Jonah

Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet. –– John 7:52

Scribes and Pharisees, the religious hierarchy of Jesus’ day, looked down with great scorn on the people of Galilee. Many of the Galileans were not Hebrews. From the days of Joshua, many Canaanites continued to live there (Judges 1:30-33). The people spoke with a distinct accent (Matthew 26:69,73). The area was popularly known as “Galilee of the nations” (Isaiah 9:1; Matthew 4:15). In colloquial terms, the Galileans were viewed as the “hill-billies” of their day.

While no future prophet was predicted to arise out of Galilee, two noted Old Testament prophets are identified with the area, Nahum and Jonah. Not only did they come from Galilee, but their cities were closely connected to the life of Jesus.

Nahum was from the small village of Elkosh (Nahum 1:1), a small fishing village at the northeast corner of the Sea of Galilee. However, his preaching ministry may well have been in the larger city some six miles to the east, a city which still bears his name, Capernaum, or Kfar Naum (“city of Nahum”).

Jonah was from another small village, Gath-Hepher (2 Kings 14:25). By the time of the first advent this village had disappeared and had been replaced by another one only three miles distant, Nazareth.

Thus, we see the linkage between these three Galileans. Jonah was from the area of Jesus’ boyhood home and Nahum preached where Jesus preached, in Capernaum.

Both Jonah and Nahum have two other points in common. They were both prophets to the northern kingdom of Israel and were the only minor prophets to address their prophecies to Nineveh, the capital city of Assyria.

While Nahum contented himself with remaining in Israel while prophesying the doom of Nineveh, his predecessor Jonah was sent from Israel to Assyria to preach his message of destruction and succeeded in producing repentance.

The books which bear the names of these two prophets also show another striking difference. The book of Nahum, like the other books of the minor prophets, contains a detailed message from God pertaining to his subject. The book of Jonah, on the other hand, is written more as a history. Yet it is more than history, for it contains a prophecy in allegory, a prophecy that is acted upon a stage rather than spoken from a pulpit.

This article will concentrate on Jonah and that other Galilean he so aptly prefigured, Jesus of Nazareth.

Jonah, the Prophet

Jonah was a reluctant prophet and was in many ways an enigma. He was the only Hebrew prophet specifically sent to a heathen city; he was disobedient; he fled from his assigned mission. His mission was, however, successful. He achieved in Nineveh what few prophets ever achieved in Israel — repentance. His predictions failed to come to pass. He was sent to a wicked king of Israel — Jeroboam II (2 Kings 14:25) — for whom he prophesied prosperity, and that prophecy did come to pass.

The meaning of the names of the two Galilean prophets, Nahum, and Jonah, were in sharp contrast to their messages of doom and destruction. The name Nahum means “compassionate.” The name Jonah means “dove,” the symbol of peace.

Jonah, the Story

The story related to the book that bears the name of Jonah is a simple one. Jonah, a prophet of God, is sent on a mission to Nineveh. Rather than accept, he flees in the opposite direction by taking a ship from Joppa heading for far-off Tarshish. A storm develops on the sea. After all, attempts to save the ship appear to fail, Jonah is chosen by lot to be thrown overboard. A giant fish swallows him and after three days spews him out on dry land. Chastened, he makes the journey to Nineveh where he preaches a message of impending destruction. All the inhabitants of the city repent, and the destruction is averted. Frustrated by the fact that his predictions failed to be fulfilled, the reluctant prophet retires to a nearby hillside to mope and await further developments. There Jonah is given a lesson from God about compassion through the provision and later the removal of a sheltering gourd.

The drama unfolds as a four-act play, each chapter of the book requiring a different stage setting. In the first chapter, the setting is the seaport of Joppa and later in a boat on the Mediterranean. Chapter two occurs completely within the belly of a great fish. In chapter three the scene changes to the environs of Assyria in the capital city of Nineveh. The final scene, chapter four, takes place on a nearby hillside.

Jonah, the Interpretation

There are two clues to the interpretation of this prophecy. The first is given by Jesus in Matthew 12:39-41: “But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: 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.

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.” Here we are furnished a direct linkage between Jonah and Jesus.

The second clue is found in the meaning of Jonah’s name, “dove.” The dove is a symbol of the holy spirit of God. It is with this significance that we see it lighting upon Jesus at his baptism (Matthew 3:16) and flying forth from Noah’s ark to bring the good news that it was safe to disembark (Genesis 8:8-12). It is in this symbology of the dove that we have a clue to the meaning of the book of Jonah. The message of the prophecy relates to the work of the holy spirit.

