About Jesus   Steve Sweetman

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 Conflicted

 my commentary on the
prophetic book of Jonah

 

written 2022

 

Biblical text used and quoted in Part Two of this commentary is the Christian Standard Bible (CSB) as seen in the authorization statement below.  Scripture quotations marked CSB have been taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.

 

 

Table Of Contents

 

Dedication

 

Author's Note

 

Bibliographical Support

 

Preface

 

Importance Of Hermeneutics

 

Literary Genre

 

Defining Words

 

Dating Of The Book Of Jonah

 

Who Was Jonah?

 

Significance Of Numbers

 

Overview

 

Theme

 

Jesus, Jonah, And Allegory

 

The Big Fish

 

Jonah 1

 

Jonah 2

 

Jonah 3

 

Jonah 4

 

Personal Application

 

Final Thought

 

About The Author

 

Other Books By Stephen Sweetman

 

Contact Information

 

 

Dedication

 

I dedicate this book to my pastor, brother in the Lord, and just as important, my friend, Trevor Hoskins.  It was over coffee one day at a local coffee shop when he asked me my thoughts about Jonah and the big fish.  Was Jonah really swallowed by a big fish?  Is that the important lesson we are to learn from the Book of Jonah?  They were interesting questions, and for the life of me, with all of the Bible study that I have done over the decades, I cannot ever remember being asked these questions, let alone giving serious thought to their answers.  

 

Maybe, at some point, the subject of Jonah and the big fish must have come up somewhere in conversation with someone over the last fifty years, but if it had, I probably just thought of it as one huge miracle, and why?  Our God is the God of miracles.  He can do what He wants and when He wants.  He certainly doesn't have to ask feeble me for my permission.       

 

Trevor's questions and comments intrigued me.  As I have just written, I had never given his questions and comments much consideration, but in my recent study of the Old Testament, including ancient near-eastern culture, history, language, and literary genre, in which the Old Testament was written, his questions and comments have come to mind many times.  They have now caused me to think further about the Book of Jonah, and thus, the reason for this commentary.      

 

 

Author's Note

 

Before you read any further, I tell you in advance that due to the fact I have been legally blind since birth, because I am not a professional editor, and, because this book has not been edited by an outside source, you may find a few grammatical or spelling errors.  I have tried to keep them to a minimum, but knowing myself, I have surely, without any doubt, missed some mistakes.  Hopefully you will not find many, but most importantly, I hope those you do find will not detract from what you read.

 

I also admit that I do not have all of the answers when it comes to the study of the Bible.  The more I learn, the more questions I have.  I also admit that there are more detailed and scholarly commentaries than mine, and I have learned from them.  My heart in any book I write is to help us all understand the Bible better, especially to those who are new to the Christian faith.  The message of the Bible is expected to impact our lives in a positive way.  Bible study is more than an intellectual endeavour.  As dramatic as this might sound, it is a matter of life and death.     

 

Not that I consider myself in the same spiritual league as the apostle Paul, because I don't. I pass on to you what Paul passed on to Timothy.   2 Timothy 2:7 reads:

 

"Consider what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything."

    

May Jesus bless you in whatever way He sees fit as you read through this book.

 

 

Bibliographical Support

 

Like everyone else, over the years there are various sources that have increased my knowledge base of the Bible.  There are too many to mention here.  The following resources have been helpful as I have attempted to write this commentary on the Book of Jonah.  I would suggest they would be extremely helpful for anyone who wants to increase their knowledge of the Bible, and especially the Old Testament.  

 

Expositor's Commentary on Jonah, published in e-book format by Zondervan Academic in 2017, and written by John Walton.

 

The Israelite Conquest by John Walton, published by IVP Academic, in 2017. 

 

A Survey Of The Old Testament, written by John Walton, published by Zondervan Academic in 2010. 

 

Ancient Near Eastern Thought And The Old Testament, written by John Walton, published by Baker Academic in 2018. 

 

Did God Really Command Genocide, published by Baker Books in 2014, and written by Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan.

 

Blue Letter Bible, found on the internet at;  https://www.blueletterbible.org/ is always a great help to me.  Within this website can be found various commentaries, Bible dictionaries, lexicons, a concordance, Greek and Hebrew definition of words and grammatical helps, maps, devotionals, and much more.  I visit this site on a daily basis.  For me, it is a fundamental resource.   

 

At times, I have searched Wikipedia for definition of words and needed statistical information.   

 

Beyond the above books and web sites, for me, it is just a matter of a life of learning from various sources over the last fifty years.  There are way too many of these sources to mention here.    

 

 

Preface

 

Anyone who was raised in the tradition of the Evangelical Church , as I was, will recall the story of Jonah and the big fish, and a big fish it must have been.  I certainly recall those stories.  In those early grades of Sunday school, stories were commonplace.  They were meant to teach us some kind of lesson.  Story telling is one way to teach children.  All of that being said, I am no longer a child.  I'm an adult and I think like an adult.  I follow the example of the apostle Paul.  1 Corinthians 13:11 reads:

 

"When I was a child, I spoke like a child; I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put aside childish things."

 

One problem that inflicts us as Christians is that we do not mature into Biblically literate Christians because we have not graduated from our Sunday school understanding of Scripture.  We have failed to follow Paul's example, as stated in 1 Corinthians 13:11.  Much of all we know, especially from the Old Testament, are the stories we recall from our childhood.  Our Biblical education, then, is limited to simple Sunday school stories.  I call this the "Sundayschoolization of Scripture."  I realize the word "Sundayschoolization" is not a real word, but I'm sure you get my point.  

 

The Sundayschoolization of Scripture, along with our postmodern culture's dumbed-down mentality concerning details, has led many of us to be Biblically illiterate.  It is, thus, important to throw off any hesitancy to dig deep into the Biblical details.  To the degree that these details enter our brains and then sink into our souls where they become the conviction whereby we live, will be the degree to which we will mature as Christians.  There is little to no Christian maturity apart from the serious study of God's Word.  Remember, it is our spiritual food.  Matthew 4:4 reads:

 

"He [Jesus] answered, 'It is written: Man must not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

 

Hebrews 4:12 also becomes important at this point.

 

"For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart."

 

If we are to mature as Christians, it will be through a Holy Spirit led, balanced hermeneutical approach to Scripture.  Sundayschoolizing Scripture will not cut it.  Such hermeneutical principles as, understanding the culture, the language, and the genre of the book as understood by those in the culture in which it was written, for example, is basic to Biblical literacy.  If you are neither capable of such study, nor have the needed resources, I suggest you learn from credible Bible scholars who do have such capabilities and resources.  Your growth as a Christian depends on it.  

 

One of the big questions people ask these days about the Book of Jonah is this.  Was the big fish really a big fish?  I will address this issue in the chapter entitled "The Big Fish."        

 

I am departing from my usual verse by verse, even word by word, commentary for the Book of Jonah.  That is because much of the book is narrative and narrative does not need an exhaustive, verse by verse, or word by word, explanation.  I will, however, comment on certain important words, events, and issues that arise in each of the four chapters of the text.        

 

             

Importance Of Hermeneutics

 

Webster's online dictionary of words defines the word hermeneutics as "the study of the methodological principles of interpretation."  Okay, I'm sure you didn't quite get that definition, so I'll define hermeneutics in my own simplistic way.  Maybe then you will understand what this big word actually means.   

 

I define hermeneutics as the attempt to understand what another person says as he wants it to be understood, not as I think it should be understood or as I want to understand it.  You might actually say, then, that hermeneutics is the "art of common communication," because it is just that.  I use the word "art" because our communication skills have much to be desired.  Good communication is something we must learn and then put into practice.  Biblically speaking, we as human beings are sinful, and being sinful and far from perfect, we don't always do well with communicating with others.      

 

Upon hearing my definition of hermeneutics one wife told me that she really wanted to hermeneutic with her husband over lunch the next day.  She seemed quite anxious in this matter.  Obviously, she had something she wanted to communicate to her husband that he apparently had not quite understood as yet.  Some wives might suggest that is just the nature of a typical husband.  Whatever the case, this wife wanted her husband to hear and understand something from her point of view, not from his point of view.  That would require him to listen very intently to his wife and maybe even ask some questions for the sake of clarification.  It sounded like this couple had a bit of a communication problem, don't you think?  So what's new about that?  Well, there's nothing new about that.  It is just the way life is in the world of imperfect human beings.    

 

The most common mistake we make in attempting to understand others is that we put words into their mouths, something none of us like others doing to us.  We do this by defining their words and statements based on our thinking and our definition of words, not on their thinking and their definition of words.  Whether we intentionally do this or not, it is something we often do.  In the long run, then, we just don't understand what others intended us to understand.  At this point the attempt to communicate fails and could easily present a relational problem. 

 

In Biblical terms, hermeneutics is the process whereby we attempt to understand the Bible as it wants to be understood, not as we want to understand it or think we should understand it.  If we fail to understand the Bible in the way it wants to be understood, we do damage to the Bible's content, its authors, our understanding of the Bible, and those to whom we teach and preach.  Biblical hermeneutics, therefore, employs common sense rules to help us interpret the Bible in the way it is meant to be interpreted.  It's not an easy process at times but it is an important and most necessary process if we are to ever mature as Biblically literate Christians.     

 

Another point to consider when thinking of interpreting the Bible is that the Bible is not a person to whom we can ask questions of clarification.  The Bible can't talk to me.  If I don't understand what my wife is telling me, I can ask her to explain what she is saying in more detail, which she can certainly do.  I cannot ask that of the Bible.  Some may suggest that is why the Holy Spirit is available in our lives.  We can ask Him the needed questions and He will explain and provide the answers to our questions.  That is easier said than done, because, being both human and sinful, we often do not hear the Holy Spirit correctly.  We tend to get His voice mixed up with our own inner voice.  We, thus, must not be overly dogmatic in our interpretation and understanding of the Bible.  We can be wrong.  There is no doubt about that. 

 

If you are a serious student of the Bible, and you have been for several years or decades, maybe you will agree with me.  The more you learn, the more questions you have.  Also, the more you interact with other serious students of the Bible, the more you realize that others have some valid opinions and interpretations that may not be in sink with your opinions and interpretations.  You must hear them out, if you are ever to learn beyond your present understanding of the Biblical issues.  All this being said, a good hermeneutical approach to Bible study is necessary in our attempt to understand the Bible.           

  

Studying the Bible in a logical, systematic, and methodical way is becoming a lost skill in today's postmodern, western-world church.  The western-world church, in my opinion, is fast becoming a lazy church when it comes to Bible study.  Many Christians these days are simply Biblically illiterate.  I believe we are paying the price for our laziness in that real spiritual growth and our representation of Jesus to the world is being hindered.  There is no growth as a Christian or a church apart from the Holy Spirit led, and a proper hermeneutical approach, to the study of the Biblical text. 

 

The apostle Peter, in 1 Peter 2:2, encouraged us to "crave pure spiritual milk," as the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible puts it, or, "desire the sincere milk of the Word," as the King James Version of the Bible (KJV) puts it.  The NIV states:

 

"Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation,"

 

The KJV puts it this way.  

 

"As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:"

 

Beyond what Peter wrote, Jesus said this In Matthew 4:4.

 

"Jesus answered, 'It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

 

Whether it is the Word of God that is penned on the pages of the Bible or the Word of God spoken to our hearts by the Holy Spirit, it must be digested into our lives in order for us to mature as the believers we are to be.  It is what Hebrews 4:12 is all about. 

 

"For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart."

 

Some Christians read the Bible purely as a devotional book.  They hope that the Holy Spirit will simply drop Biblical understanding into their hearts.  I do believe in what I would call "Biblical revelation" where the Holy Spirit hits us with a truth we have never seen before, but that does not discount our responsibility to seriously study the Bible.  There is nothing inherently wrong with viewing the Bible as a devotional book to be inspired by, but, it's also a book of instruction to educate us in the ways of our Lord.  That requires study, not just reading.   

 

Few churches teach Biblical hermeneutics these days and that is to the detriment of both the church and the Christian.  You would think any kind of help to understand what God wants us to know would be important, but apparently it's not that important in many Christian circles today.  I once asked the pastor of a church I was involved in as a teacher if I could teach a class on hermeneutics.  He answered by saying  "no."  That was it.  There was no explanation for his answer.  That I could never understand.  Maybe he saw my request as a challenge to his teaching of the Bible.   

 

So, here we go.  Let us see if we can learn some common sense things from the Book of Jonah, but before we do, there are still a few other things I must comment on. 

 

For more information on the hermeneutical approach to Bible study, you can read my books entitled, "Clarifying Biblical Interpretation," and "How To Understand The Old Testament As New Testament Christians."  

 

 

Literary Genre

 

First of all, I understand what I write in this chapter will not necessarily convince the critics of my position concerning the Book of Jonah.  They may still consider my thoughts to be invalid, or maybe even way too liberal for their liking.  On the other hand, maybe some readers will rethink their views concerning the Book of Jonah after reading what I have to say.     

 

Understanding the genre of a Biblical book, or any book, as far as that is concerned, is important when attempting to understand what is being said in the book.  Jonah is no exception to this hermeneutical rule.   

 

Second of all, literary genre is the category any piece of literature falls into.  For example, a book can be either fiction or nonfiction, fantasy or factual.  A nonfiction book, for example, can fall into many categories, like, journalistic history, literary exegeses, commentary, or a documentary. 

 

Attempting to figure out the precise genre of the Book of Jonah in its ancient context has been a debate for centuries, and is still a debate to this very day.  What you read in this chapter is my view of the literary genre of the Book of Jonah, that I am sure, will not end this debate. You can take my position or you can leave my position, but it is my position.  It is also the position of many other people.  It will be my position until I can be proven wrong, and who knows, maybe some day I will be proven wrong.  Like everyone else, I am always in the process of learning, or relearning.  The same should apply to you, the reader.          

 

There are a number of hermeneutical issues to consider when attempting to understand all passages of the Bible, and that certainly includes the Book of Jonah.  One of these considerations is the genre of the text at hand.  In the case of the Book of Jonah, it is clearly understood to be narrative history.  That is to say, it sets forth the history of a certain event in the form of a narrative, a story.  With this in mind, it is important, even necessary, to understand how those living in the time period in which the book was written understood narrative history.  It is a mistake to think the authors of the Old Testament understood narrative history in the same way we understand it today in our twenty-first century western-world culture.  The culture in which the Book of Jonah was written is so far removed from our twenty-first century culture that there are few similarities between the two cultures.  Interpreting the past with the present is one huge mistake, but it is a common mistake among Christians today.   

 

When much of the Old Testament was written, people in those days did not view and understand historical writing as we do today, in our twenty-first century, western-world thinking concerning historical documentation.  When we watch, for example, a historical documentary on television, we expect historical accuracy.  We expect the facts that are presented to us to be factual, with no adaptations, no hyperbolic exaggeration, and no slanted commentary.  We want the facts and just the facts.  That was not the situation with historical writings during much of the period of the Old Testament in the ancient near-eastern world. 

 

Those who penned historical writings, like the narrative of Jonah, were not as obsessed with historical accuracy as we are today.  What they wrote was intended to make a point, or, more than one point, for their readers to know about.  The point to be understood was the main focus of the writing, not the facts of history.  For this reason, an author could use literary creativity to make sure his point was understood by his readers.  One such literary creative, or artistic, device is hyperbolic exaggeration.  This was somewhat commonplace in ancient near-eastern culture, and no one had a problem with such exaggeration.  This fact alone should help us in our pursuit to understand the books of the Old Testament, which includes the Book of Jonah. 

 

Without getting into the details, for example, the Jewish invasion of Canaan is one example of hyperbolic exaggeration.  Throughout the conquest there are Biblical statements that tell us that the Jews totally wiped out everyone in the Land of Canaan , but, that was not really the case, and there are Scriptures to support this.  The notion that the Jews totally destroyed everyone and everything in what they called the Promised Land is a hyperbolic exaggeration that was meant to make a point, the point being this.  The Land of Canaan was given to the Jews by their God and they got that land given to them, despite the fact they eventually lost the land. 

 

I realize that I have opened a jar of worms here without further explanation, but further explanation of the Jews advance on Canaan is not what this commentary is about.  I suggest that you read and study the following books for more information on the Canaanite invasion by the Jews.  These are just a few of many books addressing this situation. 

 

The first book is entitled the Lost World Of The Canaanite Conquest by John Walton, published IVP Academic, in 2017.  Another of John Walton's books is entitled A Survey Of The Old Testament, published by Zondervan Academic in 2010.  Yet another book written by John Walton that is important to these issues is Ancient Near Eastern Thought And The Old Testament, published by Baker Academic in 2018.  Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan's book entitled Did God Really Command Genocide, published by Baker Books in 2014 is an excellent book to read concerning the Jewish invasion of Canaan .  I would certainly recommend all of the above books to fill you in on all that I could not explain concerning the invasion of Canaan by the Jews.    

 

Understanding the Book of Jonah in terms of what I have just written, how then, should we view this book of narrative history, or as some call it, narrative art?  We should understand that the author, whoever he was, was not interested in an accurate portrayal of an historical event.  His concern was not to tell his readers of every last little detail.  He was interested in providing just as much history as was necessary to make sure his point got across to his readers.  Hyperbolic exaggeration in his mind would have been helpful to reach this goal.  This did not discredit the points he wanted to convey, and, it should not discredit these points in our minds as well.  Failure to present all of the facts in detail also did not invalidate what he wrote.  Telling a story in an interesting way, including some exaggeration, to make his point would also not have presented a problem in his day.     

