The runaway prophet — swallowed by a fish, sent to Nineveh
And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand?
Jonah 4:11Jonah is the most unusual prophetic book in the Old Testament. Unlike the others, it is not primarily a collection of oracles but a narrative about the prophet himself. God calls Jonah to preach repentance to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria — Israel's brutal enemy. Jonah refuses and flees in the opposite direction on a ship to Tarshish. God sends a storm. The sailors cast lots, discover Jonah is the problem, and throw him overboard. God prepares a great fish to swallow Jonah. After three days and three nights in the fish's belly, Jonah prays and is vomited onto dry land.
The second time, Jonah obeys. He preaches to Nineveh: 'Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown' (3:4). Shockingly, the entire city repents — from the king to the cattle. God relents from the calamity. Jonah is furious. He wanted Nineveh destroyed, not saved. He sits outside the city, sulking. God appoints a plant to shade him, then a worm to kill the plant. Jonah pities the plant. God rebukes him: you pity a plant you did not create; should I not pity 120,000 people I did create?
Jesus references Jonah more than any other Old Testament prophet. 'For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth' (Matthew 12:40). Jonah's entombment and resurrection from the fish prefigures Christ's death and resurrection. The book is also a rebuke to Israel's ethnocentrism. God cares about Gentiles — even Israel's enemies. The final question hangs in the air: Should I not spare Nineveh? The answer is obvious. God's mercy extends beyond Israel.
2 chapters per day
Jonah's prayer from the fish is a psalm of thanksgiving, quoting liberally from the Psalter. 'I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice' (2:2). The fish is not punishment; it is deliverance. Drowning was the punishment. The fish is God's mercy, preserving Jonah's life. Jonah vows to pay what he has vowed. The fish vomits him onto dry land. This is resurrection imagery. Jonah was as good as dead. God brought him back. Jesus says this prefigures his own death and resurrection (Matthew 12:40). Jonah's three days foreshadow Christ's three days.
'So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them' (3:5). The entire city repents — an unprecedented response. Even the king removes his robe, sits in ashes, and decrees a fast for humans and animals. 'Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?' (3:9). God does relent. Jesus uses Nineveh's repentance to shame his own generation: 'The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here' (Matthew 12:41). Pagan Nineveh believed a reluctant prophet. Israel rejected the Son of God.
Jonah is angry that God spared Nineveh. 'I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil' (4:2). This is a confession, not a compliment. Jonah knew God would show mercy; that is why he ran. God appoints a plant to shade Jonah, then a worm to kill it. Jonah is furious about the plant. God responds: 'Thou hast had pity on the gourd... and should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?' (4:10-11). God cares about people who do not know him. He cares about children. He even cares about cattle. Jonah cared more about his comfort than 120,000 souls. The book ends with God's unanswered question. The reader must answer.
'But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD' (1:3). Jonah does not refuse openly; he just runs. Tarshish was in the opposite direction from Nineveh — possibly Spain. Jonah knew God was gracious and might spare Nineveh if they repented. He did not want his enemies saved. So he fled. The irony is thick: a prophet of Yahweh trying to escape the presence of an omnipresent God. The storm teaches Jonah (and the sailors) that you cannot flee from God. The pagan sailors end up fearing the LORD. Meanwhile, God's prophet is in the belly of a fish. Obedience delayed is obedience denied.