Latest / Behind the Bible Verse: The Stories and History Behind Scripture / Jonah: The Prophet Who Ran the Other Way

Transcript

Jonah: The Prophet Who Ran the Other Way · Behind the Bible Verse: The Stories and History Behind Scripture

• 0:00
  This is the story of a man who was given one job, bought a ticket in the
• 0:04
  opposite direction, and then got angry when the job went well.
• 0:08
  Behind the Bible Verse. This is made with the assistance of AI.
• 0:12
  Our reading is from the book of Jonah, chapter one, verses one to
• 0:16
  seventeen, in the World English Bible, British Edition.
• 0:20
  Now the LORD’s word came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,
• 0:24
  “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach against it,
• 0:28
  for their wickedness has come up before me.”
• 0:31
  But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.
• 0:35
  He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid its fare,
• 0:39
  and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.
• 0:43
  But the LORD sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty
• 0:47
  storm on the sea, so that the ship was likely to break up. Then the mariners were
• 0:52
  afraid, and every man cried to his god. They threw the cargo that was in the ship
• 0:57
  into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone down into the innermost parts
• 1:01
  of the ship and he was laying down, and was fast asleep. So the ship master came to
• 1:06
  him, and said to him, “What do you mean, sleeper? Arise, call on your God!
• 1:11
  Maybe your God will notice us, so that we won’t perish.”
• 1:14
  They all said to each other, “Come! Let’s cast lots, that we may know who
• 1:19
  is responsible for this evil that is on us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on
• 1:24
  Jonah. Then they asked him, “Tell us, please, for whose cause this evil is on us.
• 1:29
  What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country?
• 1:33
  Of what people are you?”
• 1:35
  He said to them, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven,
• 1:39
  who has made the sea and the dry land.”
• 1:42
  Then the men were exceedingly afraid, and said to him, “What have you
• 1:46
  done?” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the LORD,
• 1:50
  because he had told them. Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you,
• 1:53
  that the sea may be calm to us?” For the sea grew more and more stormy.
• 1:58
  He said to them, “Take me up, and throw me into the sea. Then the sea
• 2:02
  will be calm for you; for I know that because of me this great storm is on you.”
• 2:07
  Nevertheless the men rowed hard to get them back to the land;
• 2:11
  but they could not, for the sea grew more and more stormy against them.
• 2:14
  Therefore they cried to the LORD, and said, “We beg you, LORD, we beg you,
• 2:19
  don’t let us die for this man’s life, and don’t lay on us innocent blood;
• 2:24
  for you, LORD, have done as it pleased you.” So they took up Jonah and threw him
• 2:29
  into the sea; and the sea ceased its raging. Then the men feared the LORD
• 2:34
  exceedingly; and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows.
• 2:38
  The LORD prepared a huge fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the
• 2:43
  belly of the fish three days and three nights.
• 2:47
  So that's how it starts. A prophet, a storm, and a fish. Most people know
• 2:52
  that much. But the fish is only the middle of the story, and the book of Jonah is
• 2:56
  short enough that we can walk through all of it. Four chapters, forty-eight verses.
• 3:00
  And it ends somewhere almost nobody expects.
• 3:04
  First, who is Jonah? The book calls him "the son of Amittai",
• 3:08
  and that's a clue, because the same name turns up in one other place.
• 3:12
  In the second book of Kings, a prophet called Jonah son of Amittai is mentioned in
• 3:17
  passing, in the reign of a king of Israel called Jeroboam the Second, in the eighth
• 3:21
  century BCE. So the book takes a prophet from Israel's history and tells a story
• 3:26
  about him.
• 3:27
  When was the book itself written, and what kind of book is it?
• 3:31
  Here, scholars differ, and I won't settle it for you. Many place its writing much
• 3:35
  later than Jonah's own time, after the exile in Babylon. Others place it earlier.
• 3:40
  Some readers take it as history. Others read it as a parable, or a teaching story,
• 3:45
  or even a kind of gentle satire about prophets. Jewish and Christian readers have
• 3:49
  held all of these views, and the story carries its meaning whichever way you read
• 3:53
  it.
• 3:54
  Now the map, because the map is the joke at the heart of chapter one.
• 3:58
  Nineveh was a great city of the Assyrian empire, on the river Tigris, in what is now
• 4:03
  northern Iraq, across the river from the modern city of Mosul. That's east of
• 4:07
  Israel, over land. Tarshish is somewhere far to the west, across the Mediterranean.
