Jonah’s Lesson (4:1–11)
I knew … (4:2). Jonah’s list of five attributes (gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, loyal love, and relenting) is practically creedal in the OT (Ex. 34:6; Neh. 9:17; Ps. 86:15; Joel 2:13). The gods of the ancient Near East can be described in similar terms when maintenance of justice is at issue. In a nineteenth century B.C. prayer to Utu (the sun god), the god is described as “Righteous god, who loves to preserve people alive, who hears prayer, long on mercy, who knows clemency, loving justice, choosing righteousness.”47 In addition, prayers in the ancient Near East request the gods to be merciful (comparable to the Hebrew words translated “gracious” and “compassionate”), and they portray them as showing mercy to the afflicted. The god Gula, for example, is described as “merciful and compassionate.”48
Furthermore, the gods relent when they are appeased. Thus, in Enuma Elish 6.137, Marduk’s fourth name identifies him as “furious but relenting.” In contrast to the situation in Israel, people in Assyria were expected to be loyal to the gods, but the gods are not typically described as being loyal toward people, though prayers ask them to be. The gods are said to “love” the king, but this is an expression of preference and favor. Jonah’s list, then, does not necessarily distinguish Yahweh from how the gods of the ancient world are portrayed. The list simply represents the attributes that Jonah recognizes as assuring that his trip to Nineveh will initiate a series of inevitabilities: He will give his message, Nineveh will respond (ignorantly and inadequately), and God will relent.
Roman sarcophagus with scenes from the life of Jonah, 3rd c. A.D.
© Dr. James C. Martin, courtesy of the British Museum
East wind (4:8). The east wind was a problem in Palestine because of the desert to the east, but in Nineveh it would be a different situation. Because of the mountains east of the Tigris running northwest/southeast, the prevailing winds in Mesopotamia are northwest and southeast.49 The east wind was named the mountain wind (Akk: IMšadu) and usually brought rain.50 This verse specifies a particular type of east wind (NIV: “scorching”), but this word is used only here, so its nuance is obscure. It may be important to note that it is not the wind but the sun that is designated as the element that oppresses Jonah.51
Population of Nineveh (4:11). There is much discussion about the size of Nineveh’s population. For some time the number 300,000 has been cited as the estimated population of the city and its environs in the seventh century. Recent estimates using a variety of documents have confirmed that such a number is reasonable. If that is so, the number of 120,000 for the earlier period is not exaggerated.52
Bibliography
Alexander, D., D. Baker, and B. Waltke. Obadiah, Jonah, Micah. TCOT. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1988. Alexander provides an excellent summary of the issues from an evangelical standpoint.
Allen, L. The Books of Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah. NICOT. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976. Writing from a broadly evangelical standpoint, Allen offers some background information though he focuses more on critical issues.
Sasson, J. M. Jonah. AB. New York: Doubleday, 1990. This is by far the most extensive treatment of the book, and Sasson is a world-class expert on background information. Non-evangelical.
Stuart, D. Hosea – Jonah. WBC. Dallas: Word, 1987. Stuart provides a thorough and evangelical treatment of the book with helpful, if at times limited, background information.
Chapter Notes
Main Text Notes
1. For discussion of classical prophecy, see the introduction to the Prophetic Books, p. 000.
2. P. Garelli, “The Achievement of Tiglath-pileser III: Novelty or Continuity,” in Ah Assyria … Studies in Assyrian History and Ancient Near Eastern Historiography Presented to Hayim Tadmor, ed. M. Cogan and I. Ephʾal (ScrHier 33; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1991), 47–51; A. K. Grayson, “The Struggle for Power in Assyria: Challenge to Absolute Monarchy in the Ninth and Eighth Centuries B.C.,” in Priests and Officials in the Ancient Near East, ed. Kazuko Watanabe (Heidelberg: Universitatsverlag C. Winter, 1999), 253–70.
3. J. A. Miles, “Laughing at the Bible: Jonah as Parody,” JQR 65 (1975): 168–81; M. Orth, “Genre in Jonah: The Effects of Parody in the Book of Jonah,” in The Bible in the Light of Cuneiform Literature, Scripture in Context III, ed. W. W. Hallo, B. W. Jones, and G. L. Mattingly (Lewiston, N.Y.: Mellen, 1990), 257–82.
4. J. S. Ackerman, “Satire and Symbolism in the Song of Jonah,” in Traditions in Transformation, ed. B. Halpern and J. D. Levenson (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1981), 213–46.
5. A. Livingstone, Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea (SAA III; Helsinki: Univ. of Helsinki Press, 1989), 64–66; P. Michalowski, “Commemoration, Writing, and Genre in Ancient Mesopotamia,” in The Limits of Historiography, ed. C. S. Kraus (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 84–86.