We suggest that the harmony between these two clues is that Jonah represents the action of those through whom the holy spirit operates at various periods. With this premise, we will proceed to examine the book of Jonah.

Ancient Israel was given a mission by God. As the natural seed of Abraham, they were to “bless all the families of the earth” (Genesis 22:18). Their prophets were led by the holy spirit (2 Peter 1:21). Through unfaithfulness they fled this mission, centering their efforts on preserving their “place and nation” (John 11:48- 50).

In the second act of the drama, we see the holy spirit as it works through Jesus. Here we find the correspondence between Jonah and Jesus most striking. These parallels are strikingly stated in The Bible with Notes by Wordsworth, “As Jonah went from the wood of the ship into the depth of the sea, so Christ went from the wood of the cross into the depth of the earth. As Jonah gave himself to death for those who were tossed by the storm in the Mediterranean Sea, so Christ gave himself to death for those who are tossed by the storm in the seas of this world. As Jonah rose from the whale’s belly and the depth of the sea, so Christ rose from the dead  The reality of the antitype confirms the historical truth of the type. Jonah is proved by Christ” (Vol. VI, Sec. II, p. 66).

In a larger sense, Jonah here represents not only Jesus but his followers as well. In a parallel illustration to the three days Jonah spent in the belly of the fish, Jesus spoke of the great temple of Herod being destroyed and that he would build it again in three days. John informs us that his listeners did not understand that he “spake of the temple of his body” (John 2:21). While Jesus did receive a new spiritual resurrection body when raised from the grave, it is worth noting that, in the larger sense of the word, the entire Church of Christ, “the body of Christ,” will also be given similar spiritual resurrection bodies (1 Corinthians 12:27; Ephesians 5:30; Colossians 1:24). As Jesus spent parts of three literal days in “the belly of the earth,” so his Church has spent a part of three thousand-year days in the same condition (2 Peter 3:8). As Jesus willingly let men throw him overboard into death, so those who follow him willingly surrender their lives even unto death, reckoning that “if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him” (2 Timothy 2:11).

The third act of the drama is yet to be enacted. It will be in the Millennial Kingdom of Christ that a message will be given to all nations and repentance will follow. We are assured of this in the words of Isaiah 11:9, “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.”

The final scene is the moral of the story and applies at all times, conveying the lesson that our God is a God of compassion. Another of God’s prophets summarizes the principle behind this lesson. “At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them” (Jeremiah 18:7-10).

Why Did Jonah Run? 

Having looked at the overview of the book, we will proceed to specific areas — the first deals with the motivation for Jonah’s flight. We are not left in doubt about this motive. It is clearly stated in Jonah 4:2, “And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.”

Jonah did not flee because of the perils of the journey to Nineveh. Nor did he flee from the fear of what the Assyrians might do to him as a Hebrew prophet proclaiming the destruction of their city. Jonah fled because of the grace of God! He had no desire to save the Ninevites. They were the enemies of Jonah’s people of Israel. They had been rapacious in their attacks (2 Kings 8:12). Jonah desired their destruction. He was an Israelite nationalist. Yet he knew Jehovah was a God of compassion and infinite grace.

This is the closing lesson of the book. “And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?” (Jonah 4:11). The population of Nineveh proper at that time has been estimated at 600,000 in the city and up to two million including the suburban environs. God was not calling Jonah’s attention to the ignorance that all the people had of him. Rather, the term “that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand” was an idiom, meaning children who were as yet unable to discern between good and evil. They could not be held accountable for the crimes of their parents. Could not Jonah have compassion on these? And, if not on the children, what had the cattle done to merit their destruction?

The Great Fish

Much has been said of the great fish which swallowed Jonah. We will suffice it here to remark that parallel accounts have been recorded in New York newspapers as recently as 1911. A very detailed account of a similar experience happening to a sailor, James Bartley, appears in the August 25, 1891 edition of the French Journal des Debats. A. O. Hudson, in his The Mission of Jonah, painstakingly reconstructs the story from the ancient secular historians Pliny, Strabo, Ovid, and Herodotus.

Three Days and Three Nights

Jesus said that “the sign of Jonah” would be that “the Son of man [shall] be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Critics have pointed to the fact that if Jesus was buried at sundown on Friday and raised Sunday morning near sunrise, he would have been in the tomb over only two nighttime periods (Friday and Saturday) and one daytime period (Saturday) for a total of approximately 36 to 38 hours.

Some commentators point out that “three days and three nights is a current Hebrew expression which does not describe with chronological exactness the space of seventy-two hours but corresponds to our mode of designating time by such phrases as ‘the day after tomorrow’ or ‘the day before yesterday.’ (1 Samuel 30:1; comp. v. 12; Esther 4:16; 5:1; Matthew 12:40)” (Lange, Commentary on Jonah, p. 25).