 

I realize at this point many questions concerning inspiration of Scripture arise.  Inspiration of Scripture simply means that the original authors were inspired by the Lord to write what they wrote.  The words they penned were not dictated to them by God.  This inspiration must be understood in terms of the one originally writing a given text.  I will explain that.   

 

Inspiration must be thought of in terms of the culture in which any given book was inspired to be written.  Take, for example, what we read in Joshua 10:13.  There we read that the sun stood still, meaning, it did not move across the sky as it usually did.  Well, we now know that it is the earth that moves, not the sun.  The sun does not really move across the sky as those in Joshua's day thought.  The way in which Joshua and his contemporaries understood the sun moving across the sky is not scientifically accurate, and God would have understood that.  So, does that make Joshua 10:13 not inspired?  Does the author's view of the sun in relationship to the earth, which is clearly incorrect, make Joshua 10:13 not inspired by God?  The answer to these questions is clearly, "no." 

 

God inspired the original author of Joshua 10:13, but God did not step beyond the author's understanding of the universe to make a point.  If God would have inspired the author of Joshua to write something that only we understand today, it would have been useless to the original audience of the historical book of Joshua.  It would have added unnecessary confusion that would have detracted from the point of the passage.  God, by His own choice, chooses to work within the confines of our human boundaries, and concerning the sun in relation to the earth, the human boundary in Joshua's day was that the sun moved across the sky.  This does not nullify the Christian doctrine of Biblical inspiration.  It actually helps clarify the doctrine.  

 

Many Bible scholars have used the terms narrative history and narrative art to describe the genre of the Book of Jonah.  I like both terms, and so I used them in this commentary.  I especially like the term narrative art to help describe the genre of the Book of Jonah because it is my opinion that is what it is.  Having painted many oil paintings over the years, I understand the nature of creativity in painting, and really, creativity in all art forms. Art, no matter the form it takes, is a personalized creative expression of something the artist wants to portray in his art form.  A painting may portray a simple pretty picture of a landscape, or, it may tell a story.

 

The Book of Jonah, at least for me, is like an oil painting.  The author has taken a real historical event, and painted his way through the event with his words.  Some call such a writing style a word picture, that is to say, words paint a clear picture the reader is to see and understand in his mind.  This being the case, the author becomes creative.  He paints a mental image in the mind of the reader with his words to get his point across without destroying the validity of the historic event.  This is how  I view the Book of Jonah.   

 

In closing this chapter, I am reminded of what my pastor and friend to whom I have dedicated this book once said in a Sunday morning message.  He was using his wife's grandmother's old age to illustrate a point.  He could have said she was eighty five years old.  That would have made us think that she was old, but when he told us she was two hundred and fifty years old, that really drove home the point.  Hyperbolic exaggeration, indeed, is a helpful literary device, even in our day.                       

 

With this in mind, then, we must ask, what is the big fish in the Book of Jonah all about?  Beyond that, we also must ask what the plant that grows up over night in Jonah, chapter 4, all about?  I will address these questions in the chapter entitled "The Big Fish."

 

 

Defining Words

 

I have incorporated this chapter into my commentary because it is important to understand the meaning of the words we read.  So, I have chosen certain words we will encounter in the Book of Jonah to define

 

God

 

Our English word God is translated from the Hebrew word "elohim" in the Old Testament.  We see the word "God" in the very first verse of the Bible.  Genesis 1:1 reads"

 

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

  

In terms of the old Jewish language and culture, it was Elohim who created all things.  The noun "elohim" is a plural Hebrew noun. Being a plural noun has much theological significance.  It suggests that God, who He is, His essence, is some kind of plurality.  Although many see the Trinity in this plurality, the concept of Trinity was unknown in Old Testament times, which must be taken into consideration when interpreting the Hebrew word "elohim"` as New Testament Christians.   

 

Elohim was just a generic word for God in the Old Testament Hebrew language.  It is not His name.  His name is seen in our English word "LORD" as defined below.       

 

LORD

 

It is important to distinguish between the word "LORD," with all capital letters, and the word "Lord," with only a capital "L."  Both words are seen in the Old Testament.  The first time you read the word "LORD' in the Bible is found in Genesis 2:14, where it is associated with God, as in "LORD God."  That verse reads:

 

"These are the records of the heavens and the earth, concerning their creation. At the time that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,"

 

Our English word "LORD" (all capital letters) is translated from the Hebrew word "yahweh," which you would say is the personal name of God.  

 

After God gave Moses instructions for Israel to follow, Moses asked God this question.  "Who will I say sent me with these instructions (my version)?"  In Exodus 6:2, God answered Moses by saying:

 

"Then God spoke to Moses, telling him, 'I am the LORD.'"

 

Our English words "I am" are translated from the Hebrew word "yahweh."  From this we derive the name of the LORD God to mean "I am," and that speaks to the very essence of God.  Simply put, God's name is, "I am."       

 

The word "Lord," with only a capital "L" is a general word for a king, a governor, or anyone who has authority.  It could be in reference to God, or anyone else in authority.     

 

Jonah

 

In the Hebrew language, the name Jonah means dove.  Some people believe the meaning of Jonah's name, if understood in metamorphic terms, is significant to how we should view and understand the Book of Jonah and his mission to preach to Nineveh .  I am reluctant to travel too far down that literary road.   

 

I will write more about Jonah in the chapter entitled "Who Was Jonah?"       

 

Nineveh  

 

The city of Nineveh was an important city in Assyria .   It was located about five hundred and fifty miles north east of present day Jerusalem , Israel .  It was also located about two hundred and twenty miles north of present-day Bagdad , Iraq . 

 

Nineveh was a great city, as the text of Jonah states, but, it became even greater in and around 745 BC.  We see the words "great city" three times in the Book of Jonah. 

 

In 701 BC Nineveh became the capital city of Assyria and the most powerful city in the Middle East , and really, the known world at that time.  The perimeter of the city was about seven and a half miles long.  Nineveh , along with Assyria , fell to the Babylonian empire in 612 BC.  These facts, along with other facts about Nineveh , can be found in a variety of sources.  I have taken them from the NIV Application Commentary on the Book of Jonah, published by Zondervan Academic in 2010, written by James Bruckner.  

 

All of the above beings said, depending on what time period in history you are considering, Nineveh was also a province, and that becomes an important factor in determining when the Book of Jonah was actually written.    

 

Backing up a bit, the first mention of Nineveh in the Bible is found in Genesis 10:11, which reads:

 

"From that land he [Nimrod] went to Assyria and built Nineveh , Rehoboth-ir, Calah ,"

 

From Genesis 10:11 we learn that Nineveh , as a city, goes back a very long way in history.  Nimrod, the first Biblically recorded political leader, founded Nineveh along with other cities, Babel being the most important city. Babel , and its tower, is Nimrod's claim to fame which greatly displeased God.  Nimrod's humanistic attempt at nation building apart from God's input, is the reason why God separated humanity into various languages and cultures. 

 

I believe Nineveh 's association with Nimrod's humanist attempt at nation building is significant and relevant to the Book of Jonah.  From day one, Nineveh was all about humanism.  It was all about being man centered instead of God centered.  Nothing has changed from those days until now.  Cities, states, and nations, are humanistic in nature, and like Babel and Nineveh , that displeases God.

 

We also see Nineveh in the Old Testament Book of Nahum.  Nahum 1:8 reads:

 

"But he [God] will completely destroy  Nineveh with an  overwhelming flood, and he will chase his enemies into darkness."

 

The historical fact of the matter is that the prophecy of Nahum concerning the fall of Nineveh eventually came true in 612 BC when Assyria was overthrown by Babylon .

 

Nineveh was an evil city, as stated in Jonah 1:2.

 

"Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because their evil has come up before me."

 

Nineveh 's evil ways stems from its citizens self-centeredness, which by the way, is the fundamental sin of humanity.  Self-centeredness is seen in the Book of Jonah, both in the life of Jonah and the residents of Nineveh .    

 

Assyria

 

Assyria was a world empire from about 883 BC to 612 BC when it fell to the Babylonian Empire.  During part of Assyria's period of being a world-dominating empire, it was the arch enemy of Israel .  Israel , that is, the northern ten tribes, fell to the Assyrians in 722 BC. 

 

In the ninth century BC Assyria was a powerful empire, but, due to internal problems it was weakened in and around 800 BC to 750 BC.  Around 745 BC Assyria regained its status as being a world dominating empire. 

 

After 745 BC Assyria was a powerful military force and had no pity on those it conquered.  The armies of Assyria would commit mass murder, killing everyone, including women, children and babies.  Torture was common place after an Assyrian attack.  Men's testicals would be ripped out of men and thrown around as it they were small footballs.  Heads would be sliced from people's shoulders and then paraded around the streets on poles as a warning for all to see.  Bodies would be burned in the streets.  Men would be stretched on poles and skinned alive.  On and on it went.    

 

Depending on when you believe the events of the Book of Jonah took place, will tell you if Jonah's contemporaries lived during this period of Assyrian history.  If this was Jonah's knowledge of Assyria, you can certainly see why Jonah was so reluctant to go and preach repentance to Nineveh .  He would have hated the city and the nation of Assyria .  If this period of extreme torture was not during the time period of the events of the Book of Jonah, which probably is the case, the Assyrians were still pretty violent people.       

 

Tarshish

 

First of all, the name Tarshish is a Phoenician name, and in Jonah's day, Phoenicia was probably located where modern-day Lebanon is located. 

 

There has been much speculation over the location of Tarshish, or, if it even existed in the first place.  The most speculative location of Tarshish seems to be in Spain .  Some have suggested that it is Sardinia, the second largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, just off the west coast of Italy .  The Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament) translates this city as Carthage , and not Tarshish.  Carthage is in modern-day Tunisia .  Tunisia is in northern Africa .              

 

If Tarshish was in Spain , that area of the world would have been considered the far reaches of the world for those living in the ancient near-eastern world.  If Spain is the true location of Tarshish, that would be a factor when it comes to Jonah's attempt to run from God's presence because Spain was the farthest west that most in the ancient near-east knew about.   Beyond that, the world just dropped off the map, so to speak.     

 

We see the city of Tarshish mentioned a number of times in the Old Testament, much of which deals with the merchants of Tarshish.  For that reason, wherever Tarshish was, it appears it was a city of great commerce.  

 

The fact of the matter is that much of what we think we know about Tarshish is pure speculation.  John Walton, in his commentary on the Book of Jonah suggests that the equivalent to Tarshish in our day would be Timbuktu .  If there is some validity to that, then, the author's use of Tarshish in the narrative of the Book of Jonah might, and I say might, be more metamorphic than anything else, and thus, would fit well into the genre of the book.   The symbolic meaning of Tarshish, then, would mean Jonah was running as far away from God as one can think of traveling.   I will talk more about the genre of the Book of Jonah later. 

 

Joppa

 

Joppa is an ancient city on the far east end of the Mediterranean Sea .  It was where present-day Tel-Aviv , Israel , is today.  It was about thirty three miles from Jerusalem .       

 

Sheol

 

The word "Sheol," as understood by the Jews and by Old Testament theology, was the place of the departed dead.  It was the place deep in the centre of the earth where the spirits of dead people, both the righteous and unrighteous existed.  We will see Sheol mentioned in Jonah 2:2, that reads:

 

"I called to the LORD in my distress, and he answered me.

I cried out for help from deep inside Sheol; you heard my voice."

 

Isaiah 14:9 is one of many references to Sheol in the Old Testament.  It reads:

 

"Sheol below is eager to greet your coming, stirring up the spirits of the departed for you —all the rulers of the earth —making all the kings of the nations

rise from their thrones."

 

In Christian New Testament theology, Sheol became Hades.  Hades is a first-century Greek word that is in reference to the place of the dead, somewhere deep within the centre of the earth.  New Testament theology states that once Jesus died on the cross, He descended into Hades and released the righteous dead and sent them to heaven.  The apostle Paul alludes to this in Ephesians 4:7 through 10, that reads:

 

"Now grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. For it says: When he ascended on high, he took the captives captive; he gave gifts to people. But what does 'he ascended' mean except that he also descended to the lower parts of the earth? he one who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens, to fill all things."

Paul believed that Jesus descended into Hades, or Sheol, and when He ascended out of Hades, He took those who were captive with Him.

 

For the record, we should know that Hades is hell.  Hell is not the Lake of Fire as many think.  There has been confusion over this because of the King James Bible use of the word "hell."  For example, Revelation 20:14 in the KJV reads:

 

"And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death."

        

All newer versions of the Bible do not use the word "hell" in Revelation 20:14.  Here is the Christian Standard Bible's version of the verse.

 

"Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire."

 

Our English word "hell" that we read in the KJV is translated from the Greek word "hades," and thus, is best transliterated as Hades and not hell in the New Testament.  Beyond that, simple logic confirms that Hades is hell, not the Lake of Fire , as the KJV states.  If hell is indeed the Lake of Fire as many think, the KJV makes no sense because it states that hell was thrown into the Lake of Fire .  How can hell, the Lake of Fire , be cast into the Lake of Fire ?  How can the Lake of Fire be cast into itself?  How can anything be cast into itself?  Clearly, hell is Hades, not the Lake of Fire . 

 

Sheol, as we read it in the Old Testament is the place of the departed dead, the spirits of both the righteous and unrighteous.  The Hebrew word translated as "Sheol" is often translated into English as the word "grave" as well.  

 

Israel

 

Much could be said about Israel , but I will simply state a couple of issues that will help us understand the nation during the time period that the Book of Jonah was written.  Israel was one unified nation prior to 922 BC when it broke in two due to a civil war.  The northern ten tribes of Israel were then called Israel .  The southern two tribes were called Judah .  Jonah lived in the north, in Israel . 

 

In 722 BC, Israel fell to the Assyrians.  In 586 BC, Judah fell to the Babylonians.  Both Israel and Judah have never fully recovered from these falls, that is, until 1948 when both became the nation of Israel .   

 

Jeroboam ll

 

Although you do not see the name Jeroboam in the Book of Jonah, he is important because according to 2 Kings 14, he was the king of Israel , the ten northern tribes, when the events of the Book of Jonah took place.  He was king of Israel for forty one years.  The years of his rule over Israel has been debated.  In general terms, his rule was anywhere between 786 BC to 746 BC.  John Walton, in his commentary on the Book of Jonah, states that Jeroboam ll was king of Israel from 795 BC to 753 BC.  That, then, would make the events we read about in the Book of Jonah somewhere during this time period.  It would also tell us something about Nineveh , because during this period of Assyrian history, Assyria was not a dominating world power.  That came later.  Prior to Assyria becoming a powerful nation, much of the nation was in turmoil.  There were constant battles between certain factions attempting to rise to the top of the political pile. That, in turn, might help us understand some of the finer details about Nineveh as we study our way through the Book of Jonah, because there was much confusion and conflict within the city.       

    

Relent

 

We see the word "relent" in Jonah 3:10.  The meaning of relent is similar, but not exactly the same, as the meaning of the word "repent."  When the Old Testament speaks of God relenting of something, that simply means He changed His mind.   

 

Salvation

 

We see the word 'salvation' once in the Book of Jonah.  It is found in chapter 2, verse 9, that reads:

 

"... but as for me, I will sacrifice to you with a voice of thanksgiving.

I will fulfill what I have vowed.

Salvation belongs to the LORD."

 

It is a mistake to understand the Old Testament Jewish meaning of salvation in New Testament terms.  As New Testament Christians we understand salvation as the process whereby our sins have been forgiven, our righteous status before God confirmed, the residence of the Holy Spirit within us, and, our entrance into heaven when we die.  That was not the concept of salvation in the Old Testament.  For the Jews of old, salvation meant deliverance.  The Hebrew word translated as salvation in the Old Testament can also be translated as deliverance.  For the most part the Jews back then, salvation meant deliverance from their national enemies.  It did not mean salvation as Evangelical Christians think of salvation today.        

 

 

Dating Of The Book Of Jonah

 

We do not know the exact date when the Book of Jonah was originally written, or, when its final version was written.  There has been much speculation concerning this.  The speculative dating runs anywhere from the mid 700 BC to 200 BC.  The majority opinion seems to be that the book was written, or at least its final edition was written, after the Jews were released from Babylonian captivity in 538 BC.  That would be a couple of hundred years after the events of Jonah actually took place, which should be taken into consideration as we attempt to learn the lessons from the book.

 

We do know that the Hebrew canon of Scripture as we presently know it was completed in and around 90 BC.  Some suggest that it was around this time when the Book of Jonah's final edition came into existence, and that due, at least in part because there are a couple of non-canonical books that mention the Book of Jonah, and these books were written in the postexilic period, anywhere between 538 BC and 200 BC.     

 

Since we cannot verify the exact date that the original Book of Jonah was penned, the next obvious question is this.  "When did the events we read about in the Book of Jonah take place?"  The answer to this question seems to be found in 2 Kings 14:23 through to 25.  That passage reads:

 

"In the fifteenth year of Judah 's King Amaziah son of Joash, Jeroboam son of Jehoash became king of Israel in Samaria , and he reigned forty-one years. He did what was evil in the LORD's sight. He did not turn away from all the sins Jeroboam son of Nebat had caused Israel to commit. He restored Israel 's border from Lebo-hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word the LORD, the God of Israel, had spoken through his servant, the prophet Jonah son of Amittai from Gath-hepher."

