This study advances one core thesis. In the book that bears his name, the prophet Jonah, profoundly troubled by God’s response to the sins of humanity, persists in an escapist quest for an idyllic, Eden-like existence. Repeatedly, however, just when Jonah thinks he has attained such an existence, he finds himself banished from it. Eventually, therefore, he must confront the stark realities that provoke his moral indignation.
Crucially, the story gives rise to two opposite understandings of the prophet’s defiant stance. In one reading, a moralistic Jonah resists providing an opportunity for salvation to the sinful population of Nineveh and instead seeks out an Edenic realm that tolerates no imperfection. By contrast, according to a second intended meaning, a pacifist Jonah shrinks from pronouncing doom on the Assyrian city and undertakes an escape toward a blissful world that contains no suffering. Taken together, these two readings yield a single, encompassing message: the Lord, by denying the prophet’s quest for Eden, shuns the escapism born of either extreme reaction to sin and its consequences. Rather, the flawed conduct of human beings is inevitable, and both forgiveness and the threat of punishment play necessary roles in the divine response to human iniquity.1
This thesis draws on two oft-noted features of the work: allusion to other biblical texts and multiplicity of meaning. The text of Jonah, I argue, generates a remarkable array of inner-biblical connections, especially to Eden-related material.2 These connections, in turn, provide the foundation for a sustained multivalent reading of the story.
My analysis of the book rests on several assumptions:
·The author of Jonah crafted the story with meticulous care, targeting an audience capable of nuanced literary analysis.3
·Biblical texts may feature a complex web of meaningful allusions to earlier material.4
·Thematic, lexical, and even phonetic parallels may help produce such allusions.5
·In works of this kind, the broader story – not just individual motifs and formulations – may give rise to multiple meanings.6
All these assumptions draw on legitimate precedent. More important, as a basis for examining the text of Jonah, they yield an expansive set of striking, mutually confirming results, solutions to numerous long-standing problems in the text, and explanations for nearly all of the book’s distinctive formulations. Indeed, both my argument and the premises that sustain it find increasing confirmation as the discussion progresses; and we encounter consistent, highly suggestive indications of the author’s methods for producing meaning. This collective evidence, I contend, provides ample support for the thesis that I advocate.7
This study takes the following form. In this chapter, I endorse the proposal that Jonah pursues, or gratefully inhabits, a variety of Edenic sanctuaries.8 Significantly, I offer a fundamentally new and much expanded version of that proposal, whereby the prophet’s quest for a paradisiacal existence occupies a central place in the story. In chapter 2, I provide evidence of Jonah’s moral perfectionism, including some new important observations, and I advance a reading of Jonah 3–4 that fits this standard conception of the prophet’s attitude. This part of the presentation, moreover, features some additional noteworthy evidence that Jonah is seeking Eden. In chapter 3, the most innovative part of the study, I make the case for a pacifist Jonah who resists proclaiming destruction on Nineveh – an interpretation that complements the more common, moralistic understanding of his motives. In chapter 4, I provide an original analysis of Jonah’s prayer inside the fish, one that accords with the book’s Eden theme and fits both readings of the story. Finally, in chapter 5, I present some supplementary proposals that emerge from my interpretation of the book, including a novel, comprehensive explanation of the text’s deployment of divine names.
In the story of Jonah, the prophet seeks out and/or occupies numerous locations that, in one way or another, provide refuge. All these locations, moreover, evoke suggestive associations with a divine abode reminiscent of Eden.
In the book’s opening scene, Jonah flees in the direction of Tarshish. The word “Tarshish,” in addition to serving as a place-name, denotes one of several precious stones that, according to the prophet Ezekiel, endow the Garden of Eden with its majestic splendor (Ezek 28:13).9 As a literary motif, in fact, Tarshish is aptly characterized as a “distant paradise” containing an abundance of riches – its legendary wealth comparable to that Edenic grandeur described by Ezekiel.10 When Jonah heads toward Tarshish, the possibility thus immediately arises that he seeks to inhabit this type of realm.
Subsequently, when a storm threatens the Tarshish-bound ship, the fleeing prophet descends to the yarkĕtê hassĕpînâ; that is, the “nethermost part of the vessel” (Jonah 1:5). Elsewhere in this passage, the text consistently refers to the ship by the standard term ’ŏniyyâ (1:3–5). By contrast, sĕpînâ occurs just this one time in the entire Bible. The distinctive phrase yarkĕtê hassĕpînâ, in turn, evokes an association with the more familiar expression yarkĕtê ṣāpôn, “the uppermost reaches of Zaphon.”11
Zaphon, a mountain to the north of Israel, represented a divine abode in the ancient period.12 Accordingly, Zaphon in the Bible signifies either a heavenly divine location (“I will rise up to the heavens. . . . I will sit on the mountain of [divine] assembly, in the yarkĕtê ṣāpôn”; Isa 14:13) or the sacred mountain in Jerusalem (“Mount Zion, yarkĕtê ṣāpôn”; Ps 48:3).13 The divine mountain, for its part, constitutes a “secure, paradisiacal” location, one that Ezekiel, in that same context, likens to “the garden of God” (Ezek 28:13–14).14 Indeed, based on biblical and comparative evidence, scholars characterize the Garden of Eden as “an archetypal sanctuary, a place where God dwells and where man should worship him.” Correspondingly, the Israelite temple on Mount Zion “is identified with the primeval hill, paradise, the cosmic mountain.”15 In conjunction, then, with Jonah’s quest to reach Tarshish, his boarding of a Zaphon-like ship and entry into its deepest part (yarkĕtê hassĕpînâ) begin to generate meaningful evidence that our protagonist yearns for an Eden-like existence.
