SB#4
03 October 1998



Jonah 1-2:

Running from God



1. notes

a) author

Jonah lived in the 8th century B.C., and came from Gath-Hepher, a town of the tribe of Zebulun, near Nazareth. He ministered in the northern kingdom (Israel), and was a contemporary of Amos. His ministry probably came a half century or so after the conclusion of Elisha's minstry. Jonah had already been ministering as a prophet before the events in this book; see 2 Kings 14:25, where he predicted King Jereboam II's expansion of Israel into Syrian territory (which happened in the late 7th century).

b) text

The book may have been written around c. 720 B.C. It is written in brief, compressed narrative, giving us a quick-paced action-packed story.

c) validity

Could a "fish" eat a prophet? Some have cited the story of a British sailor supposedly swallowed by a whale in the 1800s (as reported in "The Man Who Lived in a Whale", These Times, 1 Sept. 1962; or: Fox, Francis. Sixty-three Years of Engineering, London: John Murray, 1924; or M. de Parville in Journal desDébâtes, 1914 — a story from 1891). However, this has never been verified, and in fact, investigation found that the sailor telling the story made it up; this is merely an urban legend. In fact, it is physically impossible for any whale or other sea creature to swallow a human whole. No whale has an esophagus large enough, and there would be no way for a human to breathe inside a whale stomach - he would suffocate quickly. This is physically impossible.

A clue to the interpretation of the story comes from all the hyperbole in the whole book. Jonah's behavior in ch. 1 (e.g., how could he sleep during a violent storm, and why not jump yourself instead of asking others to throw him into the sea?), the mass repentance in Ninveah that would put Billy Graham to shame, putting cattle in sackcloth, and the miraculously fast growing vine in ch. 4. These and other events are clearly hyperbole, and falls within the Jewish genre of midrash, or additional and sometimes fantastic stories used to add commentary and explanation to the Old Testament. Even C.S. Lewis realized that this was fiction.

Jesus referenced the story in Mt. 12:39-41 and Lk. 11:29-30. This can be understood as a metaphorical reference, the kind that Jewish rabbis at the time were well known for. Jesus is using a common rabbinic practice of metaphorical references to the scriptures, and there are other examples of him, Paul, and NT writers doing so. Because Jesus referenced it doesn't mean that Jesus interpreted the story literally at all. (If I reference a Shakespeare character as an illustration, e.g., that doesn't mean I take the play as a literal historical event.)

Now, what does this mean? Viewing the story as a moral fable is not at all watering down scripture. It actually gives a stronger meaning, because it uses literary hyperbole to develop comical scenarios that satirize false religious piety, self-righteousness, and religious nationalism. The behavior of an over-religious Jonah are satirized, and thus the book offers a strong indictment of such false religious attitudes. It also shows, in a powerful way, God's love and heart for the world, not just his "chosen people."

d) the call

Ninevah was a major city along the Tigris River, deep into Assyrian territory, about 800km from Israel. The minor prophet Nahum identified Ninevah's sins as plotting against the Lord, cruelty and plundering in war, prostitution, witchcraft, and commercial exploitation (Na. 1:11, 2:12-13, 3:1, 3:4, 3:16, 3:19), i.e., violence, immorality, and social injustice.

e) chapter 1
v3 Jonah ran away because he didn't want to see their national enemies to be saved (Jonah 4:2). He went to Joppa, an ancient port city 50km NW of Jerusalem, to catch a ship. Incidentally, Joppa was where Peter later had his vision of the unclean animals; today it is known as Jaffa. Tarshish, or Tartessus, was a Phoenician city in SW Spain, a port city famous for metal refining. He was trying to get as far away as possible.
v7 Casting lots was a common custom in the ancient Near East; sticks or marked pebbles were thrown (cast) into a container and drawn by individuals. Though God does not sanction superstition or superstitious practices, He is nonetheless fully sovereign and controls the laws of chance and probability. So in this case He worked thru casting lots to reveal Himself and expose Jonah's sin.
v9 Jonah gives a confession of God as the one supreme God; though his confession is orthodox, he himself is acting in rebellion to God's will.
v13 Contrast the sailors' concern for Jonah by not wanting to throw him overboard with Jonah's lack of concern for the people of Ninevah.
v17 The phrasing of the Hebrew, according to scholars, needn't necessarily mean three whole days and nights.

f) chapter 2
This psalm is similar to those in the book of Psalms, including references to the temple (v4), poetic parallelism, etc.
v2, 6 The terms grave, pit, Sheol refer to the place of the dead in ancient Jewish religion. The concept was not a well developed theological concept, but rather was a vague concept of some place where souls of the dead went. In biblical poetry, it serves as a metonomy for death or destruction.
v7 Here temple probably refers to heaven.
v8 He contrasts God with the pagan idols of the Phoenicians and Assyrians.
v9 Obviously he made some vows to God, presumably while coming to terms with himself and God while inside the whale; he concludes with the confessional: salvation (deliverance) is from God.

2. lessons

a) God's sovereignty

b) sin & divine discipline

c) ministry

3. conclude in prayer