 

To figure out the dating of the events in the Book of Jonah you would have to know when Jeroboam ll was king of Israel .  There is a bit of controversy over the exact dating of Jeroboam's rule over Israel , and in this case, it was Jeroboam ll who ruled over the northern ten tribes of Israel .  The general consensus is that Jeroboam ll ruled Israel somewhere between 786 BC to 746 BC, or, 795 BC to 753 BC, as John Walton states in his commentary on the Book of Jonah.  That would place the life of Jonah and the events of the Book of Jonah somewhere between the above dates.

 

 

Who Was Jonah?

 

Jonah was a Jewish prophet.  We know this because that is what he is called in 2 Kings 14:25.

 

"He restored Israel 's border from Lebo-hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word the LORD, the God of Israel, had spoken through his servant, the prophet Jonah son of Amittai from Gath-hepher."

 

Jesus Himself confirmed that Jonah was a prophet, as seen in Matthew 12:39

 

"He answered them, 'An evil and adulterous generation demands a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.'"

 

As previously stated, Jonah lived somewhere around 800 BC to somewhere around 740 BC.  As 2 Kings 14:25 makes clear, he was from the town of Gath-hepher , which was about fifteen miles east of the Sea of Galilee .   

 

Beyond this we know little about Jonah.  We know that Jesus mentioned him, as seen in Matthew 12:39 through 40, Matthew 16:4 and 17, and Luke 11:29 to 32.  I will write about Jesus' references to Jonah in the chapter entitled "Jesus And Jonah."

 

Bible scholars separate Old Testament prophets into two categories.  Those prophets, like Elisha and Elijah, are prophets dated prior to Jonah's day.  Classical prophets, as they have been called, are those like Isaiah and Jeremiah who lived after Jonah.  Jonah seems to be the last of the pre-classical prophets.  

 

 

Significance Of Numbers.

 

Although there is some controversy over how we should understand and interpret certain Biblical numbers, this issue is important when it comes to our understanding of the Book of Jonah.  There are two significant numbers we read in Jonah, and they are the number three and the number forty.  I will not involve myself in a detailed accounting of Biblical numbers, but I do believe they have some significance when it comes to the interpretation of a Biblical text.  I also believe that the symbolic use of numbers has often been abused over the years. 

 

Take the number seven as an example of an important Biblical number.  Among many Biblical references, we see the seven days of creation in the Genesis account, seven lambs in Genesis 21:28, seven days in Exodus 12:19, seven lamps in Exodus 25:37, seven spirits of God in Revelation 1:4, seven churches in Revelation 1:11, seven seals in Revelation 5:1, seven horns in Revelation 5:6, seven trumpets in Revelation 8:6, seven thunders in Revelation 10:3, seven thousand people in Revelation 11:13, seven heads in Revelation 12:3, seven angels in Revelation 15:1, seven bowls in Revelation 15:7, seven kings in Revelation 17:9, and seven plagues in Revelation 21:9. On and on it goes.  You can do the rest of the research for yourself.  I have left many of the references to the number seven out of this list. 

 

I believe that the number seven does have a symbolic meaning, especially in Biblical prophecy as seen in the Book of Revelation.  I am just very careful when I interpret a passage based on the symbolic meaning of numbers.      

 

Due to the symbolic meaning that is often significant when it comes to Biblical numbers, I suggest that the numbers three and forty might well have metamorphic meanings to them in the Book of Jonah and not the normal numerical value you might think. 

 

Jonah 1:17 reads:

 

"The LORD appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights."

 

Was Jonah in the belly of the big fish for three literal days and three literal nights?  I suggest, as many do, that three days and three nights do not necessarily mean three literal days and three literal nights.  It might well mean the predetermined time, no matter its length, that God planned for Jonah be within that huge fish, and, I will address the big fish later. 

 

I make this conclusion, at least in part, because of the word "appointed" in the above verse.  This whole event was appointed by God.  Besides that, I take into consideration the common metamorphic understanding of the number three, which is, completion, whether the completion of time, the completion of an event, the completion of a task, or the completion of whatever.      

 

Jonah 3:3 reads:

 

"Jonah got up and went to Nineveh according to the LORD's command.

Now Nineveh was an extremely great city, a three-day walk."

 

Either you understand a three-day walk, as we read above, in literal terms or in symbolic terms as being a completed action.  I consider the three-day walk not in literal terms.  I view it as a symbolic way to say that Jonah's walk took as long as it was needed to complete the task at hand. 

 

There is a debate whether this three-day walk was from the coast of the Mediterranean Sea where Jonah was vomited out of the mouth of the fish to Nineveh , or, whether the walk was around or through the city of Nineveh .  If this walk was from the shore of the sea to Nineveh , three literal days make no sense.  It would have been at least a five to seven week walk.      

 

Like the number seven that I partially detailed above, the number forty is a very popular Biblical number.  I won't detail all of the appropriate references.  Here are just a few relevant passages.  We see the number forty in forty days and forty nights of rain in Genesis 7:4.  After forty days Noah opened the window of the ark as seen in Genesis 8:6.  We see forty years in Genesis 25:20, forty days and nights of Jesus testing in the desert as seen in Matthew 4:2.  This is just a brief sample of the number forty in the Bible.  I'll let you search out the rest for yourself.  Then, in the Book of Jonah the number forty is found in Jonah 3:4, that reads: 

 

"Jonah set out on the first day of his walk in the city and proclaimed, 'In forty days Nineveh will be demolished!'"

 

For all of the above-stated reasons concerning the symbolic meaning to numbers found in the Bible, I suggest that the number forty, and most agree, in its symbolism, stands for a period of testing.  That certainly seems to be the case with the events surrounding the city of Nineveh , at least in my thinking.  That being the case, I am not convinced that forty days in the above verse should be understood as forty literal days.  I personally believe it was just a period of time, and, might well have been a time of testing, that would cause the residents of Nineveh to fall to their knees in repentance. 

 

In the culture in which the Book of Jonah was written, numbers were often used to symbolize something.  You and I might not catch the symbolic meaning of any given number, but those in that era certainly would have.       

 

 

Overview

 

The Book of Jonah is not a complicated narration.  Jonah heard the Word of the Lord to preach repentance to Nineveh .  He did not like what he heard.  He ran from both God and His instructions.  He attempted to go as far as he could from his home town.  He tried his best to avoid God, but without any success.  Jonah got caught in the middle of a storm at sea where the Lord saved him.  He was swallowed by a big fish that eventually vomited him out on dry land.  He came to his senses and headed over to Nineveh to preach against those dwelling in the city.  The people of the city repented of their evil ways and Jonah complained bitterly to the Lord about all that had transpired. 

 

That is the story in a nutshell.  One thing I should point out at this point is that Nineveh 's repentance did not last more than a generation.  That always seems to be the case when it comes to any kind of Godly revival.  Sooner or later, the revival will die down because we mess it all up.     

 

 

Theme

 

There have been many themes suggested concerning the Book of Jonah by various Bible teachers over the years.  If you ask twenty people what the theme of the book is, you'll probably get twenty different answers.  I'll just add my theme to the list. 

 

In my estimation, the Book of Jonah is about Jonah and his struggle with God and with the task he was called to perform.  This is just typical human nature.  As Christians, we struggle with the Word of the Lord.  We struggle with God's call on our lives.  We struggle, really, with God Himself. 

 

In New Testament terms, this is the flesh waging war against the Spirit.  It is the constant conflict we have with complying with the ways of God.  We hear what He says and our souls are conflicted.  All this being said, our Lord still loves us despite our inner conflict, and thus, the theme of this book and its title,  "Conflicted."         

 

 

Jesus, Jonah, And Allegory

 

We have three passages in the gospel accounts where Jesus makes reference to Jonah. Matthew 12:39 to 41 reads as follows.    

 

"He answered them, 'An evil and adulterous generation demands a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at Jonah's preaching; and look ​— ​something greater than Jonah is here."

 

Matthew 16:4 reads:

 

"'An evil and adulterous generation demands a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.' Then he [Jesus] left them and went away."

 

Luke 11:29 through 32 reads:

 

"As the crowds were increasing, he began saying: 'This generation is an evil generation. It demands a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh , so also the Son of Man will be to this generation.   The queen of the south will rise up at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and look ​— ​something greater than Solomon is here.  The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at Jonah’s preaching, and look ​— ​something greater than Jonah is here."

 

Sometimes I think we make too much of how we should understand the Book of Jonah and the life of Jonah from the little that Jesus said in the above passages. At times we apply an interpretation that means more than what Jesus meant.  We, then, go back into the Book of Jonah to find its deeper meaning, when in fact, it might not have such a deeper meaning.    

 

Jesus first compared the generation of Jews in which He lived with the generation of people living in Nineveh during Jonah's day.  Understanding both peoples and cultures, I might suggest that the generation of Jews in Jesus' day might not have been as evil as the generation of Assyrians in Nineveh in Jonah's day.  That being said, God does not only view our outward evil actions.  He sees the sinfulness of our hearts, whether we express that sinfulness in actions or not.  The point here is that those in the city of Nineveh repented of their evil while those Jews in Jesus' generation, for the most part, had no desire to repent.  Jesus, thus concluded, that on the Day of Judgment, that generation of Assyrians in Nineveh would stand in judgment against Jesus' generation of Jews.  Those Old Testament Gentile people would be in stark contrast to the people of God, the Jews on that all-important Day of Judgment.  

 

The other comparison that Jesus made on this particular occasion was between Him and Jonah.  He mentioned two similarities.  The first was that as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights, so He would be in the centre of the earth for three days and three nights.  Again, as I have previously stated, three days, as I believe, is symbolic of a completed period of time.  It took three symbolic days for Jonah's compliance with God to be completed in his life.  It took three symbolic days for Jesus to accomplish, or complete, God's specific plan for Him while in the centre of the earth. 

 

I used the word "symbolic" in the last paragraph concerning Jesus being in the grave for three days.  I have done that because three days in the centre of the earth has always been an unresolved problem among Bible scholars.   Whether Jesus was literally in the grave for three days and three nights is questionable.  Attempting to figure out the timing details of Jesus' last week on earth, which would include the time of His death to the moment He was raised from the dead, is more difficult than the average reader of the Bible realizes.  I will not get involved in that discussion here.  The point is, if you study all of the necessary passages, and do the math, people have come up with various conclusions concerning the time line of Jesus death, burial and resurrection.  Although I understand the problem, it does not have to bother me if I understand three days and nights in the centre of the earth to be the needed time for Jesus to accomplish all that He needed to accomplish.     

 

The other comparison that Jesus made here between Him and Jonah is that both were prophets, but He, obviously, was more important than Jonah.  That being said, those in Nineveh responded to Jonah in a positive way while the Jews responded to Jesus in a negative way, and that despite the fact that Jesus was much more important than Jonah.

 

We should also note that the texts quoted  above state that both Jesus and Jonah were a sign to their respective generation.  They themselves were the sign.  What might that mean?  A sign points to something.  That would suggest that both Jonah and Jesus were signs that pointed to something that their respective generation needed to know about.  I would suggest that in both cases those who followed the sign, either Jonah or Jesus, would find deliverance in which each was in desperate need.         

 

The words "types" and "shadows," along with the word "allegory," are words that many Bible teachers use when interpreting any given Old Testament passage.  These words suggest that certain historical events, or people, in the Old Testament have certain secondary, New Testament significance or meaning.  Types, shadows, and allegories are similar to Biblical prophecy in that respect. 

 

In terms of the Book of Jonah, types, shadows, and allegories, are seen by many.  For example, as Jonah was thrown into the sea, or Sheol, so Jesus was thrown into Sheol or Hades upon His death.  Jonah's experience, then, foretold Jesus' experience.  I can see how people can arrive at this conclusion because of what Jesus said, as quoted above.  He actually allegorized Jonah's descent into the sea.    

 

Some Bible teachers, in my opinion, take types, shadows, and allegories, to an extreme.  They turn most all of the Book of Jonah, in every last little detail and spiritualize these details to be significant for us today.  There is a problem with this.  Sooner or later, all allegories, types, and shadows, fall apart, but there is more.

 

When it comes to types, shadows, and allegories, there are a variety of explanations of the historical events or people under investigation.  One Bible teacher will interpret the types and shadows one way, while another will interpret them another way.  Who is correct in his interpretation?  Simply put, when interpreting any Old Testament passage with the use of types, shadows, or allegory, almost anything goes.  Our over-active imaginations can invent all sorts of things any given passage might mean beyond the obvious.  I have seen this many times over the decades. 

 

One thing I believe we can do is look further into how Jesus compared His descent into Hades with Jonah's descent into the sea.  We can do this because Jesus Himself did allegorize this.  Beyond that, I'd be careful to allegorize the rest of the Book of Jonah.  Because Jesus made this allegory, my comments on Jonah being swallowed by the big fish include allegory.     

 

The apostle Paul used allegory in Galatians 4:22 through 26.           

 

"For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave and the other by a free woman.  But the one by the slave was born as a result of the flesh, while the one by the free woman was born through promise. They represent two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai and bears children into slavery ​— ​this is Hagar. Now Hagar represents Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem , for she is in slavery with her children.  But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother."

                     

In Galatians 4, Paul took two literal women in history and portrayed them in present-day spiritual terms.  He allegorized these women to be something they never were, and that was  to make one particular point.  This is what Jesus did when He took Jonah's descent into the sea and applied it to His descend into the grave.

 

Here is the question?  Are we to allegorize every last detail of the Book of Jonah?  Are we to use types and shadows to crate a New Testament meaning to the life of Jonah?  I would be very careful about doing that.  As a matter of fact, I personally stay away from types and shadows and allegorizing Scripture.  Jesus and Paul could do that, but I am not in the same league as Jesus and Paul.

 

This we know from what Jesus said.  Both Jonah and Jesus was a sign to their respective generation.  It was important for those two generations to follow the sign provided them.

 

What I will do in this commentary, is to take the events of Jonah, chapter 2, and compare them with Jesus death.  I do that because Jesus Himself made that comparison.  Beyond that, I will not make allegorical comparisons on too much more.        

          

 

The Big Fish

 

The big fish is the big elephant in the room, so to speak, when it comes to understanding the Book of Jonah.  Did Jonah really get swallowed by a whale or was this big fish just a metamorphic symbol that is meant to paint a mental picture for us?  Here is our choice in the matter.  The big fish is either a real big fish or it is a metaphor for something else.

 

Most of us who were raised in the Sunday schools of the Evangelical church believe the big fish was a literal big fish.  We, therefore, have no problem with a whale swallowing up Jonah because we believe God can do anything He wants.  He is God, and He is the God of the miraculous, no matter how foolish the miraculous might look.  God is not bound by our human limitations, that is, unless He chooses to be so bound. If He wanted a big fish to swallow Jonah, that's no big deal for Him.  He can do as He pleases.  There is no doubt that God is God and He is quite capable of having Jonah being swallowed by a big fish.  I get that. 

 

All of the above being said, once we understand the language, the culture, and the genre of the Book of Jonah that I have previously set forth, it is not illogical to conclude that the big fish was not a literal big fish, but a symbol of something even more than a big fish.  If indeed, the Book of Jonah is historical art, or a creative historical narrative, that makes some important points through literary devices like word pictures, then, the big fish being understood in metamorphic terms should not be a problem for us.  It certainly is not a problem for me.

 

You can decide for yourself how you view the big fish.  I would not spend a lot of time arguing the point with anyone.  It's not really the main concern in the Book of Jonah , although we  seemed to have made it the big concern over the years.

 

 So, this is how I personally view the big fish, until my mind can be changed on this matter.  The big fish is a metaphor.  It is a symbol.  It is a sign, pointing to the lesson we are to learn from the Book of Jonah.  I will address this further when I come to the big fishswallowing Jonah in chapter 1, verse 17.              

 

 

Jonah 1

 

The Text

 

1 - The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai:  2 "Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh  and preach against it because their evil has come up before me." Jonah got up to flee to Tarshish from the Lord's presence. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. He paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the Lord's presence.

 

But the Lord threw a great wind onto the sea, and such a great storm arose on the sea that the ship threatened to break apart. The sailors were afraid, and each cried out to his god. They threw the ship’s cargo into the sea to lighten the load. Meanwhile, Jonah had gone down to the lowest part of the vessel and had stretched out and fallen into a deep sleep.

 

The captain approached him and said, "What are you doing sound asleep? Get up! Call to your god. Maybe this god will consider us, and we won’t perish." 7 "Come on!" the sailors said to each other. 'Let's cast lots. Then we’ll know who is to blame for this trouble we're in." So they cast lots, and the lot singled out Jonah. 

 

Then they said to him, "Tell us who is to blame for this trouble we're in. What is your business, and where are you from? What is your country, and what people are you from?"

 

He answered them, "I'm a Hebrew. I worship the Lord, the God of the heavens, who made the sea and the dry land."

 

10 Then the men were seized by a great fear and said to him, "What have you done?" The men knew he was fleeing from the Lord's presence because he had told them. 11 So they said to him, "What should we do to you so that the sea will calm down for us?" For the sea was getting worse and worse.

