Jonah 1–4

Jonah

A prophet runs from God, gets swallowed by a fish, preaches to the enemy, and sulks when it works. Jonah is short, funny, and ends on a question nobody answers.

The story

God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh, capital of Assyria, the empire everyone in Israel had good reason to hate, and preach against it. Jonah gets up and goes the opposite way. He walks down to the port at Joppa, pays his fare to Tarshish, about as far west as a ship could go, and goes below deck. Nobody tells you why yet. You find out in chapter four.

God sends a storm that nearly breaks the ship. The sailors, who aren't Israelites, pray to their gods and throw cargo overboard. Jonah sleeps through it. The captain has to wake him up: how can you sleep? Pray to your God! They draw lots to find who's responsible and it lands on Jonah. He tells them who he is, a Hebrew who fears the LORD, who made the sea and the dry land. The sailors ask what to do. Throw me in, he says. They don't want to. They row for shore and can't make it. So they pray to the LORD not to hold it against them, and throw him over. The sea goes still. The pagan sailors offer sacrifices and make vows to Jonah's God.

God has prepared a huge fish. The text doesn't say whale. Jonah is inside it three days and three nights, and from there he prays. It's a psalm, mostly about drowning: the waters closed over me, seaweed round my head, I went down to the roots of the mountains, and you pulled me up. It ends: salvation belongs to the LORD. The fish vomits him onto dry land.

God says the same thing again. Go to Nineveh. This time Jonah goes. The city is huge, three days across. He walks one day in and says one line: forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown. That's the whole sermon. And the whole city believes God. They fast, from the king down. The king gets off his throne, sits in ashes, and orders everyone, humans and animals, into sackcloth. Turn from your violence, he says. Who knows, maybe God will relent. God sees it and does.

Jonah is furious. Now he explains himself. This is why I ran. I knew you were gracious and merciful, slow to anger, full of loving kindness, the kind of God who changes his mind about disaster. He's quoting the way God described himself to Moses, as a complaint. Then: just kill me. I'd rather be dead than watch this. God asks him one question: is it right for you to be angry?

Jonah doesn't answer. He walks out of the city, builds a shelter, and sits down to watch, presumably still hoping. God grows a vine over him for shade, and Jonah is thrilled. At dawn God sends a worm and the vine dies. Then a scorching east wind and full sun. Jonah wants to die again. God asks again: is it right to be angry about the vine? Yes, Jonah says. Angry enough to die.

God's reply is the last word of the book. You cared about a plant you didn't grow and that lasted one night. Shouldn't I care about Nineveh, a city with more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who don't know their right hand from their left, and a lot of animals? The book ends there. Jonah never answers.

The verse to keep

Jonah 4:11WEB

Shouldn’t I be concerned for Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred twenty thousand persons who can’t discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also many animals?”

Gen Zsame meaning, your words

Shouldn't I care about Nineveh, that huge city, where there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who can't tell their right hand from their left, and a lot of animals too?

The last line of the book is God asking a question, and it's still open. The animals are in there because God apparently cares about them too.

What it actually means

Jonah is the only prophet in the Bible who succeeds completely and hates it. Everyone else in the book does the right thing: the sailors pray, the fish obeys, the Ninevites repent, even the worm turns up on time. The one person who knows God is the one who runs, sleeps, sulks and argues. The book is a comedy, and the joke is on the religious insider.

The reason he ran is the heart of it. Not fear. He knew God was merciful and didn't want mercy going to those people. Nineveh was the enemy, and Jonah would rather die than see them forgiven. The book asks whether you're glad God is gracious, or only glad when it's pointed at you. It's the same question the older brother faces in the Prodigal Son.

About the fish. People argue about whether it happened; Jesus refers to it as a sign in Matthew 12, and the book reads as history in some ways and like a parable in others. Either way, the fish isn't the point, and a version of this story that's only about the fish has missed the last chapter. The question God asks at the end is left open on purpose, because the reader is meant to answer it.

Worth arguing about

1Jonah ran because he knew God would be merciful. Is there anyone you'd rather God wasn't kind to?
2The pagan sailors and the Ninevites respond to God faster than the prophet does. Why does the book set it up like that?
3The book ends on a question with no answer. How would you answer it?