Ezekiel invokes imagery of the Edenic divine mountain in order to depict the magnificence of the coastal city of Tyre. That wider prophecy on Tyre, in fact, concludes a lengthy series of speeches that acknowledge its glory, only to proclaim impending doom on the city and its arrogant leadership (Ezek 26:1–28:19). Crucially, this sequence features striking parallels to the story of Jonah, which bear significance that remains vastly underappreciated.16
Ezekiel 27 begins with a description of the resplendence of Tyre. The chapter reaches a turning point when ships of Tarshish, which enabled Tyre to amass riches “in the heart of the seas” (bĕlēb yammîm; Ezek 27:25), are broken apart (šbr) by an east wind (rûaḥ qādîm; 27:26). As a result, the city’s wealth descends into the sea along with many of its people, including sailors (mallāḥayik) and ship pilots (ḥōbĕlāyik; 27:27). Other seafarers then cry out (wĕyiz‘ăqû), roll in ashes (’ēper), and don sackcloth (ŝaqqîm; 27:28–31), among other expressions of grief. These behaviors resemble a reaction foreseen by the prophet in the previous chapter, where coastal rulers, witnessing the destruction of Tyre, descend from their thrones (kis’ôtām), remove their royal robes, “clothe themselves in trembling,” and sit on the ground (26:16). In that context, Ezekiel envisions the city engulfed by the Deep (tĕhôm) and submerged in mounting waters (26:19).
Parallel motifs in Jonah immediately come to mind. A ship carrying our prophet toward Tarshish threatens to break apart (šbr) during a storm (Jonah 1:3–4) – although an east wind (rûaḥ qādîm) appears only later in the story (4:8). The ship’s sailors (mallāḥîm) then cry out (wayyiz‘ăqû; 1:5), the chief pilot (ḥōbēl) challenges Jonah (1:6), and eventually the prophet descends into “the heart of the seas” (lĕbab yammîm; 2:4) where the waters and the Deep (tĕhôm; 2:6) engulf him. When Jonah at last carries out his mission, the Ninevites, among other demonstrations of repentance, don sackcloth (śaqqîm; 3:5, 8). And their king, reminiscent of the coastal rulers who react to the fall of Tyre, rises from his throne (kis’ô), removes his royal cloak, dons sackcloth (śaq), and sits on ashes (’ēper; 3:6). Several expressions cited here that recall terminology used in Ezekiel, including lēb/lĕbab yammîm, the root z‘q, and the nouns mallāḥ and ḥōbēl, stand out in at least one of the two texts by appearing multiple times. Notably, mallāḥ and ḥōbēl occur nowhere in the Bible except in Jonah and Ezekiel 27.17
Significantly, the resemblance between the actions of the king of Nineveh and those of the coastal rulers in Ezekiel – which in both cases entail rising from a throne/thrones, removing royal garb, donning sackcloth/trembling, and sitting on ashes/the ground – points strongly toward the purposefulness of the broader set of parallels.18 The relevant verse in Ezekiel, after all, appears in a speech that stands apart from the prophet’s later depiction of a sea storm, and this reaction of coastal rulers to the destruction of Tyre bears no intrinsic connection to any such tempest. Likewise, the actions of the king of Nineveh do not take place in the context of a sea storm. It seems hardly plausible, therefore, that the motifs common to our passage and Ezekiel’s prophecies merely represent typical features of sea-storm texts. Almost certainly, the author of Jonah was working off this material in Ezekiel.
Recall, then, that in this sequence of prophecies, Ezekiel compares the glamorous Tyre – a kingdom supplied/signified by ships of Tarshish – to the divine mountain and the Garden of Eden.19 If, accordingly, Jonah occupies a Tarshish-bound vessel that stands in parallel to those ships, this yields additional evidence that our protagonist seeks an Eden-like realm of the kind that Ezekiel describes.
Indeed, other features of the passage in Jonah confirm this connection and its proposed significance. After our prophet receives his instructions, we are told that he “arose to flee toward Tarshish away from the Lord, went down to Joppa (yāpô), found a ship going to Tarshish, provided its fare (śĕkārāh), and went down into it to go with them toward Tarshish away from the Lord” (Jonah 1:3). In this notably long-winded verse, two matters have defied easy explanation: the choice and specification of the port city of yāpô, and the presence of the clause “he provided its fare” (wayyittēn śĕkārāh).20
Consider, then, that when describing the beauty of Tyre and its leaders, Ezekiel employs the related roots yph and yp‘ a total of eight times, a concentration found nowhere else in Scripture.21 Tyre declared itself “perfect in beauty (yōpî)” (Ezek 27:3), because its builders had “perfected [its] beauty (yopyēk)” (27:4) and its protectors succeeded in maintaining that “beauty” (yopyēk; 27:11). Nevertheless, the prophet affirms that foreigners will unleash their weapons on the “beauty” (yĕpî) of its ruler’s wisdom and defile his “splendor” (yip‘ātekā; 28:7). The doomed king of Tyre, moreover, was “perfect in beauty (yōpî)” (28:12), until his “beauty” (yopyekā) gave rise to arrogance and his “splendor” (yip‘ātekā) corrupted his wisdom (28:17). Accordingly, Jonah’s descent to yāpô, considered together with the parallels already seen, calls to mind this key terminology, suggesting that the prophet seeks to attain the idyllic beauty – of a kind facilitated/signified by ships of Tarshish – that characterizes the exquisitely Eden-like kingdom of Tyre.