 

12 He answered them, "Pick me up and throw me into the sea so that it will calm down for you, for I know that I'm to blame for this great storm that is against you." 13 Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they couldn't because the sea was raging against them more and more.

 

14 So they called out to the LORD, "Please, Lord, don't let us perish because of this man's life, and don't charge us with innocent blood! For you, Lord, have done just as you pleased." 15 Then they picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea, and the sea stopped its raging. 16 The men were seized by great fear of the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.

 

17 The Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

 

My Commentary

 

Verses 1 through 3

 

"1 - The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai:  2 'Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh  and preach against it because their evil has come up before me.' Jonah got up to flee to Tarshish from the Lord's presence. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. He paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the Lord's presence."

 

I don't believe it is greatly significant, but for the record, the name Jonah in the original Hebrew means dove.  The name Jonah would often be used in terms of endearment during Old Testament times.

 

Jonah's father's name was Amittai.  We know nothing about this man.  He is only mentioned here and in 2 Kings 14:25, where, he, like here, is said to have been Jonah's father.

 

The term "Word of the Lord" is an often used Biblical phrase to express whatever one would hear from God.  Most of the time when this phrase is used in the Old Testament, the message heard from God was expected to be proclaimed to those the message concerned.  Most, but not all, Words from God were to be proclaimed to the nation of Israel .     

 

God told Jonah to go to the evil city of Nineveh to preach against it because its residents were evil in His sight.  The city of Nineveh was an important city in Assyria .   It was located about five hundred and fifty miles north east of present day Jerusalem , Israel , and also about two hundred and twenty miles north of present-day Bagdad , Iraq .  In and around 745 BC Nineveh became a great city.  We see the words "great city" three times in the Book of Jonah. 

 

In 701 BC, Nineveh became the capital city of Assyria and the most powerful city in the Middle East , and really, the known world.  According to the text, the perimeter of the city was about seven and a half miles long, but there is some controversy surrounding those measurements.  The stated measurements would depend on what time period was being written about, because like any city, Nineveh was a growing city.     

 

Nineveh , along with Assyria fell to the Babylonian empire in 612 BC.  It had lost its world domination. 

 

The evil spoken of by God concerning Nineveh , and really, all of Assyria , was horrific.  As I stated in my chapter on defining words, Assyria was attempting to conquer the known world somewhere in and around 745 BC and after, and that included, God's people, the Jews of Israel .  Assyria finally captured Israel , that is, the northern ten tribes of Israel , in 722 BC. 

 

The Assyrians would kill those they captured, but before they did, they would severely torture them.  For example, they would cut out the testicles of men, or balls as they are often called today.  They would then, throw them around as if they really were balls.  They would put human bodies on poles to stretch the bodies so they could skin those on the poles alive.  They would chop the heads off people; parade them around on long sticks for all to see.  They would cut the tongues out of people.  They would cut the penis off of a man.  On and on it went.  Every evil thing you might conceive, they would do.  No wonder this evil bothered God, and especially, when and if this evil was done to His people, Israel , and that, despite the fact that His people were not living as they should.

 

It might also be for the above evil that Jonah was so reluctant to go to Nineveh to preach.  He probably feared them, but he probably also hated them.  Why would he want to go to such an evil city that might attempt to destroy him and his people?  You can't blame Jonah for that.  This would certainly show us why Jonah was so conflicted over God's call on his life.

 

The words "preach against" tells me that the content of what Jonah was to preach concerned God's judgment on Nineveh .  If those in Nineveh did not repent and change their evil ways, the city would fall at the hand of God's divine judgment, and, if Nineveh fell, all of Assyria would probably fall as well.  As I have said, Assyria did end up being overtaken by the Babylonians in 612 BC, which I believe, was an act of God's judgment on the Assyrian empire.

 

When it comes to divine judgment of nations and empires, most of the judgment talk that came from the mouth of God concerned Israel .  God did, however, speak judgment on some Gentile nations, and Nineveh is one such example.  For this reason, some Bible teachers believe that when it comes to national judgment by the hand of God, such judgment does not apply to any nation other than Israel , because, only Israel entered a covenant with God. 

 

I hold to the view that God does judge all nations, and the Book of Jonah makes this clear to me.  Besides that, Daniel 2:21 also makes this clear in my estimation.  That verse reads:

       

"He [God] changes the times and seasons; he removes kings and establishes kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding."

 

Also, Daniel 4:17 reads:

 

"This word is by decree of the watchers, and the decision is by command from the holy ones.

This is so that the living will know

that the Most High is ruler over

human kingdoms. He gives them to anyone he wants and sets the lowliest of people over them."

 

Jeremiah 18:7 through 10 also states God's sovereignty over the nations, and, it does not only apply to Israel .  That passage reads:

 

"At one moment I [God] might announce concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will uproot, tear down, and destroy it.  However, if that nation about which I have made the announcement turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the disaster I had planned to do to it.  At another time I might announce concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it.  However, if it does what is evil in my sight by not listening to me, I will relent concerning the good I had said I would do to it."

 

The notion that God might either cause a nation to rise or fall is a serious matter for us to consider, even, as I believe, in these New Testament days.

 

If you study Old Testament prophecy concerning Gentile empires, you will note that prophecies directed towards them concerned their relation to Israel .  That is to say, how those empires treated Israel would determine the nature of the prophecy, which was, mostly a prophecy of judgment.  Concerning the Assyrian Empire, how it treated Israel would determine the nature of the prophetic word directed to it.  This is based on Genesis 12:3.

 

"I [God] will bless those who bless you [ Israel ], I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through  you."

 

Here is my point, and it is speculative.  Yes, God was about to judge Nineveh for its evil ways, but, some of those evil ways would have, or, would at some future point, affect Israel to some degree.  If Nineveh would repent, Israel would be safer, and that just might have been one reason why God wanted to save Nineveh through the prophetic word of judgment.  

    

In response to the Word of the Lord, Jonah went the opposite direction to the command of the Lord that was given him.  Instead of going north east to Nineveh , he went west to the city of Joppa .  Joppa was basically present-day Tel Aviv, Israel . 

 

Jonah then proceeded to board a ship that was heading for Tarshish, which, as I have mentioned earlier, much is unknown about that city.  It might actually be a fictitious city, as some scholars suggest.  It might have been in Spain , Sardinia , Tunisia , or who knows where.  If it was in Spain , that would have been the farthest west that most would venture.  Tarshish would have been considered the end of the earth back then.  Remember, people in those days thought the world was flat, and they certainly did not want to fall off the face of the earth, or, maybe that was exactly what Jonah wanted to do.      

 

The text states that Jonah was attempting to flee from the presence of God, but we know, that is an impossibility.  One of the divine attributes of God is that He is everywhere at all times.  There is no place where we can hide from God.  It is just not possible.  Psalm 13:7 through 13 is one Biblical passage that makes this clear. 

 

"Where can I go to escape your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?  If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.  If I fly on the wings of the dawn and settle down on the western horizon, even there your hand will lead me; your right hand will hold on to me. If I say, 'Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light around me will be night'— even the darkness is not dark to you."

Amos 9:2 and 3 says the same thing.  That text reads:

 

"If they dig down to Sheol,

from there my [God] hand will take them; if they climb up to heaven, from there I will bring them down. If they hide

on the top of  Carmel , from there I will track them down and seize them; if they conceal themselves

from my sight on the sea floor,

from there I will command

the sea serpent to bite them."

 

Note the word "Sheol" in the above two passages.  We see Sheol in the Book of Jonah.  I will comment on this later, but Sheol is important when it comes to the Book of Jonah, especially concerning the sea in which Jonah was thrown into.

 

Did Jonah really think he could run away from the presence of God?  I sincerely doubt that he really thought that he could pull this escape off.  What I believe is that Jonah was human, and like all humans, including you and I, Jonah tried to run from God even though he knew that would be impossible.  You can probably think of situations in your own life when you wanted to hide from God, despite the fact that you know there is no place to hide from Him.  It was just the conflict deep within his soul that was waging war between him and God.  Such conflict is common to us all and just due to our sinful human nature.      

 

Verses 4 and 5    

 

"But the Lord threw a great wind onto the sea, and such a great storm arose on the sea that the ship threatened to break apart. The sailors were afraid, and each cried out to his god. They threw the ship's cargo into the sea to lighten the load. Meanwhile, Jonah had gone down to the lowest part of the vessel and had stretched out and fallen into a deep sleep."

 

The text states that the Lord threw a great wind onto the sea.  The wind storm was so bad that the sailors believed the ship would break apart and all would be lost, including themselves.  I could only imagine, or maybe I can't, the fear that overwhelmed these sailors, who, probably would have experienced many storms at sea before, but I would not be surprised that this was the worst storm they had ever encountered. 

 

The stormy season on the Mediterranean Sea would last from about November through to sometime in March.  For that reason, most ships and sailors did not sail the Mediterranean Sea during those months.  Whether this ship sailed during the stormy months is unknown to us.  Some suggest that Jonah was not just one of many passengers on this ship, despite it appears to be carrying some kind of merchandise.  They believe that he rented the ship so he could go to Tarshish.  It might, then, make you wonder if Jonah did not care about taking a trip in the stormy season.  He wanted to die anyway, as we will see.           

 

The word "threw," or the word "hurled," as some versions state it, suggests a violent throwing down.  This violent throwing down was straight from the Lord.  He did not just toss the storm down to earth.  No, it seems to me that with great emotion, He threw the storm down to the sea for a specific reason.  It would sort of be like a fast-ball pitcher who throws a fast ball to home plate as violently as he could. 

 

The throwing down of this storm to the sea, that is metaphorically speaking, by the Lord suggests to me that He was not very happy with Jonah.  That might well be an understatement.  He might well have been quite angry, and we should know, that the Lord does get angry at times.  Of course, His anger is not like our human anger that has mixed emotions and mixed motivations.  The anger of God is pure, righteous, just, and well founded.  It is based on justice.    

 

The Biblical text clearly states that the storm originated from the Lord Himself.  That being said, we should realize that all ancient near-eastern cultures, not just Hebrew culture, would have believed this storm was divinely thrown down to the sea.  The reason for this is that all ancient near-eastern cultures believed that the gods were in charge of the weather.  If it was a sunny day, a certain god made it sunny.  If it was a cold day, some god made it cold.  If it was a stormy day, some god created that storm.  So, it would have been a natural thought process that determined this storm to be divinely orchestrated.

 

This question, thus, arises.  As Christians, should we believe that every aspect of our weather, no matter the intensity or lack thereof, is divinely orchestrated?  This is a difficult question to answer. 

 

If you are a Pantheist, you believe that God is the universe.  That is to say, all that is material and spiritual was not only created by God, it is God Himself.  All of creation, then, is God.  That being the case, you would have to believe that every aspect of our weather is divinely orchestrated.  Pantheism, though, is not Biblical.  Christians are not Pantheists.  No matter how you view the creation account of Genesis, Christians believe that God created the material universe.  That being so, He is separate and distinct from that which He created. 

 

On the other hand, if you are a Deist, you believe that God created the material universe, and then, He stepped back from His creation and allowed it to evolve as it wills.  The Bible does not teach Deism.  The very fact that Jesus entered this world, and, His Spirit enters the true Christian makes this clear.    

 

Fifty years ago I might have called myself a Deistic Christian, if there really is such a thing.  By that I mean I believed that God created the material universe, but did not step back from His creation.  That being so, I also believed that God does not involve Himself in every little fine detail of the outworking of creation.  That would mean that I did not believe that every drop of rain that fell from the sky originated from the hand of God, but maybe, a severe thunderstorm did. 

 

I have now come to believe that God is more active or involved in all aspects of creation more than we can ever know.  He might well, then, be active in every little aspect of creation, although I admit, that is a bit speculative.  I cannot say that for sure, at least not yet.  I will know the answer to these types of questions in the next life.                        

 

The storm we see in Jonah must have been one powerful storm.  Maybe you might have called it a once in a life time storm.  I say this because these were probably professional sailors who were consumed, or so it seems, with fear.  Jonah on the other hand, didn't seem so concerned or fearful.  He was asleep down below.  Either Jonah was a very heavy sleeper, or, he was fearless. I don't know which way to think.  He doesn't seem to be fearless to me.

 

The fact that Jonah was sleeping through this bad storm seems strange to me.  I can't believe his apparent lack of fear, if that was really the case, was because he was trusting His God.  I do not see him trusting God because he was running from Him.  One can't trust God in a given situation, like the one Jonah was in, if he was running from God.  Maybe Jonah really was a heavy sleeper and not a light sleeper, as I am.   

 

We see the word "sea" in the above verses.  This is an important word, although you might not have guessed that to be the case.  It has been well documented that in ancient near-eastern cultures, large bodies of water, like the Mediterranean Sea , had significance.  This was especially so with the Jews. 

 

Unlike land, there was much unknown about the depth of an ocean or sea.  Seas and oceans were that part of the planet that had not yet been placed in any kind of order, and order was important to all cultures in these ancient civilizations.  They viewed a sea and an ocean as being something to fear.  It was an underwater place of chaos, full of unknown exotic chaos creatures.  In other words, the seas and oceans had not yet been ordered by the gods.  We will see a hint of this when we encounter the word "Sheol" in Jonah 2:2.  The seas were often thought of as the entrance to the Netherworld, Sheol, Hades, the dwelling of the dead, or whatever other term you want to use.

 

It seems that Jews felt even more strongly about the chaotic culture of the sea than other cultures.  The Jews seemed okay with smaller bodies of water, like the Sea of Galilee, but the Mediterranean Sea is much larger than the Sea of Galilee .  For this reason, I am surprised the Jonah actually ran to the sea to make his escape from the presence of God.  This was no quick whim for him.  He was driven to the sea, so driven, that all of the scary thoughts the sea would have normally come to his mind must not have even entered his mind.  My point here is simple.  Jonah's flight from God was more strongly motivated than we will ever know.  It, thus, appears to me that Jonah, as we will see later, just wanted to die.  His inner conflict was that bad.                       

 

Verses 6 through 8

 

"The captain approached him and said, 'What are you doing sound asleep? Get up! Call to your god.  Maybe this god will consider us, and we won't perish. 7 Come on!'the sailors said to each other. 'Let' cast lots. Then we'll know who is to blame for this trouble we're in.' So they cast lots, and the lot singled out Jonah.  Then they said to him, 'Tell us who is to blame for this trouble we're in. What is your business, and where are you from? What is your country, and what people are you from?'"

 

Like me, the captain of this ship could not figure out just why Jonah was able to sleep during this massive storm.  He, full of fear himself, must have been beside himself when he saw Jonah fast asleep, seemingly without fear.  I'm sure the sailor would have used every swear or curse word available to his tongue when he approach Jonah. 

 

The captain told Jonah to call out, more literally, cry out, to his god.  The ancient near-eastern cultures were polytheistic.  That is to say, they believed in a multitude of gods.  There was a god for this and a god for that.  The captain just wanted to know what god was causing this storm.  It might well have been Jonah's god.  Little did he realize at the time that he was correct on this count.  The captain of the ship just had to figure out what god was responsible for the storm, and then, how to appease that god so the storm would dissipate.  Everyone on the ship would have had to approach his personal family god to see if he could learn anything from his god that would calm this storm.      

 

Those polytheistic people in Jonah's day did not believe in kind, gentle, loving gods that had their best interest in mind.  It was just the opposite.  Most all ancient gods were selfish, easily angered, and demanded obedience, or else.  This would have been the frame of mind the captain and the rest of the sailors would have had.  Some god needed to be pleasured and he wasn't getting his needs met, and so now he or she was mad at the sailors.       

 

Against all hope, the captain hoped that Jonah's god could help them out.  It was obvious that none of the other gods could get them out of this disastrous situation.  Just maybe, Jonah's god could calm the sea and remove their fear.   

 

In typical ancient near-eastern religious fashion, someone had to be blamed for this storm.  Someone irritated one of the gods that made this god furiously angry.  So, everyone had to find out which person made the god angry.  Time was at a premium.  They had no time to waste, so they drew lots.  This too was done in typical ancient fashion.  It was something the disciples of Jesus did in Acts 2 where they drew lots to find a replacement for Judas.

 

Concerning this Acts 2 drawing of lots, I suggest that it was a pre-Pentecost action.  This was a common way to make a decision back then.  I do not believe the disciples made their decisions this way after the Holy Spirit came into their lives, as seen in Acts 2.  It was the Spirit of God who led them to do what they did, not some kind of luck of the draw. 

 

When it came to the luck of the draw, so to speak, Jonah was the one who irritated a particular god.  Jonah was the culprit.  It was he who made his god angry, and thus, the horrific predicament the sailors found themselves in. 

 

Was it really the luck of the draw that pointed to Jonah being the problem?  The pagan sailors would not have thought so, and Jonah wouldn't either.  The soldiers would have understood this in terms of Jonah's god causing him to be exposed, and really, those pagan sailors were right this time.  I'm convinced God had His hand on zeroing in on Jonah through the casting of these lots.  It was not the luck of the draw that exposed Jonah.  It was the Lord, the very Lord who wanted Jonah to go east to Nineveh , and not west to Tarshish. 

 

Now knowing who was the source of the problem, the sailors wanted to know as much about Jonah as possible.  Who was he?  What business was he involved in?  Where was he from?  The questions probably went on and on for a while until they thought they had Jonah figured out.  The way Jonah was behaving would have made it difficult to figure him out.     