In the New Testament the term “the third day” is used some eleven times. It is worthy of note that on every occasion the three-day period includes the betrayal in Gethsemane, the trial and scourging, as well as the actual crucifixion and burial.

In examining the term “in the heart of the earth” we note that it is not a literal expression. Jesus was not buried in the “heart” of the earth but laid in a cave tomb dug into the face of a hill. When Jonah was in “the belly of the fish” he was not dead. What was true of Jonah was that he was no longer in control of his movements. Where the fish went, Jonah went. Similarly, when Jesus was arrested in the garden, he exclaimed, “This is your hour, and the power of darkness” (Luke 22:53). From that point onward the fate of Jesus was in the hands of others. Where they went, he went.

Dating the three days and three nights from his arrest lengthens the period “in the heart of the earth” by nearly 24 hours. The period still does not equal a full 72 hours but does include portions of three calendar day periods (the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth of Nisan by Jewish reckoning).

The Size of Nineveh

Jonah 3:3 describes Nineveh as being a city of “three day’s journey.” The first-century historian Diodorus Siculus in his Bibliotheca Historica describes Nineveh’s walls as being “150 furlongs long and 90 broad, and 480 in compass; the walls 100 feet high, and so thick that three chariots might go a-breast upon them; on them were 1500 towers, each of them 200 feet high.” Four hundred eighty Greek furlongs would be about 60 miles in circumference.

However recent archaeological digs have unearthed the walls of the city and found them to be only seven and a half miles in circumference. The harmony between the two views is apparently that there were inner city walls and then a second set of walls around the suburban area, including fields for crops to withstand any potential siege (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, “Nineveh”).

The Conversion of Nineveh

Amazingly, a heathen city, especially one with its own gods and not recognizing Jehovah, repented after just a few days of preaching. However, their worship of these other gods could have made them amenable to the preaching of Jonah.

Camel caravans frequently traversed the trade routes between Egypt and Assyria. These would pass through the city of Joppa. Undoubtedly the miraculous deliverance of Jonah through the medium of a great fish would have become common gossip. This would have been reported by the caravan drivers in Assyria.

One of the chief gods in the Assyrian pantheon of deities was Rammon, or Rimmon. Rimmon the storm god was considered to be in control of cyclones, tempests, and rains. The fact that Jonah had been delivered from the midst of Rimmon’s domain would certainly have yielded much to his stature. Therefore, there is an ironic twist to the story of this prophet. His act of running from the grace of God may well have contributed to the success of his mission.

In Jonah 3:7 we read that even the cattle were to fast as a sign of the city’s repentance. The Biblical Encyclopedia of McClintock and Strong, notes that “the compulsory mourning of the brute creation has at least one analogy in the lamentation made over the Persian general Masistius: ‘The horses and beasts of burden were shaved’ (Herodotus, ix, 24). According to Plutarch, also, Alexander commanded the observation of a similar custom on the death of Hephaestion” (Vol. IV, pp. 991, 992).

The Gourd and the Wind

In the final chapter, when Jonah climbs a nearby hill to see what God will do after he fails to destroy the city in forty days, a sheltering gourd is used to teach him a lesson. The heat is almost unbearable. The gourd is thought to be the castor oil plant, a tree that usually grows eight to ten feet in height but can reach as high as 40 feet in the tropics. Jonah was appreciative of its shade.

However, the gourd was attacked by a worm and withered overnight. Not only was the worm “prepared” by God for this very purpose but God also “prepared” a violent east wind to intensify the heat. All this was to prepare the reluctant prophet for the lesson: the Lord’s primary concern is for the good of people — all people — and not just those of Israel.

The story of Jonah is bracketed by two east winds. In the first chapter, an east wind caused the sailors to throw him overboard. In the final chapter, an east wind enforced the lesson of the whole experience. What a wise teacher is our God! He repeats his lessons over and over until we learn from them. As Job wisely remarked, “Lo, all these things God worketh oftentimes with man” (Job 33:29).

Jonah boldly proclaimed: “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” Forty days passed; the prophecy failed of fulfillment. Forty years passed; the prophecy still was unfulfilled. But a time did come when God brought about the destruction of that great city through the invasion of the Babylonians.

God’s words are sure of fulfillment. He may delay them for a season to give ample time for repentance. But they will be fulfilled. As another of God’s prophets phrased it, “The vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end, it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry” (Habakkuk 2:3).

–– The Herald of Christ’s Kingdom
1997/3