6. COS, 1:155:495–96.
7. ANET, 290.
8. Thorough discussion and citations can be found in J. Sasson, Jonah (AB; New York: Doubleday, 1990), 78–79. Recent studies are by E. Lipinski, “Carthage et Tarshish,” BO 45 (1988): 59–81; M. Elat, “Tarshish and the Problem of Phoenician Colonisation in the Western Mediterranean,” OLP 13 (1982): 55–69; and P. R. Berger, “Ellasar, Tarshish und Jawan, Genesis 14 und 10, ” WO 13 (1982): 50–78, who favors Carthage. The most helpful summary is that of David W. Baker in ABD, 6:331–33.
9. Discussion in D. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1987), 451.
10. Letters 294 and 296.
11. J. Kaplan and H. Kaplan, “Jaffa,” in The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, ed. E. Stern (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993), 655.
12. Sasson, Jonah, 83–84.
13. F. Stolz, “Sea,” DDD2, 739.
14. K. van der Toorn, “Theology, Priests, and Worship in Canaan and the Ancient Near East,” CANE, 2047.
15. The role of family gods has been developed in detail by K. van der Toorn, Family Religion in Babylonia, Syria and Israel (Leiden: Brill, 1996).
16. A sampling can be gained from the entries in the NIV Exhaustive Concordance under “merchandise” and “trade.”
17. Against the NIV “in the lap,” which the term never means. Likewise seen as a cloth pouch in Ex. 4:6–7; Ps. 74:11; Prov. 21:14.
18. The full treatment of the Hebrew terms as well as the Greek literature is provided by A. M. Kitz, “The Hebrew Terminology of Lot Casting and Its Ancient Near Eastern Context,” CBQ 62 (2000): 207–14.
19. For the most detailed discussion see T. W. Cartledge, Vows in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (JSOTSup 147; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992).
20. Drawn from a battle context (cited in ibid., 118–19).
21. COS, 1.117:159–61.
22. Stolz, “Sea,” 739.
23. Thorkild Jacobsen, The Harps That Once … (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1987), 215, line 169; D. Wolkstein and S. N. Kramer, Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth (New York: Harper & Row, 1983), 52–61.
24. See, e.g., G. H. Jones, 1 and 2 Kings (NCB; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984), 1:258.
25. See discussions in J. Ackerman, “Satire and Symbolism in the Song of Jonah,” 234; N. Tromp, Primitive Conceptions of Death and the Netherworld in the Old Testament (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1969), 152–54. Ugaritic Texts CTU 1.4, CTA 4, col 8, lines 8–14, see S. Parker, Ugaritic Narrative Poetry (SBLWAW; Atlanta: SBL, 1997), 138–39.
26. O. Keel, The Symbolism of the Biblical World (New York: Seabury, 1978), 46.
27. CAD, 10/1:158–59; P. Ferguson, “Who Was the ‘King of Nineveh’ in Jonah 3:6?” TynBul 47 (1996): 307–8; D. J. Wiseman, “Jonah’s Nineveh,” TynBul 30 (1979): 36–37.
28. For a number of helpful methodological discussions see M. Nissinen, ed., Prophecy in its Ancient Near Eastern Context (Symposium 13; Atlanta: SBL, 2000).
29. A 3893, 18–22 in J. J. M. Roberts, “The Mari Prophetic Texts,” in The Bible and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2002), 231.
30. A 1047, 14–19, quoted from ibid., 203.
31. M. deJong Ellis,. “Observations on Mesopotamian Oracles and Prophetic Texts,” JCS 41 (1989): 136; cf. ARM 10:81, 94. W. L. Moran, “New Evidence from Mari on the History of Prophecy,” Bib 50 (1969): 19–22. It should be noted that these illustrations are drawn from the Mari literature and may or may not have been replicated in the Neo-Assyrian period.
32. P. Michalowski, The Lamentation over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1989), 59, lines 364–69.
33. For discussion of this minimal view of Nineveh’s response, see Walton, “The Object Lesson of Jonah 4:5–7 and the Purpose of the Book of Jonah,” BBR 2 (1992): 47–57. Jesus’ comment in Matt. 12:41 does not argue against this if his contrast is that the Pharisees are not even as responsive as the ignorant Ninevites with their minimal response.
34. Quoted in CAD, 2:137, from R. Borger’s publication of Esarhaddon’s inscriptions, Die Inschriften Asarhaddons, Königs von Assyrien (AfO Beiheft 9), 102.II.i.3.
35. COS, 1.147:478.
36. S. Parpola, Letters from Assyrian Scholars to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Butzon & Bercker Kevelaer, 1983), 2:58–59.
37. Cf. the Amarna letters, where mourning a death was accompanied by food deprivation: “When I heard what was reported, nothing was allowed to be cooked in a pot. On that day I myself wept…. On that day I took neither food nor water” (29.57).