                     

Verses 9 through 13

 

"He answered them, 'I'm a Hebrew. I worship the Lord, the God of the heavens, who made the sea and the dry land.'

 

10 Then the men were seized by a great fear and said to him, 'What have you done?' The men knew he was fleeing from the Lord's presence because he had told them. 11 So they said to him, 'What should we do to you so that the sea will calm down for us?' For the sea was getting worse and worse.

 

12 He answered them, 'Pick me up and throw me into the sea so that it will calm down for you, for I know that I'm to blame for this great storm that is against you.' 13 Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they couldn't because the sea was raging against them more and more."

 

After being asked who he was, Jonah answered by saying that He was a Hebrew.  The origin of the word "Hebrew," although it is a bit debated, seems to mean or suggest, "one from beyond," as in, Abram was originally one who lived beyond the Euphrates River .  We see this intimated in Genesis 14:13, which reads:

 

"One of the survivors came and told Abram the Hebrew, who lived near the oaks belonging to Mamre [east of the Euphrates River ] the Amorite, the brother of Eshcol and the brother of Aner. They were bound by a treaty with Abram."

 

Abram, or Abraham, as he became to be known, originally lived to the east of the Euphrates River .  From there, because of the command of the Lord, he moved westward into Canaan .  The Jews, therefore, were called Hebrews, people who originated from a land beyond the river. 

 

Jonah proclaimed that his God was the God who created both the land and the sea.  This would suggest, then, that Jonah's God was the supreme God over all other gods, and there was such a concept of a supreme God, yet unknown to all, in many parts of the ancient near-eastern world.

 

The notion that Jonah's God was the creator of the seas would surely have captivated the sailor's attention.  At that very moment, they were caught in a bad storm at sea.  Surely, Jonah's God could help them out, assuming Jonah's God really did create the sea. 

 

If Jonah's God was indeed the supreme God over all gods, then the sailors would have taken serious note of this.  For this reason, I believe, at least in part, this was the cause of the sailors' great fear of Jonah's God.

 

It is interesting to me that pagan sailors would have such great fear for Jonah's God, but once again, the fear was motivated by their religious concepts of the day.  You or I could repeat Jonah's exact words to non-Christians today, and unless the Holy Spirit speaks to their hearts, he or she will not be filled with great fear.  This is the case because our western-world culture is far removed from the culture of Jonah's day.  Most people in the West today have a very low view of God, if they have any view at all.  God, to them, is not one to be feared today as He was, even in the pagan culture of Jonah's day.        

 

Note the word "seized" in this passage.  These sailors were seized, as in, violently grabbed with fear and horror.  I view this as a sudden shock of fear that blasted its way into their very souls.  The thought of Jonah's God was an earth-shaking revelation for these sailors, who in my opinion would have been rough and tough men.

 

The sailors asked Jonah some questions.  "What have you done?"  "What should we do to you so that the sea will calm down for us?"  The second question is a product of the sailors' polytheistic pagan religious thinking concerning the gods.  In those ancient near-eastern religions, adherents to the gods who suffered tragedy believed they were being punished by a god.  They would have done something very wrong that angered the god.  One way to rectify the situation was for them to punished themselves in one way or another.  For this reason, their first reaction to Jonah was that Jonah must do something to appease his god.  Only then would the sea be calm once again.

 

Appeasing a god may well have been the way of the pagan world back then, but it is not the way of the Christian world here in these New Testament times.  Christians cannot appease God.  Christians should not even attempt to appease God.  Concerning the Christian, God has already been appeased, and that due to the cross of Christ.  It was Jesus' sacrifice of His earthy life that has appeased God on our behalf.  Our job now, as the old hymn puts it, is to trust and obey Jesus.          

 

Jonah's response was typical for that time in history.  He told the sailors to throw him overboard into the sea.  If he was drowned, everything would return as normal.  He, the problem, would be done away with.  That would have made some kind of sense to the pagan sailors.  Drowning the problem would appease Jonah's God.  Whether Jonah had this mindset or not is speculative.  I would think, at least, Jonah might have felt that he needed to be punished, but again, that is speculative.  On the other hand, maybe he didn't feel this way.  It does appear from what we red in the text that he felt somewhat justified for the actions he took. Besides, he wanted to die anyway, and drowning was an easy way to die at the moment.   

 

Just why Jonah suggested that the sailors throw him overboard instead of him just jumping into the sea on his own is unknown to me.  There has been much speculation about this.

 

You will recall, as I mentioned earlier, that Jesus compared His death to Jonah, especially Jonah's time spent in the sea.  It is interesting to note, then, that Jonah was willing to be thrown overboard because of his sin, his rebellion against God.  With that in mind, it is also interesting that Jesus was willing to be thrown overboard into Sheol, so to speak, because of our sin.  Remember, He, the righteous one died on behalf of us, the unrighteous ones.  Jesus' earthly death was all about our sin.     

 

Concerning Jonah being in the belly of the big fish for three days and Jesus' comment on that; three days in ancient culture was important.  It was understood that it would take three days to find your way into the netherworld, or Sheol. 

 

Instead of throwing Jonah overboard, the sailors tried once again to row their way to dry land, but with no success.  They attempted to do the human thing before they did their religious thing.          

 

Verse 14 through 17

 

"14 So they called out to the LORD, 'Please, Lord, don't let us perish because of this man's life, and don't charge us with innocent blood! For you, Lord, have done just as you pleased.'  15 Then they picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea, and the sea stopped its raging. 16 The men were seized by great fear of the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.  17 The Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights."

 

The sailors now recognize the existence of Jonah's God and that He was the one where this storm originated.  With the insertion of the words "please" and "called out," or "cried out," we note the intensity of their prayer to the Lord.  They certainly did not want to perish, especially since they were innocent.  They had done absolutely nothing to cause this great storm to come upon them.  They were pleading for mercy.  

 

The sailors finally gave into Jonah's request.  They threw him overboard, and immediately, the sea grew calm.  No wonder they were seized with fear once again.  Jonah's God came threw for them.  Jonah was the problem, and, his God has now solved the problem.  This would have been one huge miracle, one God-fearing event.  The sailors proceeded to offer sacrifices to the Lord.  I would suggest that these sacrifices would have been the type of sacrifices they would have normally presented to their gods.  They would have known little to nothing about how Jews offered their sacrifices to their God.        

 

The sailors also made vows to the Lord.  What these vows were, we have no clue.  Again, I suggest these vows would have been similar to the vows they would have made to their pagan gods, because, they knew little to nothing about Jonah's God. 

 

I think it is important to conclude that just because these sailors expressed some kind of worship to the Lord, worship that was on their terms, this did not make them right in the sight of God.  Neither should we conclude that these men became Jewish proselytes.  We certainly cannot conclude that they were saved, as we understand being saved in new Testament terms.        

 

Now, we come to Jonah 1:17 and the big fish.  The first thing we note here is that this big fish was appointed by the Lord.  The Lord provided this big fish, and as many suggest, it was a place of safety for Jonah, the very one who was running from God.  It goes to show that even when we run from God, He can provide protection for us, if that is His will.  This is one Biblical truth we can learn from the Book of Jonah. 

 

Beyond this, we need to address two things here, which, I have addressed in an earlier chapter.  The two issues are, the meaning to the big fish, and, the meaning of three days and three nights Jonah spent in the big fish.

 

When it comes to this big fish, you have two choices how to view the fish.  The first choice is that this fish is a literal fish that was big enough to swallow Jonah.  Many, if not most, Evangelical Christians take this stance concerning the fish.  To think otherwise, would be considered liberal by most Evangelical Christians.  On the other hand, as I have detailed earlier, this big fish could be understood in metamorphic terms.  The fish could be viewed symbolically.  It could be a word picture that creates the needed mental image to help us understand the point of the narrative. This is my position.  I believe the big fish is symbolic of God's protection in the sea, which is symbolic of Sheol.  I will address this further when we come to chapter 2.

 

I lean towards viewing this big fish in metamorphic, symbolic terms.  I do so, because, as I have detailed earlier, the culture of the day in which the Book of Jonah was written, actually wrote their historical documents in symbolic terms in order to make a point.  A systematic setting forth of historical facts, which would have included all of the facts, was not the way those in ancient near-eastern cultures viewed historical documentation.  They did not view history as we do today.  When we watch a documentary on television, we want all of the detailed facts and we want them documented in a systematic way that provides the absolute factual truth of the history being presented to us.  We do not want any hyperbolic exaggeration or unnecessary commentary.  Again, that was not the case in ancient near-eastern world of narrative history.  I don't believe it was the case with the Book of Jonah.  

 

I am not saying that we do not use such things as hyperbolic exaggeration today to make a point, because we do.  I am not saying that we never use commentary to stress a point, because we do that as well.  That being said, what we don't want journalists to do is to exaggerate the historical facts or confuse the facts with their personal commentary.  The sad fact of the matter is that this is not always the case these days.  Journalists are often confusing the facts of the news with exaggerated personal commentary.  We are becoming more like the ancient cultures than we think.    

 

Beyond not providing all of the facts to the reader, ancient near-eastern cultures would often use hyperbolic statements to drive home a point that the reader or listener needed to know.  Again, I believe this is the case with the big fish that swallowed Jonah.  The fish was a hyperbolic word picture that was meant to bring home a specific point concerning a historical event.   

 

I now turn to the number three that I also commented on earlier.  Was Jonah really in the belly of the metamorphic fish for three literal days and three literal nights?  That might well have been the case, but, now understanding the Bible's use of the number three throughout its pages to mean the completion of something, I suggest that Jonah was in the symbolic fish for a sufficient period of time to accomplish, or complete, God's will for Jonah at the particular time in his life.  The same might well be the case why it is said that Jesus was in the grave, or Sheol, for three days and nights, which I have previously stated, is well debated among Bible scholars.

 

   

Jonah 2

 

The Text

 

1 - Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from  the belly of the fish: and he answered me.


I cried out for help from deep inside Sheol; you heard my voice.


When you threw me into the depths, into the heart of the seas,
the current overcame me.
All your breakers and your billows swept over me.


And I said, "I have been banished
from your sight, yet I will look once more toward your holy temple."


The water engulfed me up to the neck; the watery depths overcame me; seaweed was wrapped around my head.


I sank to the foundations of the mountains, the earth’s gates shut behind me forever! Then you raised my life from the Pit, Lord my God!


As my life was fading away,
I remembered the Lord,
and my prayer came to you,
to your holy temple.


Those who cherish worthless idols
abandon their faithful love,


but as for me, I will sacrifice to you with a voice of thanksgiving.
I will fulfill what I have vowed.
Salvation belongs to the Lord.


10 Then the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

 

My Commentary

 

Verses 1 and 2

 

"1 - Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish:

I called to the Lord in my distress,
and he answered me. I cried out for help from deep inside Sheol;
you heard my voice."

 

Chapter 2 is a poetic psalm, much like the Old Testament Book of Psalms.  In other words, it is an explanation of what transpired in Jonah's life after he was thrown overboard into the sea in the form of a poem that was often meant to be sung.        

 

Chapter 2 is interesting in a number of ways.  One thing that I note is that Jonah's poetic explanation seems to apply more to Jesus than it does Jonah, and maybe, that is why Jesus mentioned it while talking to the Jews of His day.  I will comment more on this as I work my way through this chapter.  I intend to compare Jonah's descent into the sea with Jesus' descent into Sheol or Hades, because Jesus Himself made that comparison.    

 

It is interesting to note how certain Old Testament passages are interpreted in New Testament times.  I will not spend lots of time on this point because it is a separate and very involved issue.  Take Psalm 22, for example. It is a psalm of David and those in David's day would have understood that.  It would not have had any prophetic significance, but just read the psalm.  It is obvious that as New Testament Christians we read that psalm, and right away, we see the crucifixion of Jesus.  The very first verse clues us in on this.  It reads:

 

"My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far from my deliverance and from my words of groaning?"

 

I am sure you recall Jesus saying these words while dying on the cross.  If you read the rest of Psalm 22, you will get more insight into the death of Jesus.  I believe that Jonah 2 is like Psalm 22.  Although both have an historic element to them, both speak to Jesus and His human death.

 

Matthew 27:46 reads:

 

"About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out with a loud voice, 'Elí, Elí, lemá sabachtháni ?' that is, 'My God, my God, why have you abandoned me ?'"

 

Another thing I note from this psalm is that Jonah really does not show any kind of remorse or repentance in his explanation.  That may be, because, I do not see this poetic explanation in terms of repentance.  I really don't think Jonah repented, even after he was thrown up on dry land.  I will discuss this issue later as well.    

 

In verses 1 and 2 we note that Jonah prayed, and, he cried out to the Lord in distress.  I am sure that would have been the case.  You or I would cry out to God in distress as well.  We usually do when we find ourselves in a rough place in life. 

 

I almost drowned as a young boy in a deep part of a creek, and I was in much fear as a couple of friends attempted to rescue me.  They were in such fear as well, because frantic me, was pulling them down into the water as they were trying to save me.    

 

Verse 1 states that Jonah cried out from the belly of the fish.  Verse 2 states that he cried out from Sheol, the place of the dead, the netherworld as some historians put it.  I believe that many Bible students miss the point of these two verses.  I will explain.

 

Although I understand the sea to be a real sea, as in the Mediterranean Sea , I believe the author of the Book of Jonah wanted his readers to view the sea in metamorphic terms.  I believe this because that is what verse 2 suggests to me, when it says, "I cried out for help from deep inside Sheol."  The author portrayed the sea to be Sheol.  That, then, is how we are to view the sea because that is how the writer of the Book of Jonah wants us to view the sea.  The sea is a metamorphic word picture that paints the mental image of Sheol in our minds.       

 

We should, then, understand the big fish to be part of this metamorphic word picture.  It was a place of protection in the midst of Sheol, a place of chaos and torment.  The big fish, then, as I understand it, is not a literal big fish.  It is a word picture, a metamorphic representation of God's protection in the midst of chaos, uncertainty, confusion, and other such things, that is Sheol. 

 

I remind you at this point of Jesus' descent into Sheol, or Hades, the place of the dead, as seen in Ephesians 4:8 through 10.  I will quote that passage again. 

 

"For it says: When he ascended on high, he took the captives captive; he gave gifts to people.

But what does 'he ascended' mean except that he also descended to the lower parts of the earth? he one who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens, to fill all things."

       

The lower parts of the earth seen in the above passage is Sheol, or, in New Testament terms, Hades.  It is where Jesus went after He died on the cross.  It was then that He released the righteous dead of old and sent them to heaven.  You can refer back to my chapter entitled "Defining Words" for more explanation of Sheol or  Hades.

 

The text of Jonah says that Jonah cried out to the Lord while in the belly of the fish.  This would certainly apply to Jesus as well.  We know that He cried out to His Father, both in the Garden of Gethsemane and while on the cross.  I can only assume that He would have done the same while in Sheol, or Hades.  So, both verse 1 and verse 2 could equally apply to both Jonah and Jesus.  I think that is why Jesus made the comparison between Him and Jonah.     

 

Verses 3 and 4

 

"3 When you threw me into the depths, into the heart of the seas, the current overcame me. All your breakers and your billows swept over me. And I said, 'I have been banished from your sight, yet I will look once more toward your holy temple."

 

Jonah clearly understood that despite the fact that the sailors threw him overboard into the sea, it was really God who threw him into the sea, into Sheol.  Jonah did seem to understand the sovereignty of God, even though he was running from Him. 

 

The breakers and billows might be a word picture that paints the picture of judgment, something Jesus went through while on the cross. 

 

Jonah felt as if he was banished from the sight of God.  We can certainly understand that, even though as we earlier saw, that would be impossible.  God is everywhere at all times.  There is no place that He is not.  In theological terms, this is called the omnipresence of God.  So, Jonah probably did not feel the immediate presence of God, but God surely saw him in his distress.  It is the same way when we attempt to run from God.  We may not sense His immediate presence, but He has not left us.  Nevertheless, Jonah was now looking towards God in His temple for help.

 

There is no hint here that this was an act of repentance on the part of Jonah.  More than anything else, it was his cry for help.

 

There has been a debate over the word "temple" in this passage.  Was Jonah thinking of the temple in Jerusalem or the heavenly temple in heaven?  I have no solid answer to this, other than; he might well have had the heavenly temple in mind.  We must remember, Jonah lived in Israel where the ten tribes of Israel were located.  He did not live in Judah , where the earthly temple was located.

 

I can easily see how what is expressed in these two verses was experienced by Jesus while on the cross and then in Sheol, or Hades.  The breakers and billows of God's wrath would have swept over Him.  Remember, part of what was accomplished by Jesus in His death was that He experienced the wrath of God on our behalf.

 

When the text states that Jonah was banished from the presence of the Lord, that reminds me of what Jesus said while on the cross.  I am sure you recall Jesus asking His Father why He had forsaken Him.  Mark 15:34 reads:

                  

"And at three Jesus cried out with a loud voice, 'Eloi, Eloi, lemá sabachtháni? ' which is translated, 'My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?'"