As for Jonah having provided the śākār of the vessel (“its fare”) – a formulation that, to many readers, has suggested a value beyond the cost of the prophet’s own voyage – consider the familiar motif of treasure-laden ships of Tarshish, whose implications for our story have been almost entirely overlooked to date.22 Of critical importance, every biblical reference to ships of Tarshish signals this luxuriant motif, none more emphatically than the one in Ezekiel 27.23 In turn, the clause in Jonah “he provided its fare” (wayyittēn śĕkārāh), much like the place-name yāpô, gives rise to a highly consequential secondary meaning: in “stocking/providing [the vessel’s] śākār,” a fleeing Jonah, pursuing the idyllic realm that ships of Tarshish supply/signify, hastily stowed on the ship the fortune that it is designated to carry. The text therefore suggests that the prophet, seeking to escape toward the paradisiacal domain of Tarshish, started out in pursuit of that “beautiful” location (yāpô). Then, having found a vessel that was not simply “setting out/going to (yōṣē’t/hōleket) Tarshish” but was “approaching (bā’â) Tarshish” – arguably, by implication, a vessel poised to attain the status of a “ship of Tarshish” – he eagerly invested it with that standing by placing on it the necessary riches (śākār) and then descended into it to enter (lābō’) the Eden-like realm that he craved.24
Furthermore, the word śākār bears a phonetic resemblance to sḥr (“trade/do business”), which likewise stands as a key term in Ezekiel 27.25 The root sḥr appears six times in that chapter in connection with the wealth supplied to Tyre, most prominently by Tarshish, and once more to denote foreign merchants foreseen reacting to the city’s collapse (Ezek 27:12, 15–16, 18, 21, 36). This resonance helps confirm that Jonah, in providing the śākār of the vessel, was not merely paying his fare or even commissioning the whole voyage. Rather, the prophet endeavored to load the ship with resplendent treasures, of a kind worthy of the Eden-like city of Tyre and designated to be borne by ships of Tarshish.
The association between sḥr and the opulence of Tyre finds confirmation in a prophecy on that kingdom found in Isaiah 23. As in the Ezekiel text, sḥr stands out as a keyword in Isaiah 23, appearing five times in connection with the bounty of Tyre (Isa 23:2–3, 8, 18) – a kingdom on the sea for which ships of Tarshish again stand as a prominent meta phor (23:1, 14). The association between the root sḥr and the Tarshish-supplied wealth of Tyre is thus not confined to just one prophetic speech. It becomes all the more likely, therefore, that the śākār stowed by Jonah on a Tarshish-bound ship is meant to evoke the phonetically similar sḥr.
More important, two additional connections to Isaiah 23 prove essential to a proper understanding of the passage in Jonah. Like the analogous prophecies in Ezekiel, the Isaiah text refers to prideful individuals in Tyre who will be humbled by the fall of the city. After all, the prophet affirms, it shall be God’s design to “dishonor (lĕhāqēl) all the honored ones of the land” (Isa 23:9). It hardly seems coincidental that, in our own Tyre-recalling ship-of-Tarshish passage, we encounter the only other occurrence in the Bible of the word lĕhāqēl: “The sailors feared and cried out, each man to his god, and they hurled the items that were on the ship into the sea in order to get the weight off them (lĕhāqēl mē‘ălêhem); but Jonah went down to the nethermost part of the vessel (yarkĕtê hassĕpînâ), and he lay down and went to sleep” (Jonah 1:5).
In this rather verbose account of the sailors’ reaction to the storm, note first the long-winded phrase, “the items that were on the ship.” Even if, to highlight the contrast with Jonah’s conduct, the author deemed it necessary to recount not only the sailors’ supplications but also their physical efforts to save the vessel, could the text not have stated merely that they hurled “items” (kēlîm) into the sea to lighten the load? Why instead does it say “the items” (’et-hakkēlîm), and why the explicit reference to the vessel? And in the next clause, do not the sailors wish to get the weight off the ship, not off “them”?
The explanation for this problematic wording, I submit, lies with the contents of this paradigmatic ship of Tarshish. The vessel’s precious cargo, which promised to supply the God-defying, Tarshish-bound prophet with an Eden-like existence, instead helps instigate a tempest that threatens to take him down along with the crew. Consequently, seeking to avoid the fate of the Tyrian aristocrats whose honor, according to the passage in Isaiah, will be tragically negated (lĕhāqēl), the sailors prayerfully humble themselves before the divine, casting off all of the boat’s extravagant contents (“the items that were on the ship”). In this way, they divest the ship of its luxuriant, Tarshish-like quality and renounce any involvement in their passenger’s audacious quest for a paradisiacal domain (“to get the weight/honor off them”).26 Jonah, by contrast, dreamily pursues his utopian existence by proceeding to the yarkĕtê hassĕpînâ, a location that indeed symbolizes the Edenic yarkĕtê ṣāpôn.
In the ensuing dialogue between the sailors and Jonah, still another key term in Isaiah 23 helps resolve a challenging set of cruxes. The root ‘br (“cross over”) occurs four times in the Isaiah passage, including three instances where the prophet directs an ironic, futile exhortation to the population of a crumbling Tyre: “Cross over (‘ibrû) to Tarshish” (Isa 23:6); “Cross over (‘ibrî) your land as the Nile” (23:10); “Arise, cross over (‘ibrî) to Cyprus” (23:12).27 The other instance of the root appears in the phrase ‘ōbēr yām mil’ûk (23:2), an opaque formulation that, according to numerous interpreters, in one way or another denotes seafarers setting out on a “mission” (mĕlā’kâ).28 In part, this interpretation draws on a sea-storm text in Psalms (107:24–32) that describes sailors setting out on the waters to perform a “mission” (mĕlā’kâ), only to find themselves in mortal danger spawned by a violent tempest. Indeed, that passage in Psalms almost certainly bears a connection, direct or otherwise, to our Jonah text: among other shared terms, both accounts use the rare verb štq to denote the eventual “quieting” of the storm (Ps 107:30; Jonah 1:11–12).29
Observe, then, that when the lottery ominously falls on Jonah, the crew asks him a series of questions: “Tell us, please, you on account of whom this disaster has befallen us! What is your mission (mĕla’ktĕkā), and from where are you coming? What is your land, and of what people are you?” (Jonah 1:8). In the prophet’s response, however, only one clause, “I am a Hebrew (‘ibrî)” (1:9), seems to address these questions: it identifies his people and perhaps conveys, if only by implication, that his land and the origin of his journey are both Israel.30 Yet the sailors’ first question – “What is your mission?” – seems to go entirely unanswered. Furthermore, the remainder of Jonah’s reply, in which he affirms his fear of the Israelite deity, bears no apparent relevance to the queries presented to him.