38. S. Langdon, Babylonian Menologies and Semitic Calendars (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1935).
39. CAD, 9:126.
40. Grayson, “The Struggle for Power in Assyria,” 268.
41. S. Page, “The Stela of Adad-Nirari III and Nergal-Eres from Tell al-Rimah,” Iraq 30 (1968): 151.
42. Ibid.
43. Y. Ikeda, “Looking from Til Barsip on the Euphrates: Assyria and the West in the Ninth and Eight Centuries B.C.,” in Priests and Officials in the Ancient Near East, ed. Kazuko Watanabe (Heidelberg: Universitatsverlag C. Winter, 1999), 271–302, especially 286; P. Ferguson, “Who Was the ‘King of Nineveh’ in Jonah 3:6?” TynBul 47 (1996): 301–14 (especially 303).
44. The Akkadian text does not designate him by any official title, but the nature of the list of names around him and the nature of the other sections of the limmu list indicate that these are governors, cf. A. R. Millard, The Eponyms of the Assyrian Empire, 910–612 BC (SAAS II; Helsinki: Univ. of Helsinki Press, 1994), 7–11.
45. Herodotus, Histories 9.24; see Sasson, Jonah, 257, for discussion, as well as L. Allen, The Books of Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, and Micah (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), 224.
46. A hymn to Inanna “Lady of the Largest Heart” by the princess Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon dated to about 2300 B.C., thus substantially earlier than Jonah. Translation in B. de Shong Meador, Inanna: Lady of the Largest Heart (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 2000), 132.
47. COS, 1:165:534, lines 3–5.
48. Hymn to Gula; see CAD, 14:258.
49. Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography, 196.
50. CAD, 17.1:60.
51. Sasson, Jonah, 303–4, includes more detailed discussion of the climatological situation and also suggests that the wind blows the hut away.
52. Ibid., 311–12, including the citation of personal correspondence from S. Parpola.
Sidebar and Chart Notes
A-1. Helpful summaries in G. Bass, “Sea and River Craft in the Ancient Near East,” CANE, 1425–30, and G. Bass and S. Wachsmann, “Ships and Boats,” OEANE, 5:30–34. The detailed study by L. Casson, Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World, 2d ed.(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1995) contains much valuable information, but most of it is from a later time period.
A-2. Piero Bartoloni, “Ships and Navigation,” in The Phoenicians, ed. S. Moscati (New York: Rizzoli, 1999), 87.
A-3. Bass, “Sea and River Craft in the Ancient Near East,” 1426; M. E. Aubet, The Phoenicians and the West (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993), 148.
A-4. Aubet, Phoenicians and the West, 148.
A-5. Bartoloni, “Ships and Navigation,” 85.
A-6. Aubet, Phoenicians and the West, 159–60.
A-7. Bartoloni, “Ships and Navigation,” 84, though Polaris did not indicate true north in this period (120 south of due north); see W. Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography [Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1998], 195).
A-8. Sasson, Jonah, 188–89.
A-9. P. S. Johnston, Shades of Sheol (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 84.
A-10. The most thorough discussion and documentation is in Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography. See also J. E. Wright, “Biblical Versus Israelite Images of the Heavenly Realm,” JSOT 93 (2001): 59–75, and I. Cornelius, “The Visual Representation of the World in the Ancient Near East and the Hebrew Bible,” JNSL 20 (1994): 193–218.
A-11. J. M. Russell, “Nineveh,” in Royal Cities of the Biblical World, ed. J. G. Westenholz (Jerusalem: Bible Lands Museum, 1996), 153.
A-12. Ibid., 160.
A-13. D. Stronach, “Notes on the Fall of Nineveh,” in Assyria 1995, ed. S. Parpola and R. M. Whiting (Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1997), 311. This calculation is based on a combination of archaeological data and text. Sennacherib claims to have built the wall 40 bricks thick and 180 courses high. According to M. Mallowan, Nimrud and Its Remains (London: Collins, 1966), 2:467, a course of bricks from this period was about 15cm.
A-14. OEANE, 4:146.
A-15. Russell, “Nineveh,” 163.
A-16. S. Parpola, Neo-Assyrian Toponyms (AOAT 6; Neukirchen: Butzon & Bercker, 1970), 262–67, shows the variations in the logograms applied to Nineveh that designate it alternatively as a city or province. See P. Ferguson, “Who Was the ‘King of Nineveh’ in Jonah 3:6?” TynBul 47 (1996): 306–7.
A-17. Ferguson, “Who Was the ‘King of Nineveh’ in Jonah 3:6?” 307.
A-18. S. Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies (SAA 9; Helsinki: Univ. of Helsinki Press, 1998).
A-19. Wiseman, “Jonah’s Nineveh,” 42–43.