 

What we should know about Jesus' cry to His Father while on the cross is that God, His Father, did not forsake Jesus in the sense that He left Jesus all alone to die.  God, the Father cannot leave Jesus because they are a unified plurality.  Although separate in one sense of the word, they are inseparable in another sense of the word.  It is impossible for Jesus to be apart from God, His Father.  There is what I call a heretical teaching that states Jesus lost His divinity at His death and regained it at His resurrection.  That is an illogical impossibility and should not be believed.     

 

What happened on the cross was this.  God, His Father, was right with Jesus all of the way.  God never left Jesus alone, although I can understand, in His humanity, why Jesus might have thought this. "Why have you forsaken me" should be understood in terms that God did not rescue Jesus from the cross because that was the plan all along.  God was right there with Jesus, but He did nothing.  He did not save Jesus from His human death.  In that sense of the word, you could say that God forsook Jesus while on the cross.          

 

Like Jonah, Jesus would have been praying out to God, in the heavenly temple.  That is where the centrality of the essence of God is, if I can actually say it that way.  By this I mean that, yes, God is everywhere at all times, but, there is also one place where He also is.  

 

Verse 5

 

"The water engulfed me up to the neck; the watery depths overcame me; seaweed was wrapped around my head."

 

All of the sea, or Sheol, had totally engulfed Jonah.  All that Sheol is, overwhelm him to the point that it became unbearable.  He was on death's door, with no human way to escape.  The chaos of the Netherworld was ready to due Jonah in.  Without help from his God, it would all be over for Jonah.   

 

I can only imagine, and maybe I really can't imagine, how Jesus felt when all that Sheol is, engulfed and overtook Him. We have no clue what it was like for Jesus.  What we read about here in the Book of Jonah only provides a bit of the picture.  That's it.   

 

Verses 6 and 7

 

"6 I sank to the foundations of the mountains, the earth's gates shut behind me forever!  Then you raised my life from the Pit, Lord my God! As my life was fading away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you, to your holy temple."

 

The author of Jonah painted a bit of a picture of how the people in the ancient near east viewed Sheol.  The text states that Jonah fell to the very foundations of the mountains in the sea, where, the earth's gates were shut behind him.  Were there really gates deep in the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea ?  I don't think so, and I doubt if you think there were gates down there either.  This is a word picture.  The author, with his words, was painting for us a mental image of the gates that separate Sheol from the known world, or, from death and life.  Once one dies and passes through these gates into Sheol, the gates to Sheol close and there is no way out.  There is no chance of ever returning to the life you once knew here on earth.  This would have been Jonah's mindset as he found himself in the sea.  This is yet another reason why I believe Jonah's dump into the sea is more about Sheol than the sea and a big fish.   

 

Once in the deep of the sea, Jonah was raised to life, and this resurrection was a miracle of God.  When one dies and finds himself in Sheol, as I have said, there is no escape.  You don't return to earth.  You don't get resurrected, but this time, Jonah did. 

 

Although Jonah did not literally die, he viewed his time in the sea as death from which he was resurrected.  Again, this tells me that the time spent in the sea was more about death and Sheol than the sea and a big fish.  This is all metamorphic word pictures, literary creativity of an historical event to make a point.    

 

It is quite obvious that these verses give us a bit of a hint of Jesus' descent into Sheol, or Hades, as it is understood in New Testament terms.  Jesus was definitely in the Pit of Hades.  I am sure, as He cried out in the Garden of Gethsemane , and while on the cross, He would have cried out to God while in Hades. 

 

The response from heaven was timely.  Jesus rose from the grave, from Hades, and found Himself once again on dry land, so to speak, walking the streets of Judah and Galilee .              

 

Verse 8 through 10

    

"8 Those who cherish worthless idols abandon their faithful love, but as for me, I will sacrifice to you with a voice of thanksgiving. I will fulfill what I have vowed. Salvation] belongs to the Lord. 10 Then the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land."

After being raised from the depth of the sea, Jonah admitted that those who cling to worthless idols forsake their love, and I believe their love for the true God.  That is definitely a true statement.  As humans, we tend to cling to our homemade idols, and in the process we exchange our love for God for the creation of our own hands.  This was what those in Nineveh were doing.

 

What Jonah said next is a bit ironic.  He found himself in his present situation because he was disobedient.  He was attempting to run away from God.  He seemed quite conflicted here.  Although he said that he would worship his God, sacrificed to Him, and spoke words of thanksgiving about Him, his actions were telling us a different story.  Even as he spoke these words, we know that he was not in full compliance with God.  He was still conflicted over what God had called him to do.  He was still very argumentative, as we will see later.  We clearly see this in chapter 4 where he argues with God.     

 

Note the words "salvation belongs to the Lord."  As western-world Evangelical Christians we understand the word "salvation" in New Testament terms.  That is to say, salvation is the process whereby God has forgiven our sins, given us His Spirit, views us as being righteous, and on our way to heaven.  That is not the Old Testament's view of salvation.  That would not have been Jonah's understanding of the word "salvation."

 

Another English word that we could use for the word "salvation," which would be applicable in both Old Testament times and New Testament times, is the word "deliverance."  Salvation, in New Testament terms means the deliverance from God's wrath, from punishment due to our sin, and from an eternal existence in the Lake of Fire .  In Old Testament times the Jew's understanding of deliverance for the most part was deliverance from their national enemies by the hand of the Lord.  So, when Jonah said that salvation comes from God, he would probably have meant that Israel would be delivered from the hands of its enemies, and one enemy would have been Assyria, although at the precise moment, Assyria was not a major threat to Israel .  That would come later.  You might take deliverance one step farther in this context.  Jonah understood that God had delivered him from an enemy, that being Sheol.

 

In verse 10 we see that the Lord commanded the fish to vomit Jonah to dry land.  Here is yet another intervention into the life of Jonah from God, despite the fact that Jonah was so conflicted.  The word "vomit" in my opinion suggests a violent throwing of Jonah onto dry land.  This was not a simple spit.  It was an explosion that I think is relevant when we think of Jesus' resurrection.   

 

This reminds me of Jesus' resurrection because there was an earthquake that accompanied His rising from the dead and finding His way out of the tomb.  Matthew 28:2 reads:

 

"There was a violent earthquake, because an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and approached the tomb. He rolled back the stone and was sitting on it."

 

I would, thus, associate the vomiting of Jonah from the belly of the big fish, from Sheol, with Jesus being vomited out of the tomb.  Both actions were at the hands of God Almighty.  Remember, Jesus did compare the three days of death to Jonah's three days in the belly of the wale, or symbolically speaking, in Sheol.        

 

The text does not say where this dry land was located.  It would be obvious to conclude that the dry land was somewhere on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea , maybe near Joppa, as some suspect.  That is because Joppa was where Jonah got on the ship in the first place.  This becomes somewhat important in the next chapter when we read the words "a three-day walk."

 

Jonah said that those who cherish worthless idols forsake their love, and I think love for God.  When Jesus was in Sheol, Hades, as He would have looked over both the righteous and unrighteous dead, this very thought might well have gone through His mind.  Whether right or wrong, I imagine Jesus shaking His head and thinking, "those who have cherished worthless idols, certainly have no love for God."  Upon thinking such a thought, He would have opened those closed gates of Sheol to free the righteous dead so they could relocate to heaven.

 

Of course, Jesus would have understood that salvation is of the Lord differently than Jonah.  Salvation, especially as Jesus was releasing the righteous dead from Sheol, would have understood salvation in New Testament terms.  Salvation would have included deliverance from God's wrath, the forgiveness of sin, freedom from the Lake of Fire , and entrance into the presence of God in the heavenly temple. 

 

Jonah said that he would sacrifice to the Lord.  Would Jesus have ever thought such a thought while He was in Sheol?  I believe He could have thought such a thought, or at least, a similar thought, and here is why.

 

We often think of Jesus' death on the cross as his supreme sacrifice, and it was a sacrifice.  There is no doubt about that.  That being said, His very entrance into humanity in a human body would have been a supreme sacrifice as well.  He was leaving the sinless perfection of heaven to live in a sinful human world.  I would say that is one major sacrifice, but, the sacrifice did not end at His birth or His human death.  His descent into Hades would have been a sacrifice, but there is more.  He, is in fact, an eternal sacrifice.  His very existence, right now, as He sits at the right hand of God is a life of sacrifice.  If you study 1 John 2:1 and 2 you will notice that to be the case.  Those verses read:

 

"My little children, I am writing you these things so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father ​— ​Jesus Christ the righteous one. He himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world."

 

The apostle John wrote about something that I believe many Christians miss or just do not understand.  I will explain.

 

John was encouraging his readers not to commit sin, but he knew they would.  It is just our sinful nature, as Paul taught in Romans 7.  We sin because we are sinners by nature.  Despite the fact that a Christian's sins are forgiven, and that includes present and future sins, God still sees our sin.  John portrays Jesus in 1 John 2:1 as our lawyer that represents us to God, the Eternal, Universal Judge. 

 

John wrote that if we sin, and he knew we would sin, we have an advocate who sits beside God, His Father.  We know this advocate is Jesus.  Another word for the word "advocate" is the word "lawyer."  I don't think that the majority of Christians sees Jesus as their present-day lawyer, but He is.  The writer of the Book of Hebrews called Jesus our High Priest instead of an advocate or a lawyer.  Like a lawyer, a priest would represent the Christian to God. 

 

So, how does Jesus, our lawyer, represent us to God when we commit a sinful act?  1 John 2:2 provides us with the answer.  Jesus is our atoning sacrifice.  This is important.  We often think that Jesus was our atoning sacrifice while hanging on the cross.  He was that, but, He is still our atoning sacrifice, right now in present time.  He is in fact, a living sacrifice.  Who Jesus is right now, that is, His very essence, is pure sacrifice. 

 

The Greek word "hilasmos" is translated into the Christian Standard Bible in 1 John 2:2 as atoning sacrifice.  In short, both in the English and the Greek, the atoning sacrifice, who, Jesus Himself presently is, means that He sacrifices Himself by reflecting the wrath of God away from us due to the sins we commit as Christians.  This is what I believe many Christians just don't understand these days.  In theological terms, this is called "propitiation."    

 

In short, Jesus is our eternal sacrifice.  He is that right now.  He is our lawyer, our atoning sacrifice, deflecting God's wrath away from us when God sees us sin, and He does see us sin.  Our sins may be forgiven, but I believe that God still sees them, and He does not feel very good about that.  Those feelings change as soon as He glances over to see Jesus at His side.  Since Jesus represents us as a lawyer, you might say that God sees us inside Jesus, and His anger departs.  This is what the term "in Christ" is all about.  I don't think that Jesus as to say one word in our defense.  His very presence at the side of God, the Judge, is our defense.   

 

If you do not think that God sees the present sins we commit, that are already forgiven, just read the first two chapters of the Book of Revelation.  There, we see that Jesus, and thus God, saw the sins of those in the seven listed churches.

 

Jonah was right.  Salvation, or deliverance, really does come from the Lord.  He has saved us.  He is saving us, and, He will save us.  In New Testament terms, salvation is an ongoing process.  We see salvation in all three verb tenses in the New Testament, and here they are.

 

 I was saved is seen in Romans 8:24.

 

"Now in this hope we were saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees?"

 

I am being saved is seen in 2 Corinthians 2:15.

 

"For to God we are the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing."

 

I will be saved is seen in Romans 5:10.

 

"For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life."

                                      

 

Jonah 3

 

The Text

 

1 - The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 2 "Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh  and preach the message that I tell you." 

 

Jonah got up and went to Nineveh according to the Lord's command.

Now Nineveh was an extremely great city, a three-day walk. Jonah set out on the first day of his walk in the city and proclaimed, In forty days Nineveh will be demolished!'

 

Then the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and dressed in sackcloth—from the greatest of them to the least.

When word reached the king of Nineveh , he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. Then he issued a decree in Nineveh : By order of the king and his nobles: No person or animal, herd or flock, is to taste anything at all. They must not eat or drink water. Furthermore, both people and animals must be covered with sackcloth, and everyone must call out earnestly to God. Each must turn from his evil ways and from his wrongdoing. Who knows? God may turn and relent; he may turn from his burning anger so that we will not perish.

 

10 God saw their actions—that they had turned from their evil ways—so God relented from the disaster he had threatened them with. And he did not do it.

 

My Commentary

 

Verses 1 and 2

 

"1 - The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 2 'Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh  and preach the message that I tell you."

 

In verse 1 we note that the Word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time.  The first time would have been Jonah's original call to go and preach to the residents of Nineveh . 

 

We really do not have the details to the exact message that Jonah was to preach.  I will address this in a couple verses down the way.  Most Bible teachers conclude that it was a message of judgment that was intended to lead to repentance, and they get that from the response of those living in Nineveh .  They also derive that from Jonah 1:1 where God told Jonah to preach against Nineveh .  That would suggest judgment.    

 

The question to be asked here is, "Where was Jonah when he heard God call him for the second time?  This is an important question because wherever he was, would help us understand the three-day walk, as seen in verse 3.  

 

Verses 3 and 4

 

"3 Jonah got up and went to Nineveh according to the Lord's command.

Now Nineveh was an extremely great city, a three-day walk. Jonah set out on the first day of his walk in the city and proclaimed, in forty days Nineveh will be demolished!'"

 

Verse 3 states that Jonah got up and went to Nineveh .  As asked earlier, where was Jonah when he heard the Word of the Lord for the second time?  Was he still on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea ?  Was he in Joppa, the city where he boarded the ship in the first place, or, was he just outside of the city of Nineveh ?  This is a relevant, but maybe not all that important, question.  That is due to the next phrase.

 

The next phrase in the text states that Nineveh was a great city, a three-day walk.  First of all, Nineveh was a great city in Jonah's day, but it was not as great as it was going to be in a few more years. 

 

The words "a three-day walk" have intrigued Bible scholars for years, and that is because, there is no specific mention where Jonah was when he heard the Word of the Lord for the second time.  The only thing we can do is speculate.  If Jonah was somewhere around Joppa, at the east end of the Mediterranean Sea, then, it would not have been a three-day walk to Nineveh.  It would have been more like a five to seven-week walk to Nineveh .  If that was the case, then we have a problem to solve, and that is how we should understand the number three in a three-day walk.

 

In my chapter on Biblical numbers, I suggested that in Biblical symbolic terms, the number three could easily mean the completion of something, instead of the literal number three.  If the author of Jonah was thinking in these metamorphic or symbolic terms, which he could well have been, due to the culture of his day and the genre of his text, then, a three-day walk simply means a period of time to complete the walk.  It would not mean a literal three-day walk.  It could be that five to seven week walk.   

 

If on the other hand, Jonah was close to Nineveh at this point in the narrative, we might be able to understand a three-day walk to be a literal three days.

 

Some Bible scholars suggest a different scenario altogether.  The three-day walk has nothing to do with Jonah getting to Nineveh from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea .  They say it was a three-day walk through the city with the message he was supposed to preach.  Those holding to this view point to the next verse that states that Jonah set out on his walk through the city, which those holding to this view say took three literal days.   

 

Whatever scenario to which you adhere, and there are more, most are somewhat speculative and we cannot build a case on speculation.  Nevertheless, Bible teachers must address this issue if they, and we, are to seriously deal with this text.  That being said, however you believe about this makes no real difference to what the author wants us to learn from his book.

 

Verse 4 is the only verse in the Book of Jonah, other than verse1, of chapter 1, that hints at just what the message was Jonah was to preach.  All that we know is that Jonah told the residents of the city of Nineveh that in forty days their city would be destroyed.  Maybe that is all those people needed to hear.  Maybe they could figure it out with just that one statement, or, maybe Jonah said more to them than this one statement.  I think that was the case.  There is a good chance that we do not know all of the Word of the Lord that came to Jonah.  Maybe the author did not deem it necessary to repeat each and every word of what God spoke to Jonah. 

 

Understanding the cultural writings of history back in the day this book was penned, not filling in all of the historic details was no real problem to anyone back them.  As a matter of fact, as I have been saying, not providing all of the historic details was commonplace.  It does, though, inhibit our attempt today to completely understand the text, as we in our culture like to understand history.  We want to understand it from our cultural frame of reference, that being; we want to know all of the details.  We want them all out in the open in a systematic format, with nothing added or nothing taken away.  That simply was not how people wrote and thought back in the ancient near east when it came to historical narrative.       

 

Verses 5 through 9

 

"5 Then the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and dressed in sackcloth—from the greatest of them to the least.

When word reached the king of Nineveh , he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.  Then he issued a decree in Nineveh : By order of the king and his nobles: No person or animal, herd or flock, is to taste anything at all. They must not eat or drink water. Furthermore, both people and animals must be covered with sackcloth, and everyone must call out earnestly to God. Each must turn from his evil ways and from his wrongdoing. Who knows? God may turn and relent; he may turn from his burning anger so that we will not perish."

 

Verse 5 states that the people of Nineveh believed God.  How should we understand this new-found belief?  One thing we must take into consideration is that this belief came into existence in Old Testament times.  This belief has nothing to do with believing in Jesus and the message of the New Testament gospel.  This could not have been a spiritual conversion as we understand spiritual conversion as New Testament Evangelical Christians today. 

 

I believe we should understand this new-found belief in the God of the Jews this way.  Being polytheistic pagans, these people would have simply added the Jewish God to the list of gods they believed existed.  This would have been the ancient near-eastern, cultural thing to do in the eight century BC.  I grant you that these people might have had a higher estimation of the Hebrew God at this point in their lives, but I sincerely doubt if they converted to Judaism.    