Once we recognize, however, that this chapter alludes to Isaiah 23, then Jonah’s affirmation “I am an ‘ibrî” takes on a new, secondary sense. The word ‘ibrî, which looks and sounds identical to two of the four occurrences of ‘br in the Isaiah text, may now denote “one who crosses over” – specifically a seeker of a paradisiacal domain such as Tyre who, in the face of the Lord’s punitive wrath, fruitlessly attempts to attain/retain a coveted idyllic environment.31 The prophet, then, does respond to the sailors’ first inquiry, however subtly: my mission (mĕlā’kâ), he states, is to cross over (‘br) to Tarshish and arrive at an Edenic, Tyre-like realm, because I am frightened by the designs of the prodigious God of Israel.32
In support of this interpretation, consider the serious difficulty generated by the next verse. The sailors, we are informed, continued to confront Jonah “because they knew that he was fleeing from the Lord, for he had told them” (Jonah 1:9). This awkward affirmation, which appears to suggest that the prophet – at some unspecified point – had apprised the sailors of his objective, has long presented a problem.33 The reading set forth here, however, offers an elegant solution: in the brief exchange recounted in the text, Jonah indeed “told them,” however obliquely, that he was fearfully running away from the Israelite God by crossing over toward Tarshish. The narrator thus provides a charitable hint that, beneath the surface, we ought to look hard for that information in the multivalent reply uttered by the Eden-seeking prophet.34
What is more, the crew’s recognition that Jonah is pursuing Eden both validates and helps explain still another proposed correlation. Reacting to the prophet’s remarks, the sailors exclaim mah-zō’t ‘āśîtā (“What have you done?”; Jonah 1:10), the same question that God poses to Eve after she partakes of the forbidden tree (mah-zō’t ‘āśît; Gen 3:13).35 Indeed, only in these two instances does this expression – regardless of the form taken by the verb – end abruptly, amounting to the entire challenge posed by the questioner. Consider, then, that according to our approach, Jonah’s initiative, much like that of Eve, provokes an apparently lethal divine response that will deny him the idyllic existence that he craves. It is fitting, therefore, that the prophet’s panicked shipmates, fearing the consequences of his unauthorized quest for Eden, confront him with the ominous words mah-zō’t ‘āśîtā. After all, in the biblical Eden story, it is this very fateful expression that God utters shortly before banishing Eve from the paradisiacal garden.
Finally, we return briefly to the prophecies on Tyre in the book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel’s portrait of the devastation of Tyre, we have seen, parallels the account of Jonah’s ill-fated journey. Recall, however, that the reaction of coastal rulers to Tyre’s fall corresponds to something else entirely: the humble conduct of the king of Nineveh, which triggers the redemption of the Assyrian city. Might it be, then, that the salvation of Nineveh stands in pointed contrast to the collapse of Tyre? And if, in fact, Nineveh shows a correspondence to Tyre, might it bear any relevance to the central question of Jonah’s motivations?
The opening prophecy in Ezekiel 28 supports this apparent connection between Nineveh and Tyre. The prophet affirms that the ruler of Tyre became arrogant, seeing himself as occupying “the seat of God in the heart of the seas” (Ezek 28:2). Indeed, Ezekiel repeatedly states that this leader considers himself a god and that he perceives his heart to be like “the heart of God” (28:2, 6, 9). Foreign invaders, therefore, will humble him and bring about his demise (28:7–10).36
This ruler, because of his vanity and divine pretensions, bears a similarity to the sinning Ninevites and their king. Consider that our story features a recurring motif whereby ostensibly “great” forces are subject to the control of the biblical God.37 Thus, it is the Lord who sends a “great wind” that generates a “great storm” (Jonah 1:4) and who directs the actions of a “great fish” (2:1). By the same token, the text consistently refers to Nineveh as a “great city” (1:2; 3:2–3; 4:11), only to underscore that its population, including its “great/powerful” citizens, must humble themselves before the divine to escape destruction (3:5, 7).
Observe, then, that right before Jonah relays his prophecy, the text calls the self-important Nineveh not merely a “great city” (‘îr-gĕdôlâ) but “a city of God-like greatness/magnitude” (‘îr-gĕdôlâ lē’lōhîm; Jonah 3:3). This expanded formulation suggests that, at this crucial juncture, the haughtiness of the Ninevites has borne the presumption that they have attained divine stature.38 Taken in light of our story’s many references to Ezekiel’s prophecies on Tyre, the phrase thereby places Nineveh in parallel to that extravagant kingdom, which Ezekiel condemns precisely because of the godlike pretenses of its leadership. At this very point, accordingly, the analogy between the two arrogant cities underscores how Nineveh manages to elude disaster by humbling itself (3:5–10). Whereas coastal rulers, in the wake of the fall of Tyre, display grief by descending from their thrones and shedding their royal garb, the king of Nineveh, by taking similar action, shows a capitulation to God that forestalls the liquidation of his city. Consequently, Jonah’s affirmation that Nineveh will be “upended” (nehpâket; 3:4) becomes realized not by the city’s annihilation, but by a sharp reversal of its character and fate.39
If Nineveh thus bears an analogy to Tyre, it warrants asking if the Assyrian city likewise possesses an Eden-like quality. Might Jonah, in other words, run away from one idyllic location toward the direction of another? More specifically, might our prophet’s quest for a prototypically Edenic realm arise, in some way, from his reluctance to engage a paradisiacal yet sinful Nineveh? Crucially, our story’s inner-biblical allusions – to Ezekiel and beyond – point toward a decidedly affirmative answer to these questions. The Eden-like character of Nineveh, in fact, finds immediate confirmation as we move past Jonah’s voyage on a Tarshish-bound ship and extend our inquiry to the rest of his paradisiacal sanctuaries.