• 4:13
  Nobody's completely sure where. Many scholars link it with a place in southern
• 4:16
  Spain. But for the story's first listeners, it was about as far west as ships went.
• 4:22
  So God says go east, and Jonah goes to the port of Joppa, on the coast,
• 4:26
  the town now called Jaffa, and buys a ticket west. As far west as he can get.
• 4:32
  Why would he do that? The first chapter doesn't tell us. And I think
• 4:36
  that's on purpose. The book makes us wait for the answer, and it's worth waiting
• 4:40
  for.
• 4:41
  It helps to know who the Assyrians were to Israel. In the eighth century
• 4:45
  BCE, Assyria was the great power of the region, and it had a fearsome reputation in
• 4:50
  war. Assyria conquered the northern kingdom of Israel and carried many of its people
• 4:55
  away. For an Israelite, Nineveh wasn't just a foreign city.
• 4:59
  It was the enemy's capital. Imagine being sent there to tell them to change their
• 5:03
  ways.
• 5:04
  Then notice who comes off well in chapter one. It isn't Jonah. It's the
• 5:08
  sailors. They're not Israelites. Every one of them prays to his own god.
• 5:13
  And yet they're the ones who pray hard, who wake the sleeping prophet and tell him
• 5:17
  to pray too, who try everything they can to save him, rowing for the shore even
• 5:22
  after he's told them to throw him overboard. When they finally do, they pray to the
• 5:26
  LORD first, asking not to be held guilty. And at the end of the chapter,
• 5:31
  they're offering sacrifices and making vows. The foreigners in the boat turn towards
• 5:35
  God, while the prophet is fast asleep below deck. The book has a gentle irony to
• 5:41
  it, and many readers have noticed it from the start.
• 5:43
  A note on the fish. The Hebrew says a great fish, a dag gadol.
• 5:48
  The word "whale" came in later, through translations of the Gospel of Matthew,
• 5:52
  where Jesus refers to this story and the Greek uses a word for a great sea creature.
• 5:57
  The text doesn't tell us what kind of fish. And it doesn't linger on it.
• 6:00
  A verse at the end of chapter one, and a verse at the end of chapter two.
• 6:04
  That's all the fish gets. One more small detail: in Hebrew Bibles,
• 6:08
  that last verse of our reading is counted as the first verse of chapter two.
• 6:12
  English Bibles, including ours, number it differently.
• 6:15
  Chapter two is a prayer, from inside the fish. It's written as a poem,
• 6:20
  like one of the psalms, and it's full of the sea. In the WEBBE, Jonah says,
• 6:25
  "The waters surrounded me, even to the soul." "The weeds were wrapped around my
• 6:29
  head." And it ends with a line of trust: "Salvation belongs to the LORD."
• 6:34
  Then, the text says, "the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited out Jonah on the
• 6:39
  dry land." Which is not a dignified way to arrive anywhere.
• 6:43
  Then chapter three begins almost exactly like chapter one. "The LORD's word
• 6:47
  came to Jonah the second time." Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city.
• 6:52
  A second chance, in the same words. And this time, Jonah goes.
• 6:57
  The text calls Nineveh "an exceedingly great city". Jonah walks a day
• 7:01
  into it, and preaches. And his whole message, as the book gives it, is one sentence.
• 7:06
  "In forty days, Nineveh will be overthrown!" In Hebrew it's only five words.
• 7:12
  No explanation. No call to change. No mention of mercy. If you've ever heard a
• 7:17
  speech that felt like the speaker was hoping nobody would listen, that's how this
• 7:21
  one reads.
• 7:22
  And then everyone listens. The people of Nineveh believe God,
• 7:26
  the text says. They declare a fast. They put on sackcloth, the rough cloth people
• 7:31
  wore in mourning and repentance, from the greatest to the least. The news reaches
• 7:35
  the king, and he gets up from his throne, takes off his royal robe, covers himself
• 7:40
  in sackcloth, and sits in ashes. He orders that no one is to eat or drink,
• 7:45
  man or animal, and that even the herds and flocks are to be covered in sackcloth.
• 7:49
  Picture a city where the cattle are dressed for mourning. And the king says
• 7:54
  something very humble. "Who knows whether God will not turn and relent?"
• 7:58
  He doesn't presume. He just hopes.
• 8:01
  And God does. "God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way."
• 8:06
  And he relented of the disaster, and didn't do it.