 

If these people had really given themselves to the God of Abraham and Moses, according to the Law of Moses, they would have had to join the Jewish community by obeying the Law of Moses.  The men would have had to have been circumcised and they would have had to denounce all other gods.  I suppose it is a bit speculative, but I don't think that happened in this situation, and neither do most Old Testament scholars.  These people would have simply added the Jewish God to their long list of gods, who, were ranked in order of power and responsibility.  They might well have ranked the God of the Jews near the top of the list, but that would have been all there was to it.

 

You might think, because these people fasted and dressed themselves in sackcloth and ashes that they genuinely repented of their sin.  First of all, fasting and dressing in sackcloth was somewhat commonplace in most all near-eastern, pagan religions in those days.  So, this alone does not suggest true repentance as defined in Old Testament Judaism. 

 

I do acknowledge a measure of repentance on the part of those residing in Nineveh , but repentance as defined in Biblical terms is only half of the equation.  If one expressed Biblical repentance, than, one would then turn his life over to God, which is, faith.  Repentance and faith go hand in hand.  I believe, although being two separate and distinct actions, you cannot separate repentance from faith.  That is to say, repentance without faith is not complete repentance.  Also, faith without repentance, is not true faith. 

 

When the king pronounces a fast, this put the repentance into a political place, although it is not a national repentance, because Nineveh is not a nation.  It is, politically speaking, a city wide, or a province wide repentance.  Remember, depending on the time frame you put the events of the Book of Jonah, will determine whether you believe Nineveh was either a city or a province in Assyria . 

 

You might think that making the animals fast and dressing them in sackcloth is a bit extreme, and it might have been, but, there is some historical evidence that such things were done in the ancient near-eastern religions, although it was not routine.

 

Each man, according to this passage, must turn from his wrong doing.  I think the word "man" here is a gender neutral word that would include women as well.  If not gender neutral, then, we realize this was an all-encompassing repentance, although once again, we must understand the word "repent" in its ancient pagan context.

 

Verse 9 expresses hope, not faith, on the part of the king.  The hope was that if the people of Nineveh stopped their wrong doing, maybe the Jewish God that they had just added to their list of gods would relent of His rage and anger. 

 

The word "relent" means to change your mind.  The hope here was that God would stop being angry, and anger, was central to ancient, near-eastern god worship.  The people of Nineveh would have had no real concept of a loving God as we have today, or, as the Jews had in Jonah's day.  Life for pagans back then was all about somehow appeasing the gods with the hope of them not being angry with them.                                        

 

Verse 10

 

"10 God saw their actions—that they had turned from their evil ways—so God relented from the disaster he had threatened them with. And he did not do it."

 

The hope of deliverance from God's anger was realized.  God relented.  He changed His mind.  He did not destroy Nineveh .  Nevertheless, he did destroy the city, and the whole nation of Assyria in later years.  That took place in 612 BC when the Babylonian armies overthrew Assyria .

 

Note the word "threatened" here in verse 10.  This suggests that the destruction of Nineveh was just a threat, not a soon-to-be reality.  This is the way it is with pretty much all prophecies of judgment.  In other words, you repent or else face judgment. Again, Nineveh , as well as the empire of Assyria did face God's judgment when it was overrun by the Babylonians in 612 BC, roughly a century and a half after the events we read about in the Book of Jonah.    

 

 

Jonah 4

 

The Text

 

1 - Jonah was greatly displeased and became furious. He prayed to the Lord, "Please, Lord, isn't this what I said while I was still in my own country? That's why I fled toward Tarshish in the first place. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and one who relents from sending disaster. And now, Lord, take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live."

 

The Lord asked, "Is it right for you to be angry?"

 

Jonah left the city and found a place east of it. He made himself a shelter there and sat in its shade to see what would happen to the city. Then the Lord God appointed a plant, and it grew over Jonah to provide shade for his head to rescue him from his trouble. Jonah was greatly pleased with the plant. 

 

7  When dawn came the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, and it withered. As the sun was rising, God appointed a scorching east wind. The sun beat down on Jonah's head so much that he almost fainted, and he wanted to die. He said, "It's better for me to die than to live."

 

Then God asked Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?"

 

"Yes, it's right!" he replied. "I’m angry enough to die!"

 

10 And the Lord said, "You cared about the plant, which you did not labor over and did not grow. It appeared in a night and perished in a night. 11 So may I not care about the great city of Nineveh , which has more than a hundred twenty thousand people who cannot distinguish between their right and their left, as well as many animals?

 

My Commentary

 

Verse 1 through 3

 

"1 - Jonah was greatly displeased and became furious. He prayed to the Lord, "Please, Lord, isn't this what I said while I was still in my own country? That's why I fled toward Tarshish in the first place. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and one who relents from sending disaster. And now, Lord, take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live."

 

Here in Jonah, chapter 4, we see clearer than ever how conflicted Jonah was.  We've seen this throughout the last three chapters, but we really see it here.  He is so conflicted that he is angry at God and wants to die.   

 

Verse 1 states that Jonah was both displeased and furious.  I suggest that this is pretty strong language.  The word "conflict," at this point in the narrative, might well be a real understatement.  He was down right mad at all that had transpired, and, he had no problem expressing his anger to God.  This presents us with an important thought, and that is, should we really express such anger, or really, any negative emotion to God as Jonah did here?

 

Many of us would not dare to verbalize our inner thoughts or feelings of our hearts to God, and we would do so out of fear or reluctance to show our real selves.  The fact of the matter, though, is this.  God knows the very thoughts that pass through our minds.  He knows the intent and feelings of our hearts.  He sees it all.  Nothing is hid from Him, so, verbalizing your thoughts and emotions to God is probably not as problematic as we think.  Yes, it is one step beyond just thinking these thoughts, but still, God sees it all anyway.  None of the good, bad, or the ugly, is hid from his eyes.    

 

Verbalizing negative thoughts and feelings might actually have a beneficial affect in our relationship with God.  It might well get these thoughts and emotions out into the open where we can find answers and relief from the negativity.  I conclude, then, that neither Jonah, nor us, verbalizing such thoughts to God is a problem.  The problem arises when after we do our verbalizing, we fail to deal with the negativity. 

 

Verse 2 tells us that this was not the first time that Jonah had argued with God.  He did the same in the very beginning, when he first heard the Word of the Lord, and, he reminded God of this, just in case God might have forgotten.  Of course, God would not have forgotten.  It just goes to show our human feeble thought processes before an all-knowing God.   

 

Jonah had thought this whole situation out in his mind.  He believed he knew what the results of his mission would be.  He was no different than any of us today.  We cannot put him down for this.  You and I do the same all of the time.  We believe we hear the instruction of the Lord, and then we think it all through.  Sometimes we concur with the Lord and sometimes we don't.  It is just our human tendency. 

 

It is also notable that we see the word "please" in verse 2.  Jonah was not just arguing with God.  He was pleading with him, and again, I am sure you have pleaded with God as well.  This was one intense conversation that Jonah had with God. 

 

The fact that Jonah believed that God was gracious and loving, something those in Nineveh would know nothing about, due to their pagan religious thought processes, is noteworthy.  I believe that Jonah was basically saying that if you, God, were going to change your mind about destroying Nineveh, why send me to the city in the first place.  It would be a complete waste of my time and energy.  Jonah may sound as if he has some logic here, but it is clear that he is missing the heart of God in this matter.  Sometimes our human logic fails to understand the intent of God's heart.       

 

At this point in Jonah's dialogue with God, as seen in verse 3, he was totally despondent, discouraged, and fed up with God and life.  He just wanted to die.  In today's secular terminology, he just wanted to get the hell off this planet.  He might as well have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea .  That would have solved the problem with his pathetic existence.                

 

Verse 4

 

"4 The Lord asked, 'Is it right for you to be angry?'"

 

In response to Jonah's complaint and argument, God asked a simple question.  "Is it right for you to be angry?"  I would think that the answer to God's question is simply, "no."  What real right would Jonah have to be angry with God?  Do any of us have a right to be angry with God?

 

It has often been said that God is God and we are not.  If that is true, which it is, then none of us have a right to be angry with God.  Besides, it has always been in the heart of God to work alongside man, who He originally created.  The God of the Bible did not create all that we know and don't know and then step back from His creation to let creation evolve on its own.  However you view the first three chapters of Genesis, the very fact that God, Adam, and Eve, were in some kind of communication tells me that God wanted to be involved in the lives of those He created.  He wanted to administer His will on earth in conjunction with us.  This isn't just Old Testament thinking.  It is New Testament thinking as well, as seen in Mark 16:20.

 

"And they [the apostles] went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word by the accompanying signs."

 

I understand the controversy over the last few verses of Mark 16, but I do believe verse 20 addresses a Biblical truth, and that is this.  It is God's intent, and specifically Jesus' intent as seen in Mark 16:20, to work alongside His people to accomplish God's plans on earth.  In Mark 16:20 we note that the apostles performed the manual labour of preaching, while Jesus worked with them, performing the spiritual work that would carry the Word of God to the hearts of the people to whom the disciples preached.  It is all about collaboration, that is, you, I, and Jesus working together as a functioning unity.     

 

I say all of the above, because I believe it was God's will to work alongside of Jonah in the proclamation of a specific message to Nineveh , and Jonah refused.  Jonah got angry, but how do you think God felt about Jonah's refusal to work with Him?  Who really had the right to be angry here?  It was not Jonah.  It was God.  Besides, Jonah was supposed to be involved in something that could, or would, be redemptive.  That is a good thing that he just refused to do.  

 

Verses 5 and 6

 

"5 Jonah left the city and found a place east of it. He made himself a shelter there and sat in its shade to see what would happen to the city. Then the Lord God appointed a plant, and it grew over Jonah to provide shade for his head to rescue him from his trouble. Jonah was greatly pleased with the plant." 

 

I don't know for sure how long Jonah's conversation with God took.  Maybe it was just a couple of minutes, an hour, or maybe it took place over a couple of days.  Whatever the case, it appears to me that Jonah got fed up with everything and just walked out on God.  Can you believe that?  Walking out on God, what a travesty. 

 

After making himself a shelter, Jonah just sat back to watch. Would God really do anything, about Nineveh or was this just an exercise in futility?  I picture Jonah as stubbornly sitting back to see if God would come through.  Once again, you may think Jonah is really being stupid here, but think about it.  How often have you heard the Word of the Lord to do something, and you just sit back and watch instead of getting involved.  You figured it's the Lord's job, not yours, to accomplish.      

 

At this point another miracle took place.  God provided some kind of a plant for Jonah that would shelter him.  It actually grew up over night.  Apparently God's shelter was better than the shelter Jonah made for himself, but what could we expect.  Anything we build for ourselves is nothing compared to that which God builds for us.  We see Jonah sitting around in his stubborn rebellion.  He made a feeble attempt to build a shelter that would protect him from the elements, but God provided a better shelter, and that despite Jonah's nastiness towards Him.  Talk about a loving and graceful God, we certainly see that here.  Most of us would have just left Jonah on his own to deal with all of his problems.  The pagan gods of Jonah's day would have clobbered him.  Jonah could face the elements for himself, would be our attitude.  He doesn't deserve any assistance from anyone, let alone God. 

 

This was a miracle plant.  It just grew up in minutes.  This is not natural.  I suggest, then, that we might think of this miracle plant in the same way that I have portrayed the big fish.  Was this really a big plant that could protect Jonah, or was this plant a metaphor for something else?  I would suggest that if I believe the big fish was not really a big fish, then, to be consistent, I think I should think that this miracle plant is a metaphor for God's divine protection over Jonah.        

 

The text then tells us that Jonah was pleased with the plant.  Of course he would be pleased with the plant.  Why would he not be pleased with better protection?  It is somewhat speculative, but it appears to me that Jonah, despite being pleased with God's protective action, was still not pleased with God.  How human Jonah was?  In our humanity, we are pleased with all that God gives us, but still, that does not necessarily change our negativism about God and His ways.  We will take all we can get from God and just keep on doing our own thing.               

 

Verse 7 and 8

 

"7 When dawn came the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, and it withered. As the sun was rising, God appointed a scorching east wind. The sun beat down on Jonah's head so much that he almost fainted, and he wanted to die. He said, 'It's better for me to die than to live.'"

 

We had just seen that God provided a plant as a shelter for Jonah, and as I think, Jonah did not seem to appreciate God.  Yes, he was pleased with the plant, but still not pleased with God.  For this reason, or so it looks, God provided a worm to eat the plant and a scorching wind to inflict Jonah.  I see this as God's discipline in the life of Jonah.  We do know that those God loves, He does discipline.  Proverbs 3:12 reads:

 

"... for the LORD disciplines the one he loves, just as a father disciplines the son in whom he delights."

 

Hebrews 12:6 seems to be a direct reference to Proverbs 3:12.  Hebrews 12:6 reads:

 

"... for the Lord disciplines the one he loves and punishes every son he receives."

 

Then there is Revelation 3:19 that is a well known, but a little understood verse.  

 

"As many as I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be zealous and repent."

 

We see God relenting in the Book of Jonah, but we don't see Jonah relenting.  He might well have had a change of heart, but we just don't read it in the Book of Jonah. 

 

We note here that the sun got so hot that it almost caused Jonah to faint.  Once again, Jonah just felt like giving up.  He wanted to be dead.  If we are honest, sometimes that is how we feel when we are being disciplined by the Lord.  You might have felt the same way, when as a child your father or mother disciplined you.  God's discipline is not something to get all happy and joyous about.  We can all agree on that.  Discipline is just part of a godly life.   

 

The problem with God's discipline in my opinion is that many who call themselves Christians do not give being disciplined by God much thought.  Many don't think in terms that God can, or would, discipline them.  That, in turn, would mean that if God does discipline them, they don't even realize it.  They may blame the discipline; however it is administrated, as being from the devil, when in fact it wasn't.  They may even blame another person.  The logical conclusion to not recognizing God's discipline is that you do not learn the lesson you are to learn.  The discipline has no redemptive value in your life, and as the old saying goes, "you end up walking around the same old mountain again."  What a waste.                 

 

Verse 9

 

"9 Then God asked Jonah, 'Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?' 'Yes, it’s right!' he replied. 'I'm angry enough to die!'"

 

For the second time in this chapter we see that God asked Jonah this question.  "Is it right for you to be angry ...."  This time God addressed Jonah's anger towards the plant that died.  How typical Jonah was.  God provides the plant of protection for him.  He is pleased, but still not pleased with God.  God, then, takes away the plant of protection as a means of discipline, and Jonah fails to see he is being disciplined.  He gets mad instead.  Again, it's typical human nature.  Humanity never changes.  It remains as sinful today as it ever has.   

 

Just in case you think I'm over doing the sinfulness of our human nature, I quote from Jeremiah 17:9.  Surprisingly, it is one of my favourite verses, and that because; it shows us the fallen state in which we find ourselves.  Jeremiah 17:9 tells me how God feels about human nature, a human nature that the apostle Paul stated still inflicts us, even as Christians.  See Romans, chapter 7.  Jeremiah 17:9 reads:

 

"The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable ​— ​who can understand it?"

 

Now read the very next verse in Jeremiah, because I think it is applicable to our discussion at hand.  Jeremiah 17:10 reads:

 

"I, the LORD, examine the mind,

I test the heart to give to each according to his way, according to what his actions deserve."

 

Let me quote that verse again, but this time, I will personalize it by inserting Jonah's name into the text.

 

"I, the LORD, examine  Jonah's mind, I test Jonah's heart to give him according to his way, according to what his actions deserve."

 

Does Jeremiah 17:10 clue us in on what God was doing in His conversation with Jonah?  I think so.  The thoughts of Jonah's mind were being examined by the Lord.  His heart was being tested, and thus, God would act accordingly.  Isn't this also what God was doing with those in the city of Nineveh ?  

 

I agree with all of the commentators that suggest God was giving Jonah an object lesson here.  Jonah criticized those in Nineveh for their conflicted confusion, which is a historical fact.  God was pointing out to Jonah that he was just as confused and conflicted as those who resided in the evil city.  Both Jonah and the residents of Nineveh were in the same conflicted ship, so to speak, and Jonah needed to know and understand that.      

 

Out of spite and anger, Jonah maintained that he had the right to be angry.  It was his prerogative.  That sounds so familiar.  How often have we gotten angry for no valid reason but still feel justified in our state of anger.  It is so easy for us to justify ourselves.  We can't criticize Jonah for something we do all of the time.  All this being said, when it comes to the word "justification," we must be exceedingly thankful that through the cross of Christ, God has justified us.            

 

Verse 10 and 11

 

"10 And the Lord said, 'You cared about the plant, which you did not labor over and did not grow. It appeared in a night and perished in a night. 11 So may I not care about the great city of Nineveh , which has more than a hundred twenty thousand people who cannot distinguish between their right and their left, as well as many animals."

 

Jonah 4, verses 10 and 11 end this account of Jonah.  In my estimation, it seems to end kind of abruptly.  Nothing seems to get resolved between God and Jonah, at least, not that we know of.  Jonah is still angry.  He still wants to die.  God still questions Jonah.  Life goes on.  What transpired next in Jonah's life is unknown to us.