Shortly after the presentation of Ezekiel’s oracles on Tyre, we encounter his vision of the downfall of Egypt. That nation, the prophet affirms, will ultimately descend to Sheol, much like the kingdom of Assyria before it (Ezek 31:18). In fact, the vast majority of that prophecy depicts the collapse of Assyria. Invoking Eden on four occasions (31:8, 9, 16, 18), Ezekiel states that, initially, Assyria resembled a cedar of Lebanon that towered above the trees of the Garden of God. The arrogance of the empire, however, brought about its fall into oblivion.
As in the case of Tyre, Ezekiel employs the root yph numerous times to underscore Assyria’s Eden-like beauty. The metaphorical cedar, he declares, which displayed “beautiful branches” (yĕpê ‘ānāp; Ezek 31:3), was “beautiful (wayyîp) in its greatness” (31:7), and the other trees of Eden failed to approach the cedar’s “beauty” (yopyô; 31:8) and could only envy how God had made it so “beautiful” (yāpê; 31:9).40 The prophet, furthermore, employs the root gdl four times to underscore the haughtiness epitomized by Assyria (31:2, 4, 7, 18), reminiscent of our text’s repeated use of gdl (“great”) to signal the arrogance of Nineveh.
This grandiose, Eden-like depiction of Assyria, taken together with Nineveh’s similarities to the paradisiacal Tyre, supports the proposed analogy between Nineveh and the divine garden. Of critical importance, moreover, consider a striking, recently discovered correlation between the cedar that symbolizes Assyria and the qîqāyôn-plant that provides shade to Jonah as he gazes toward Nineveh (Jonah 4:6).41 Much like the qîqāyôn, this magnificent cedar, which provides shade to its surroundings (Ezek 31:6, 12, 17), is eventually attacked and destroyed (31:10–12). Consequently, like our prophet who, by means of the rare verb ‘lp (
), is said to feel faint (wayyit‘allāp; 
) after the plant shrivels (Jonah 4:8), the leaves on the trees shielded by the cedar proceed to wither (‘ulpê; 
) in the wake of the great tree’s downfall (Ezek 31:15).
Indeed, the passage in Jonah reinforces this correlation by referencing Ezekiel 17, which recounts the fate of a young plant derived from a branch of a cedar of Lebanon. In that context, Ezekiel describes how an east wind (rûaḥ qādîm) causes the shriveling (ybš) of the plant, with the root ybš appearing five times in the space of two verses (Ezek 17:9–10). Likewise, then, the plant in our story, itself bearing an equivalence to a cedar of Lebanon, leaves Jonah exposed to the elements when it, too, proceeds to shrivel (ybš). And subsequently, it is none other than an east wind (rûaḥ qādîm) that causes the prophet to grow weak.42
Thus, our author, in invoking the motif of Nineveh, was almost certainly working with Ezekiel’s Edenic depiction of the cedar that represents Assyria. Simultaneously, the plant that brings delight to Jonah, because of its correlation with that paradisiacal tree, itself suggests a correspondence to the divine garden.43 It appears, therefore, that our prophet indeed shuns an Eden-like Nineveh in favor of a comparably paradisiacal domain. As we continue, then, to identify evidence of Jonah’s quest for an Edenic existence – and, ultimately, to evaluate the significance of that quest – we should bear in mind our story’s multifaceted deployment of this central Eden motif.
The text of Jonah, just before it recounts the rise of the plant, generates parallels to the story of Cain that merit far greater attention than they have drawn.44 After Jonah fulfills his mission, he experiences anger (wayyiḥar; Jonah 4:1), much as Cain does when God refuses his offering (wayyiḥar; Gen 4:5). Subsequently, the Lord contests Jonah’s indignation (“Are you really that angry?” [hahêṭēb (
) ḥārâ lāk;]; Jonah 4:4), recalling a similar divine challenge presented to Cain (“Why are you angry? . . . After all, if you improve . . .” [lāmâ ḥārâ lāk . . . hălō’ ’im-têṭîb (
) . . . ]; Gen 4:6–7).45 Then, we learn that Jonah “went forth . . . and stationed himself east of the city” (Jonah 4:5), just as Cain “went forth . . . and stationed himself . . . east of Eden” (Gen 4:16).46
This sequence of parallels gives expression to a highly significant thematic correlation: both Jonah and Cain decline – each in his own way – to embrace the prospects offered by repentance. In turn, both men seek out a paradisiacal existence free of moral vicissitudes and calls for self-improvement, only to find this goal impossible to attain. Cain, for one, can move no closer to Eden than the location to its east, where the entrance to the garden stands hopelessly obstructed (Gen 3:24).47 Jonah, for his part, who sits to the east of Nineveh, is denied his Edenic aspirations when the qîqāyôn – which, like the towering cedar in Ezekiel, bestows the Eden-like comforts of Assyria – shrivels to the point of inefficacy. Indeed, although the term qîqāyôn (
) is rightly said to play on the root qy’ (
; “vomit”) and the name yônâ (
; “Jonah”),48 the second occurrence of the letter qôp (
) helps generate a simultaneous resonance with the name qayin (
; “Cain”): the plant, by effectively vomiting Jonah out of its blissful shade, recalls Cain’s exclusion from the Garden of Eden.
Earlier in the story when Jonah flees toward Tarshish, moreover, we encounter key terminology that contributes to this analogy to Cain. The expression “away from/from the face of the Lord,” which is invoked three times to describe Jonah’s flight (Jonah 1:3, 10), appears likewise in Genesis (4:16), where we are told that Cain “went forth away from the Lord and stationed himself . . . east of Eden.”49 Now the verse in Jonah 4 (“Jonah went forth . . . and stationed himself east of the city”) that parallels the line in Genesis could not incorporate the phrase “away from the Lord,” because of the constraints of its context. Our author, employing a long-recognized technique in Jonah, thus divides the phraseology of the source-text and distributes it in disparate passages.50 For example, whereas typically it is an east wind that breaks apart ships of Tarshish, our story uses other terminology to describe the storm that threatens the Tarshish-bound vessel (1:4). An east wind, by contrast, appears only in the final chapter of Jonah and in an entirely different context (4:8).