Read it yourself: Jonah 1–4

World English Bible. 48 verses.

¹Now the LORD’s word came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, ²“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach against it, for their wickedness has come up before me.” ³But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid its fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. ⁴But the LORD sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty storm on the sea, so that the ship was likely to break up. ⁵Then the mariners were afraid, and every man cried to his god. They threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone down into the innermost parts of the ship and he was laying down, and was fast asleep. ⁶So the ship master came to him, and said to him, “What do you mean, sleeper? Arise, call on your God! Maybe your God will notice us, so that we won’t perish.” ⁷They all said to each other, “Come! Let’s cast lots, that we may know who is responsible for this evil that is on us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. ⁸Then they asked him, “Tell us, please, for whose cause this evil is on us. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? Of what people are you?” ⁹He said to them, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, who has made the sea and the dry land.” ¹⁰Then the men were exceedingly afraid, and said to him, “What have you done?” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them. ¹¹Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may be calm to us?” For the sea grew more and more stormy. ¹²He said to them, “Take me up, and throw me into the sea. Then the sea will be calm for you; for I know that because of me this great storm is on you.” ¹³Nevertheless the men rowed hard to get them back to the land; but they could not, for the sea grew more and more stormy against them. ¹⁴Therefore they cried to the LORD, and said, “We beg you, LORD, we beg you, don’t let us die for this man’s life, and don’t lay on us innocent blood; for you, LORD, have done as it pleased you.” ¹⁵So they took up Jonah and threw him into the sea; and the sea ceased its raging. ¹⁶Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly; and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows. ¹⁷The LORD prepared a huge fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. ^2:1Then Jonah prayed to the LORD, his God, out of the fish’s belly. ²He said, “I called because of my affliction to the LORD. He answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried. You heard my voice. ³For you threw me into the depths, in the heart of the seas. The flood was all around me. All your waves and your billows passed over me. ⁴I said, ‘I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.’ ⁵The waters surrounded me, even to the soul. The deep was around me. The weeds were wrapped around my head. ⁶I went down to the bottoms of the mountains. The earth barred me in forever; yet you have brought my life up from the pit, LORD my God. ⁷“When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the LORD. My prayer came in to you, into your holy temple. ⁸Those who regard vain idols forsake their own mercy. ⁹But I will sacrifice to you with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that which I have vowed. Salvation belongs to the LORD.” ¹⁰Then the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited out Jonah on the dry land. ^3:1The LORD’s word came to Jonah the second time, saying, ²“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I give you.” ³So Jonah arose, and went to Nineveh, according to the LORD’s word. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey across. ⁴Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried out, and said, “In forty days, Nineveh will be overthrown!” ⁵The people of Nineveh believed God; and they proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, from their greatest even to their least. ⁶The news reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, took off his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. ⁷He made a proclamation and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, “Let neither man nor animal, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, nor drink water; ⁸but let them be covered with sackcloth, both man and animal, and let them cry mightily to God. Yes, let them turn everyone from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. ⁹Who knows whether God will not turn and relent, and turn away from his fierce anger, so that we might not perish?” ¹⁰God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way. God relented of the disaster which he said he would do to them, and he didn’t do it. ^4:1But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. ²He prayed to the LORD, and said, “Please, LORD, wasn’t this what I said when I was still in my own country? Therefore I hurried to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and you relent of doing harm. ³Therefore now, LORD, take, I beg you, my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” ⁴The LORD said, “Is it right for you to be angry?” ⁵Then Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city, and there made himself a booth and sat under it in the shade, until he might see what would become of the city. ⁶The LORD God prepared a vine and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head to deliver him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the vine. ⁷But God prepared a worm at dawn the next day, and it chewed on the vine so that it withered. ⁸When the sun arose, God prepared a sultry east wind; and the sun beat on Jonah’s head, so that he was faint and requested for himself that he might die. He said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” ⁹God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the vine?” He said, “I am right to be angry, even to death.” ¹⁰The LORD said, “You have been concerned for the vine, for which you have not labored, neither made it grow; which came up in a night and perished in a night. ¹¹Shouldn’t I be concerned for Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred twenty thousand persons who can’t discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also many animals?”

Whole book: Jonah

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