 

God responded to Jonah by saying that he cared for, or was pleased with, the plant of protection that he did not make.  It was God's gift to Him, because even in Jonah's rebellion, God still cared for Jonah, who was, one of His own.  Even in Jonah's rebellion, God disciplined Jonah so he could learn a lesson from the whole experience. 

 

God then presented Jonah with a bit of heavenly logic.  If God cared for Jonah in his state of rebellion, what was wrong with Him caring for a whole city in their state of rebellion?  Of course, there was nothing wrong with that.  Everything has been created by God.  He is actively involved in His creation.  He is the one who causes kings and nations to both rise and fall, as Daniel 12:21 states. 

 

"He [God] changes the times and seasons; he removes kings and establishes kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding."

It is God, who is the Most High over every empire, every nation, every province or state, and every city, and really, every human being. 

Daniel 4:17 reads:   

 

"This word is by decree of the watchers, and the decision is by command from the holy ones.

This is so that the living will know

that the Most High is ruler over human kingdoms. He gives them to anyone he wants and sets the lowliest of people over them."

   

It is the Sovereign God, as described above, who has authorized Jesus to exercise all authority over all things material and all things spiritual.  Matthew 28:18 reads:

 

"Jesus came near and said to them, 'All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.'"

 

It is Jesus, who has the final word over all universal issues.  In the long run, Jesus has no real competition or rivals, and that includes Satan himself.  More than anything else, Satan is a tool in the hand of the Almighty Creator God." 

 

It is Jesus, that has asked us to join with Him in accomplishing God's will on earth.  Just as God called Jonah to work with Him concerning those living in Nineveh , so Jesus calls on us to proclaim His message to our world today.    

 

It is the God of the universe who will bring every last nation down at the end of this age, as seen in Revelation 18 and 19.  Yes, God is God.  We can, and He will, do as he pleases.  When it comes to the city of Nineveh , He caused it to thrive for a while longer, until the day came when He caused it to fall.  Both were in His divine will.        

 

It is God who is ultimately in control of our nations.  He will do as He pleases.  If he wants to raise a nation or a city up and bless it, that is His prerogative.  If He wants to shut down a nation or a city, that is His prerogative as well.  He is God.

 

The Book of Jonah ends with God's pronouncement about those who lived in the city of Nineveh .  I believe that this same pronouncement would apply to any city, any state or province, or any nation today.  Just look around you.  Watch the news on the device of your choice.  Read away on your favourite social media site, and you tell me, doesn't Jonah 4:11 apply to our world today?  Is not our western-world culture confused and conflicted?  Are not we a people who cannot distinguish between our right and our left? 

 

Our political world is locked in deadlock, as both the right and the left spew nonsensical nastiness across the political isle.  Is not our Christian world beginning to follow the same nastiness?  Christians have become divided over social and political issues, to the degree that now, we argue and fight in the public square, for all to see.  We must admit to it.  We are no different than Nineveh of old.  

 

The apostle Paul warned us against this unrighteous behaviour I have been talking about in 1 Corinthians 6:1. 

 

"If any of you has a dispute against another, how dare you take it to court before the unrighteous, and not before the saints?"

 

In the words of Paul; "how dare we" take our disputes before the unrighteous public.  It nullifies the reason for our very existence.     

 

Despite all of the above, including our confused and conflicted souls, Jesus still has great concern for us and our nations.  He really does.  He has not left us alone to die in a state of misery on our streets.  He will birth one revival after another until the day comes when He replaces revival with world wide judgment.  Let us, then, be unified with each other and with our Lord in proclaiming repentance and faith to a confused and conflicted world.

  

 

Personal Application

 

There are many things we can learn from our study of the Book of Jonah.  The following are some that come to my mind.

 

Conflicted but still saved

 

To one degree or another, I would suggest that all of us have suffered from some kind  of mental or emotional conflict over something.  That something, at least as Christians, might concern God's will for our lives.  Attempting to figure out God's will for our lives is difficult enough at times, but implementing His will, as was the case with Jonah, can, and often does, cause some conflict within us.  It is just part of being a Christian to which we must admit, and if we don't admit to the conflict, we will not mature as Christians.  Admitting to our human frailties is the first step in maturity.  It is that simple.  It is something that Jonah did not do, at least not that we know of from the text of Jonah.  That being said, I am sure there is more to the life and story of Jonah than what we know.  It would not surprise me in the least that he did eventually recover from his conflicted soul. 

 

Despite the conflict that rises up within us that can easily get us angry with our Lord, He still loves us.  It's one of the lessons we learn from the Book of Jonah.  God loves the sinner as seen in those living in Nineveh , and, He still loves the Christian that struggles with sin that leads to mental and emotional conflict. It is why Jesus, right now, sits at the right hand of God as our atoning sacrifice, our lawyer.  He intercedes on our behalf every moment of our lives, and we, beyond any doubt, need His intercession.  There is no need for Jesus to say a word on our behalf to God, the Judge.  God simply glances over at Jesus, sees us within Him, and His anger subsides immediately.  I believe it's that easy.            

 

Arguing with God  

 

Jonah is seen arguing with God throughout this account.  You might think that this is one very horrible sin.  How can a mere human being even consider arguing with the Almighty Creator God who is capable of  blowing us all off the face of the earth with a mere thought?  Is this not pure stupidity on our part?

 

If we are honest, each one of us has argued with God in our own way.  Our problem is that we just do not want to admit to our argumentativeness.  Our self-righteous mentality refuses to admit to such a thing, but our self-righteous behaviour, in the long run, will do us in.  You can count on that. 

 

We must admit that we do not always agree with God, and in one way or another, we argue with Him.  This may not be as bad as a sin as you might think.  If the argument causes us to come to our senses, then our arguing is redemptive, and redemption is part of what the Christian life is all about.  If, however, we keep arguing, and never come to God's side of the argument, then we will fail to be the Christians we are called to be.  As a matter of fact, I think we will be useless Christians, accomplishing nothing for Jesus in our lives. 

 

Hiding from God  

 

Some of us attempt to hide our negativity from God because we think that if it gets exposed we will be in much trouble with the Lord.  Jonah certainly did not hide any of his negative thoughts or emotions.  He just let them all fly out of his mind and soul.  He didn't seem to care where they landed. 

 

We must admit that we cannot hide anything from God.  He sees it all.  Attempting to hide things from God will not produce the mature life of a Christian that is expected of us.  Sooner or later, we must come out of our hiding place, our closet, so to speak, and admit to that which we are trying to hide.  At that point, we can work with Jesus on a redemptive solution to fix our compulsion to hide from God.      

 

I do not know what happened to Jonah beyond chapter 4 of the text, but I speculate that he learned his lesson from all that had transpired in his life concerning his call to preach to Nineveh .  It is quite possible that his hide and go seek game was over.                      

 

Trusting God

 

It is the combination of valid repentance and true faith that eventually saves us.  Faith is trust.  When you read the word "faith" or the word "believe" in the New Testament, it is translated from the Greek word "pistis."  Pistis simply means trust.  If, then, you claim to have faith in Jesus, you claim to trust Him with your life.  I wonder how many people who call themselves Christians understand faith in these Biblical terms.  Faith is not merely giving mental assent to the existence of Jesus, as I think, many people believe.      

 

True repentance and faith gets us saved, but faith, or trust, is something that grows after we are saved.  It grows through relationship.  As in marriage, or any kind of friendship, trust grows as the relationship matures, and that is a difficult process at times.  Nevertheless, as my relationship with Jesus matures, my ability to trust Him will mature.  In turn that will make me the mature believer I am do be.

 

Jonah was struggling with trust issues.  Like Jonah, each and every one of us, none excluded, struggles with trusting our entire lives with Jesus.  We may hand part of our lives over to Him one day, and then take it back the next day.  When we are first saved, we tell Jesus we trust our lives with Him.  From that moment on, the trust we claim to possess is worked into our lives one day at a time.    

 

Exhibiting faith, or trust, is certainly a process.  There is no doubt about that.  I'm sure that this whole miserable experience Jonah went through, would in the end, have caused his trust in God to mature.                          

 

God calls us

 

The Biblical fact is that God, as old time Evangelical Christians have said, has a call on our lives.  That is just a way to say that God chooses to invite us, first to Himself, then to others in the Body of Christ, and then, to ministry. 

 

Each Christian has a part to play in the implementation of God's will on earth.  We all, no one excluded, have been called to certain tasks, just like Jonah was called to preach to a sinful city. 

 

The problem many Christians have is that they get saved, so to speak, and that's it.  They do not think in terms that they have been saved to work for, and work with, the Lord Jesus.  Without the understanding of being called to ministry, and I'm not just talking about ministry as in a paid pastor, you will never mature as an effective Christian.  It was part of the conflict we see with Jonah.  Yes, he was numbered among the people of God.  He was a chosen prophet of God, but it was a struggle for him to fulfil the calling God had placed  on his life.    

 

If you are a real Christian, you must realize that Jesus has a job for you to do, both for Him and with Him.  It is all about you, Jesus, and those He has placed you alongside in church to do this job.

 

Self-centeredness

 

Jonah seemed very self centered.  Life was all about him.  Now doesn't that sound familiar.  It seems to be the essence of our present hedonistic, western-world culture.  Self-centeredness is basic to our sinful human nature, and it certainly detracts is from being  mature Christians.  It does hinder us from the ministry calling God has placed on our lives.  It was that way with Jonah, and it is that way with us. 

 

We are to follow, not in Jonah's footsteps, but in Jesus' footsteps.  I am sure you will agree with me that there was not one hint of self-centeredness in the life of Jesus while He was on earth, and, there isn't any hint of it today either, as He sits at the right hand of God on our behalf.                 

 

Generational Revival

 

We note that those in the city of Nineveh experienced a revival, although we cannot think of their revival in terms of a New Testament style revival.  That being said, there is one similarity that we must recognize between the revival in Nineveh and our New Testament revivals that have come to us over the centuries. 

 

The revival in Nineveh lasted for about one generation.  That's it.  Beyond that one generation, all hints of a past revival were lost.  The same is true for New Testament revivals over the last two thousand years.  All have sooner or later died down, and that due to our human nature that constantly messes things all up. 

 

It is a struggle for us to pass our godly revived lives onto the next generation, and thus, as each subsequent generation arrives on the scene, the effects of revival, little by little, disappear.   For this reason, we always need to pray that God would send revival to the next generation.    

 

Revival through Politics

 

Here in the twenty-first century, at least in the West, many Christians have become very active in the world of politics, and that, because they want to implement Christian living into their nation.  This may sound like an admirable goal, but it does have its problems. 

 

In the Book of Jonah, we note that the revival that took place in Nineveh was first of all, a grass-roots revival.  That is to say, it began with the common people, but, when the king found out about it, he decreed outward signs of repentance.  He turned the grass-root revival into what I would call a political event.  This did have some merit, I grant you that.   Nevertheless, in the long run the revival  failed to last more than a generation.  Turning a grass-roots revival into a political event has always failed, and it has been tried many times over the centuries. 

 

The greatest example of what I am saying took place in the fourth century when the Roman emperor Constantine, Christianize the Roman Empire by decree.  It led to a very dark age of church history.  It failed because Emperor Constantine inserted a humanistic element into a divinely orchestrated revival, and that mixture is deadly.   

 

Simply put, attempting to Christianize a culture through political means, and again, it has been tried many times over the centuries, is futile.  You may pass laws and legislation banning certain sins, but those laws and legislation never change the sinful hearts of men and women who commit the sin.  The sin will express itself one way or another.  History has proven that to be true as well.

 

What changes the heart of the sinner is the gospel of Jesus and the Holy Spirit entering the sinner's life.  Only then can we even begin to think of any cultural change towards Biblical Christianity.            

 

Self-justification  

 

It is our sinful human nature that causes us to justify ourselves when we are clearly in the wrong.  We see this in the life of Jonah.  It is just difficult for us to admit that we are really wrong sometimes.  It's hard for us to apologize.  Saying "I am sorry," and really meaning it, is far from easy.  If we can end our self-justification, we will be the better for it.  It will produce a maturity in our lives that most other things can never produce.    

 

To the degree that we can end justifying ourselves might just be the degree to which we can more fully comprehend and appreciate the fact that God has justified us.  What Jesus did on the cross for you and I is just utterly amazing if you really think it through.   

 

Jesus, who knew no sin, who had no need for self-justification, admitted, not to His sin, but our sin.  He had no sin to admit.  He confessed our sin, and, He was punished for it.  God now views us who have benefited from the cross of Christ as being sinless, just as He Himself is sinless, and that despite the fact that we still sin.  With this in mind, how can we live a life of self-justification? 

 

Self-justification was one of Jonah's struggles, and it is one of our struggles as well.  

 

God over the nations

 

We learn many things from the Book of Jonah.  One thing we learn is that it is God, or as Matthew 28:18 now states, it is Jesus, who has the final authority over all nations.  He has the last word over your nation, and really, over you as well.  Think about that for a while. 

 

Far too often we get all bent out of shape over what we see our godless nations are doing these days.  We get caught up in all sorts of emotions that have no constructive value.  We should not be surprised when we see such sinfulness around us.  It was that way in Nineveh and it is this way today.  It's not new.  It's just the way humanity works.  We need to remember, Jesus is the One in charge, and what He wants to do, He will do.  It may not be today, and it may not be tomorrow, but His will be done some day. 

 

In part, Jonah was bent out of shape over the evil city of Nineveh , when in fact, that was one big waste of time and energy on his part.  Understanding things as God understood them would have saved Jonah much time and much of his troubles.    

 

Being overly occupied with the world around us to the degree we fail to accomplish God's will in our lives, shows a lack of maturity on our part.  We may fight hard as we can to make our national culture more Christian, but more often than not, that backfires.  It backfires because we're using humanistic methods to perform a divinely mandated job.   

 

God called Jonah to preach to Nineveh .  He did not call Jonah to run for political office or become a social activist.  Such activism really does not change the hearts of men and women.  What changed the hearts of those in Nineveh was genuine repentance and a turn towards God, and that came through the preaching of the Word of the Lord by Jonah.  This, is what your nation needs this very day, and that takes you picking up your ministry calling and doing what Jonah eventually did.                

 

God's Judgment on nations

 

We also must know that God will end up judging every nation in this world.  He, as seen in Revelation 18 and 19, will bring every last nation down to its knees in divine judgment.  No nation, not even your nation, will be left standing.  At that point, the Kingdom of God will become a material reality here on earth.  This was in the heart of God as far back as Jonah's day, and it is still in His heart today. 

 

If I were you, I'd have my feet firmly planted in the Kingdom of God , because, when it is all said and done, it will be the only kingdom left standing on this planet.             

 

God still protects when we run

 

Jonah tried his best to run away from the presence of God, and that despite the fact that he had to have realized that was impossible.  Still, God protected Jonah as he ran.  If, then, you have been called by God to be His, which makes you a real Christian, He will protect you in His own way.  Even if you attempt to run from Him, or, even just avoid him, there is still divine protection available. 

 

On the other hand, as God removed that plant of protection from Jonah's life to discipline him, He can do the same with you and I today.  We all must acknowledge the fact that God does, and will, discipline His people, whom He loves.  Then, once disciplined, we must learn from those times of discipline, and if we don't, we're wasting God's time and energy in our lives. 

 

God's discipline is always redemptive.  Be redeemed and learn the lesson from being disciplined by your heavenly Father who loves you.         

 

 

Final Thought

 

Jonah was one of God's chosen people, that being, the Jews.  God called Jonah to both a prophetic ministry, and as recorded in the Book of Jonah, to one specific prophetic task.  Jonah fought God every step of the way concerning God's call for him to preach to an evil city.  He was not much different than any of us today.   

 

Despite the fact that Jonah, a called of God prophet, was deeply conflicted, he was still loved by God and he still had a ministry calling to perform.  In like fashion, as Christians today, we may find ourselves mentally and emotionally confused and conflicted at times.  We may question our relationship with Jesus and His ministry calling on our lives.  At times we might feel that life is one huge futile endeavour.  We, and our ministry, take a few steps forward, and then, we find ourselves falling back a step or two, or maybe, even starting all over again. 

 

You might consider the life of the great apostle Paul.  It ended as a Roman soldier's sword sliced his head from his shoulders.  Was that it for Paul?  Where was God?  Where was His protection?  A most valuable apostle's life ends in a pathetic pool of blood.  It defies human logic. You sit and ponder over what might pass through your mind in that last transient moment of your life.  Will that last fleeting thought be as glorious as you now hope it will be?                  

 

All of the above negativity being said, we are still love by our Lord.  We are still saved.  We still have a ministry calling to perform.  So, we carry on.  Our lives are not as futile as we might think at times.  We consider the life of Paul.  His life may have ended in a pathetic pool of blood, but we benefit from his life to this very day.  Like Jonah, as conflicted as he was, we certainly benefit from his life, some two and a half thousand years later.  Our lives can be as Paul's and Jonah's.  We can leave a legacy of hope in the midst of a world of chaos, confusion, and conflict, and that we will certainly do.           

 

Confused, but still saved.  Conflicted, yet still loved.  How thankful I am.  It motivates me to take up my personalized ministry calling, despite any pitfall that may cross my path of my life and ministry.  Like Paul and Jonah, my life is in the hands of the Sovereign Lord God of the universe, and that is where I expect my life to stay.   

 

May our Lord Jesus Christ bless you in whatever way He may see fit.         

             

 

 

 

 

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