Similarly, then, the expression “away from the Lord” appears not in Jonah 4 where the prophet exits Nineveh toward a location to its east, but earlier in chapter 1 where our protagonist first moves in a direction away from that city. For no sooner does Jonah receive his initial instructions than, much like Cain, he defies the call of the God who encourages repentance and proceeds to seek, however fruitlessly, a blissful divine presence free of moral inadequacies and their disquieting ramifications.51
When Jonah arrives east of Nineveh and constructs a sukkâ (“shelter,” of the root skk; Jonah 4:5), his action immediately bespeaks his longing for Eden. In numerous contexts, after all, this kind of structure stands as a symbol of divinely bestowed sanctuary. The Psalmist, for example, yearns for the Lord to shelter him in a sukkâ, so that he might eventually gain the upper hand on his advancing enemies (Ps 27:5). Moreover, when Ezekiel compares Tyre to an Edenic divine abode, he twice describes how its king – himself bedecked (swk) with precious stones – shielded (skk) the city like a cherub before being purged from its midst (Ezek 28:13–16). In keeping, then, with our book’s technique of alluding to key terminology found in its source-texts – including this very sequence in Ezekiel – Jonah’s sukkâ quite probably alludes to this key root swk/skk, which helps portray the overtly paradisiacal character of Tyre in Ezekiel’s prophecy.
As for the qîqāyôn, two more proposed connections to Eden warrant mention. First, only when reporting the growth of the plant does our story use the exact phrase “the Lord God,” with the word “God” (’ĕlōhîm) taking no special grammatical form. Consider, then, that this expression dominates in just one selection in the Bible: the account of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Gen 2–3).52 Consequently, when our text affirms that “the Lord God appointed a qîqāyôn and raised it above Jonah,” it brings to mind that account, in particular the assertion that “the Lord God planted a garden in the east of Eden” where he placed the first human being (Gen 2:8).
Second, Ancient Near Eastern iconography features multiple illustrations of a serpent or other symbol of Chaos attacking the Tree of Life. Indeed, when the biblical Eden story depicts a serpent instigating the expulsion from Eden, it employs a variation of that motif to impart its unique message. Observe, then, that likewise in our own text, a slithering creature attacks Jonah’s plant and triggers the loss of his blissful shade. This scene thus not only evokes that standard image but also, together with other evidence, helps generate a specific analogy to the banishment of Adam and Eve from the paradisiacal garden.53
Next, we turn to a recently discovered correlation between the qîqāyôn and the manna in the wilderness. I shall demonstrate that this correlation yields immense significance for the meaning of Jonah 4. Significantly, moreover, it provides an important foundation for the Edenic symbolism of the fish that consumes our prophet.
In several ways, the episode of the qîqāyôn recalls the chapter immediately following the Song of the Sea, in which the Israelites leave portions of the manna (mān) uneaten or uncollected (Exod 16:20–21). First, our text features three occurrences of wayĕman (
[“he appointed”]; Jonah 4:6–8), a verb that resonates with the word mān (
). Second, a worm and hot weather conditions assail Jonah’s blissful comfort, the same elements that, each in the appropriate circumstance, spoil the manna that remains unconsumed.54 Third, the word wayyîbāš (“and it dried up”; 4:7), which depicts the worm’s effect on the plant, recalls the phonetically similar wayyib’aš (“and it became putrid”) used to describe the worm-infested manna.55
This analogy between the qîqāyôn and the manna, considered in light of Jonah’s pursuit of Eden, helps explain God’s remark about the plant near the end of the book (Jonah 4:10). The plant, the Lord affirms, much like the manna, arrived on the scene without any human effort and did not last for more than one day. He implies, accordingly, that enduring value cannot be attained by way of unearned gifts amassed in a day.56 The relentlessly bliss-seeking prophet, therefore, had no justification for lamenting the abrupt death of the qîqāyôn, the last one of his unmerited Edenic sanctuaries.
With this in mind, consider the one other occurrence of wayĕman in the story. At the beginning of chapter 2, when Jonah is drowning in the sea, we are told that the Lord “appointed” (wayĕman) a fish to swallow the prophet (Jonah 2:1). Now if the other three occurrences of this verb recall the manna, the possibility immediately arises that this occurrence does so as well. Might it be, then, that the fish, like the blissful plant, embodies a short-lived paradisiacal haven that Jonah wished to occupy indefinitely? Remarkably, the text yields highly suggestive evidence in favor of this unexpected conclusion. To appreciate this properly, however, it will be helpful to shift our attention briefly and consider a broader, widely acknowledged relationship between the story of Jonah and the early travails of Israel.
Whereas the qîqāyôn episode recalls the story of the manna, Jonah’s rescue from the water corresponds to the preceding account of the Israelites’ salvation at sea. His prayer of thanks, accordingly, invites an analogy to the Song of the Sea. Indeed, expressions in Jonah’s poem such as mĕṣûlâ (“the deep waters”; Jonah 2:4), lĕbab yammîm (“the heart of the seas”; 2:4), tĕhôm (“the Deep”; 2:6), and sûp (“reeds”; 2:6) have drawn suitable comparisons to terminology in that earlier song (Exod 15:4–5, 8).57 We might have expected, therefore, that the fleeing prophet would exhibit a consistent equivalence to the departing people of Israel. The text, however, with pointed irony, generates another set of parallels, whereby the Gentiles in the story bear an analogy to the Israelites and the recalcitrant Jonah corresponds to the God-defying Egyptians.
