of his dispute with God. He is disobedient, runs away from God, and is angry about God’s clemency for the violent Ninevites. But his rebellion is grounded in God’s Word as he has learned it and as it is proclaimed in the Bible. The wicked will perish. High-handed rebellion will not be pardoned, even in repentance (Num. 15:27–31). Jonah’s opinion concerning Nineveh, far from being rebellious, represents a major opinion that is a necessary part of any dialogue with God about wickedness in the world. Until Jonah’s dialogue with God, the prophet’s opinion about the wicked was known as God’s way in the world.
Jonah is a true prophet voicing a true theology. In this sense he is not rebellious. Jonah is being faithful to what he knows to be God’s word (strict justice) when God asks him to contravene that word with a new word. God’s new word is a controversial word (even among believers today). Jonah’s questions and actions in reaction to this new word are faithful to the word from Yahweh that he previously received. Jonah the prophet and Jonah the book faithfully struggle with this difficult question: “What should be done about the violently wicked who repent?” This is an even more difficult question than the early church’s struggle to understand how righteous Gentiles (like Cornelius in Acts 10) could receive God’s grace and Holy Spirit.
Jonah is a faithful prophet because he is true to speaking God’s word (of justice) as he has known it, even to God. When he is convinced by his unexpected deliverance from the sea that God is determined to extend his forgiveness to the previously unforgivable, he goes and preaches this word to Nineveh. He is faithful to protest to God (like Abraham, Moses, and Jeremiah) in Jonah 4 when the continuance of the repentant wicked seems likely. He demonstrates his integrity in representing traditional justice and by preaching to Nineveh. Jonah’s protest provides an occasion for God’s revelation of a better justice (4:10–11) in the context of the life of a true and honest man. The good news is that Jonah’s struggle is accepted by God as a legitimate human struggle to understand the continuance of wickedness in the world.