• 8:09
  By any normal measure, that's the most successful sermon in the whole
• 8:12
  Bible. One sentence, and a great city turns around. So you'd expect the next chapter
• 8:18
  to be Jonah's moment of joy.
• 8:20
  It isn't. Chapter four begins, "But it displeased Jonah exceedingly,
• 8:24
  and he was angry."
• 8:26
  And now, at last, he tells us why he ran. He prays,
• 8:30
  and he says, more or less, this is exactly what I said would happen, back home.
• 8:34
  That's why I fled to Tarshish. "For I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful,
• 8:40
  slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and you relent of doing harm."
• 8:44
  Those words weren't Jonah's invention. They echo one of the most
• 8:48
  important descriptions of God in the Hebrew Bible, in the book of Exodus,
• 8:52
  when God passes before Moses on the mountain. Jonah is quoting the faith he grew up
• 8:56
  with. He just isn't happy that it applies to Nineveh. He ran away,
• 9:00
  not because he thought God would be harsh, but because he knew God would be
• 9:04
  merciful, and he didn't want mercy for them. Then he asks to die.
• 9:09
  And God asks him a simple question. "Is it right for you to be angry?"
• 9:12
  Jonah doesn't answer. He goes out of the city to the east, builds himself a
• 9:17
  little shelter, and sits down to watch, in case the city gets destroyed after all.
• 9:21
  And God makes a plant grow up over him, to give him shade. The WEBBE calls it a
• 9:27
  vine. Nobody's sure exactly what plant the Hebrew word means. Some suggest a castor
• 9:32
  oil plant, which grows fast and has big leaves. Jonah is, the text says,
• 9:37
  "exceedingly glad because of the vine." It's the only time in the book he's glad
• 9:41
  about anything.
• 9:42
  Then God prepares a worm, which chews the vine until it withers.
• 9:46
  And a hot east wind. And the sun beats on Jonah's head until he's faint,
• 9:50
  and he asks to die again. And God asks him again, "Is it right for you to be angry
• 9:55
  about the vine?" And this time Jonah answers. "I am right to be angry,
• 9:59
  even to death."
• 10:01
  Then comes the last speech in the book, and it's God's. You were
• 10:04
  concerned for the vine, God says, which you didn't plant or grow, which came up in a
• 10:09
  night and died in a night. "Shouldn't I be concerned for Nineveh, that great city,
• 10:13
  in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who can't discern
• 10:17
  between their right hand and their left hand, and also many animals?"
• 10:21
  And that's where it ends. On a question. We never hear what Jonah said.
• 10:25
  We never find out if he got up and went home, or stayed there under the dead plant,
• 10:29
  still angry. The book hands the question to whoever's reading it.
• 10:33
  That open ending is part of why this little book has travelled so far.
• 10:37
  In Jewish practice, Jonah is read on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement,
• 10:41
  in the afternoon service, on the holiest day of the year, a day about repentance and
• 10:45
  forgiveness. Many Christian readers know it through the Gospels, where Jesus speaks
• 10:49
  of "the sign of Jonah", and compares his own death and rising to Jonah's three days
• 10:53
  in the fish, and holds up the people of Nineveh as people who listened.
• 10:57
  And Jonah also appears in the Quran, as the prophet Yunus, and a chapter of the
• 11:01
  Quran bears his name. Each tradition reads him in its own way. All of them have kept
• 11:06
  him.
• 11:06
  And notice how much of the book is taken up with people who aren't
• 11:10
  Israelites. Sailors who pray. A king who takes off his robe. A whole city in
• 11:14
  sackcloth. Even the animals get a mention in God's last line. The book's attention
• 11:19
  keeps drifting outward, to people Jonah would rather not have thought about at all.
• 11:23
  Maybe that's the heart of it. Jonah believed in a merciful God.
• 11:27
  He could recite it word for word. He just wanted to choose who that mercy was for.
• 11:33
  And the book doesn't punish him for that. It doesn't even answer him. It just asks
• 11:37
  him, gently, twice, and then a third time, whether he's right.
• 11:42
  So here's a question to sit with, and there's no right answer to it.
• 11:46
  Is there someone you'd find it hard to see given a second chance, and what would it
• 11:51
  take for you to be glad if they got one?
• 11:55
  Thanks for listening to Behind the Bible Verse. Scripture readings are from
• 11:58
  the World English Bible, British Edition, which is in the public domain.
• 12:02
  Every episode is checked against the text and the historical record.