When the Israelites reach the Sea of Reeds, they fear (wayyîrĕ’û) and cry out (wayyiṣ‘ăqû) to the Lord (Exod 14:10). In our book, by contrast, it is the imperiled sailors who fear (wayyîrĕ’û) and cry out (wayyiz‘ăqû) to their gods, whereas the Israelite prophet descends to the yarkĕtê hassĕpînâ and goes to sleep (Jonah 1:5). Like the Israelites, moreover, who achieve salvation when the Egyptians are hurled into the sea (Exod 14:26–28; cf. 15:1), the crew in Jonah survives after the prophet is thrown overboard (Jonah 1:15). As a result, both the rescued Israelites and the sailors stand in awe of the Lord (wayyîrĕ’û) (Jonah 1:16; cf. 1:10; Exod 14:31) – unlike Jonah whose claim to be God-fearing (Jonah 1:9) stands at odds with his conduct. In addition, the text affirms that the Ninevites believed (wayya’ămînû) in God (3:5), whereas elsewhere in Scripture, the word wayya’ămînû occurs only where the Israelites react to their salvation at sea (Exod 14:31; Ps 106:12).58
Further, when the sailors challenge Jonah, a would-be analogy between the prophet and the Israelites ironically underscores his similarity to the Egyptians. The sailors, we are informed, said to the prophet, “What have you done?” (mah-zō’t ‘āśîtā), because they “knew (yd‘) that he was escaping (brḥ) from the Lord, for he had told (ngd) them” (Jonah 1:10). Observe, then, that after the departure of the Israelites, “it was told (ngd) to the king of Egypt that the people had escaped (brḥ) . . . and [Pharaoh and his servants] said, ‘What have we done?’ (mah-zō’t ‘aśînû)” (Exod 14:5). That verse, moreover, follows God’s affirmation that the Egyptians “will know (yd‘) that I am the Lord” (14:4).
On the surface, this correlation does equate Jonah with the departing Israelites (brḥ), while the sailors seem to parallel the leaders of Egypt (ngd, yd‘) who, using language much like that of the Tarshish-bound crew, ruefully exclaim, “What have we done?” (mah-zō’t ‘aśînû). Crucially, however, the sailors’ similar-sounding cry of mah-zō’t ‘āśîtā features a pivotal difference: far from signifying any defiance of the Lord on their part, this exclamation, which places the verb in second-person form (“What have you done?”), suggests that it is Jonah who bears the equivalence to the fatefully intransigent Egyptian leadership. The sailors, by contrast, appropriately terrified of the God of Israel, will in the end transform their terror into inspiration, as their newly acquired “fear of the Lord,” like that of the Israelites, yields a grateful expression of devotion to their divine savior (Jonah 1:16).
Yet, our prophet does show one genuine similarity to the people of Israel in that episode. Predictably, however, it does not relate to the Israelites’ cries to God, fear of him, or belief in him. It concerns, instead, their defiant affirmation that they would rather have remained in Egypt than to follow the direction of the Lord.
When Jonah finally explains why he fled, he begins his remarks with the expression, “Was this not my word” (hălô’-zê dĕbārî; Jonah 4:2). Notably, the only similar biblical phrase appears in the first part of the Israelites’ reaction when they reach the Sea of Reeds: “Was this not the word (hălō’-zê haddābār) that we spoke: ‘Leave us alone and let us serve Egypt’?” (Exod 14:12). In the next verse, moreover, the prophet declares, “My dying would be better than my living” (ṭôb môtî mēḥayyāy; Jonah 4:3; cf. 4:8), thereby recalling the latter half of the Israelites’ remarks: “because serving the Egyptians would be better for us than our dying in the wilderness” (kîṭôb lānû ‘ăbōd ’et-miṣrayim mimmutēnû bammidbār).59 Thus, Jonah affirms that, much like the Israelites who wished to return to Egypt, he ran in the direction of Tarshish in pursuit of a better alternative.
Recall, then, that in a prophecy invoked by our story, Ezekiel draws a prominent comparison between the land of Egypt and the Eden-like kingdom of Assyria (Ezek 31:2, 18). Indeed, the book of Genesis likewise draws an analogy between Egypt and Eden (13:10): these two locations stand as prototypes for the bountiful Plain of the Jordan, which encompasses the affluent city of Sodom. Might we suggest, therefore, that Jonah, by comparing himself to the Israelites who sought to return to Egypt, expresses his idealization of the Eden-like environment that Egypt exemplifies? Furthermore, might the broader association between Jonah and the Egyptians underscore not just the prophet’s defiance of God but also the Edenic aspirations that motivate his conduct?
The possibility that Jonah is invoking Eden when he alludes to the Israelites’ remarks might initially seem remote. After all, when the Israelites express their preference to have remained in Egypt, they make no mention of its idyllic character. Crucially, however, there remains one ingeniously subtle inner-biblical allusion that casts this entire Egypt connection in a substantially new light. That allusion suggests that our prophet, after being hurled into the sea like the Egyptians, in fact perceives the fish that rescues him – much like Egypt itself – to embody a paradisiacal domain.
In the book of Numbers (11:9), we are told that the manna (
; mān) fell each morning on a layer of dew (
; ṭal). With this in mind, note that our book’s four instances of wayĕman (
) – a word that displays just two root-letters, which spell out the word mān – follow four occurrences of the uncommon biconsonantal root ṭl (
; hiphil “hurl”). First, the Lord hurls (hēṭîl) a great wind on the sea (Jonah 1:4). Then, the sailors hurl (wayyāṭilû) the items on the ship overboard (1:5). Jonah, for his part, advises his shipmates to hurl him (hăṭîlunî) overboard (1:12), after which the crew carries out the prophet’s bold recommendation (wayeṭiluhû; 1:15).60 This sequence of terms raises the immediate possibility that, just as wayĕman brings to mind the mān, the recurring verb ṭl is designed to recall the word ṭal. For much as the ṭal precedes the mān, the events marked by the verb ṭl presage a corresponding number of actions introduced by wayĕman.61
Further, observe that the second chapter of Jonah contains four references to a great fish that, after ingesting the prophet, ultimately grants him a rebirth.62 In three of these instances, the text refers to this sea creature by the standard term dāg. By contrast, just before Jonah’s prayer of gratitude we encounter the alternative form dāgâ (Jonah 2:2), which denotes an individual fish just this one time in the Bible. Some interpreters, accordingly, propose that dāgâ, as a feminine noun, serves to signify the transformation of the fish’s belly from tomb into womb.63 Whatever the merits of this explanation, however, a serious difficulty remains: if that is the case, should not the description of the prophet’s three-day gestation period (2:1), and certainly of his “birth” at the end of the chapter (2:11), similarly employ this feminine form of the word?
Instead, the primary significance of the term dāgâ lies elsewhere. In the passage that describes the mān falling on the ṭal, the Israelites are complaining about the manna’s inadequacies (Num 11:5–6). Fancying a return to the putative luxuries of Egypt, the people thus declare, “We remember the dāgâ that we would eat in Egypt for free.” Working off this text, then, our story, in the one instance where Jonah offers his own hopeful perspective on the prospects offered by the fish, refers to it by the same word dāgâ. For in the prophet’s mind, the fish provides not a means to an end but an enduring, blissful escape analogous to the idyllic environs of Egypt. In actual fact, however, the sanctuary offered by the creature – much like the shade of the qîqāyôn – resembles the short-lasting manna, which the Israelites see fit to contrast to the heavenly Egyptian fish. It is purely for the sake of irony, then, that the text, after four allusions to the ṭal, mentions the sea creature an equal number of times. More significant are the four corresponding allusions to the heaven-sent mān, which exemplifies the inexorable transience of unmerited divine favor.
Considerable evidence, moreover, suggests that Jonah, when expressing his thanks for the fish, perceives it not merely as a source of bliss but also as an Eden-like abode. First, scholars note a correlation between the creature and the city of Nineveh, whose name and ideogram bear the symbolism of fish.64 It stands to reason, in turn, that when the ingested prophet utters a triumphant prayer of gratitude, he does so because the sea animal that encases him – much like the joy-inducing paradisiacal plant – bestows the Edenic comforts that characterize the resplendent kingdom of Assyria.
More important, let us briefly go beyond the narrative portion of the book and steal a glance at an essential allusion generated by a formulation in Jonah’s prayer. Near the beginning of the prayer, when depicting his situation, the prophet uses the phrase wĕnāhār yĕsōbĕbēnî (“flowing waters surrounding me”; Jonah 2:4). On a basic level, of course, this expression describes Jonah’s predicament when he was struggling in the water. Consider, however, that in only two other instances in the Bible do we find a nāhār surrounding (sbb) something, and both of them are in Eden-related passages. First, immediately after the planting of the garden in Genesis, we are told of a nāhār (“river”) that flows out of Eden, yielding one stream that surrounds (sbb) a land filled with riches and another that surrounds (sbb) a different location (Gen 2:10–13). Second, when Ezekiel compares Assyria to Eden, he describes how that kingdom drew sustenance from the waters and the Deep, its nĕhārôt (“rivers”) still surrounding (sbb) the site on which it initially flourished (Ezek 31:4). Taken together with the parallels to the divine garden already encountered, the analogous phrase in Jonah thus strongly suggests that our prophet – according to a more profound layer of meaning – is actually describing his condition inside the fish, which offers him a paradisiacal environment surrounded by prototypically Edenic waters.65
Finally, we proceed to the concluding verse of Jonah 2: “The Lord said/spoke (wayyō’mer) to the fish, and it vomited (wayyāqē’) Jonah onto dry land.” By disgorging the prophet from its belly, the great sea creature grants him a rebirth. Simultaneously, however, according to our approach, the regurgitation of Jonah back into the real world frustrates his aspirations again, expelling him from his latest Edenic escape and forcing him to confront the realities of an imperfect existence. Indeed, in all probability, this rare deployment of the word wayyō’mer without reference to what was “said” generates a subtle connection to the Cain story, where a similarly unfinished clause prefaces the murder of Abel: “Cain said/spoke (wayyō’mer) to his brother Abel; and when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him” (Gen 4:8). The defiant Cain, who shares Jonah’s resistance to the path of repentance, condemns himself to perpetual banishment by killing his brother. Correspondingly, our self-deceiving prophet, who thinks he has attained a lasting Edenic existence, ironically becomes the object of aggression when the giant creature ejects him from its paradisiacal belly.
Only our reading, furthermore, seems to account for the verb “to vomit” (qy’); after all, it seems highly unlikely that the text would have used such a term to describe an act that is fundamentally restorative.66 In addition, recall that the word qîqāyôn suggests a combination of the root qy’ and the name yônâ, implying that Jonah will effectively be vomited out of the plant’s blissful shade. Our verse too, then, fittingly uses the verb qy’ to depict the prophet’s expulsion from an Edenic enclosure.
The sailors, moreover, having cast Jonah overboard, implore God not to “place on [them] innocent blood (dām nāqî’; Jonah 1:14).” The notable inclusion of the letter ’ālep in the spelling of nāqî’ (
) has prompted the suggestion that this word likewise plays on the root qy’;67 and here also, only our interpretation accounts for this wordplay in a genuinely satisfying way. For now it emerges that each time Jonah attains an idyllic environment, the location in question “vomits” him out. The Eden-like qîqāyôn lives up to its name “vomits-Jonah” when, on its drying up, it exposes the prophet to the scorching weather. After the sailors expel Jonah from the Zaphon-like ship, they describe him as a nāqî’; that is, a “vomited one.” And being “vomited” out of the sea creature doubtless brings only devastation to our protagonist, who, far from seeking salvation in the flawed province of humanity, had actually placed all his chips on the blissfully paradisiacal fish.