Thread by @JamesBejon

<THREAD>

A dove,

a plant,

a voyage at sea,

a worm,

and a fish referred to both as a ‘dag’ (דג) and a ‘dagah’ (דגה)?

What do these things have in common?

For some suggestions, please join me on a somewhat experimental trip through the book of Jonah.

Prophets frequently embody aspects of their message.

Hosea marries a prostitute (and remains married to her) in order to depict his people’s unfaithfulness to God.

Ezekiel packs his bags and leaves Jerusalem in anticipation of the exile.

Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey as a (literal) embodiment of the arrival of God’s king.

And Jonah, I submit, enacts his message in a similar way.

So, what *is* Jonah’s message?

Well, the book of Jonah clearly has a lot to do with foreign nations—and, specifically, with Israel’s relationship to them—,

which Jonah’s life depicts in a number of notable ways.

While many OT prophets *speak* about foreign nations, Jonah is the only prophet to *go* to a foreign nation in order to deliver his message.

And, unlike Israel’s other travellers, Jonah goes there by *sea*,

which is precisely how the prophets depict the Gentile nations (e.g., Isa. 11.9, 23.11, 43.16, Dan. 7.2, Joel 2.20, Hab. 1.14ff., 2.14, 3.8).

But, of course, ch. 1 doesn’t recount any old sea-journey; it recounts a journey with many twists and turns, and is the book of Jonah’s longest episode.

Let’s therefore consider a few of its particularities.

As we’ve noted, Jonah’s journey is no cruise on the Mediterranean. Jonah’s life is imperilled as he’s tossed to and fro by the waves,

which is how the prophets depicts the nations when God stirs them up and they become a threat to Israel’s existence (cp. Isa. 5.30, 10.26, 17.12–13, 51.14–15, Jer. 6.23, Ezek. 26.3, Dan. 7.3).

Jonah’s life doesn’t, therefore, depict Israel in a vague/generic way; it depicts Israel in a specific condition.

Jonah is a wayward prophet, whose attempt to flee from God’s presence depicts Israel’s attempt to do so.

Like Jonah, Israel rejects the call of God and goes her own way.

She gives her ‘wages’ to foreigners (cp. Jonah’s payment of his fare w. Ezek. 16.14, 34),

sets out on a downwards trajectory (cp. the threefold use of the verb ירד = ‘to descend’ in 1.3–5),

and is soon, like Jonah, overcome by a deep sleep, the eyes of her prophets firmly closed (Isa. 29.10).

Israel thus finds herself in a helpless state, buffeted to and fro by the nations ‘like a wayward Jonah = dove’ (ke-yonah potah) (Hos. 7.11).

And, as she continues on her journey, the waves/nations become more and more tumultuous,

until the only option left for Israel is exile (cp. 2 Chr. 36.16).

Israel is hence picked up (by God) (Hos. 5.14) and cast into the Gentile sea,

at which point the sea/world suddenly becomes quiet (שקט).

The voices of the bride and bridegroom no longer ring out in Israel.

The sound of millstones cannot be heard (Jer. 7.34, 16.9, 25.10).

Israel lies desolate and motionless.

And the land (finally) enjoys its Sabbath rests (Lev. 26.34–35, 2 Chr. 36.20),

Even the nations are silent (שקט) (Zech. 1.15).

——————— Jonah & Exile ———————

That the events of Jonah 1 do in fact depict Israel’s descent into exile is underscored by Jonah’s vocabulary.

Ch. 1’s narrative employs certain lexemes which are closely associated with the exile in the book of Jeremiah.

And, in answer to Jonah’s threefold ‘descent’ (ירד) (cp. above), each of these lexemes occurs three times.

🔹 Just as Jonah is beset by a ‘storm’ (סער), so Jeremiah thrice likens the arrival of the Babylonians to the onset of a ‘storm’ (סער) (Jer. 23.19, 25.32, 30.23).

🔹 Just as Jonah descends to the ‘inner part’ (ירכה) of the ship, so Jeremiah thrice associates the end-point of the exile with ‘the far recesses’ (ירכה) of the earth (Jer. 6.22, 25.32, 31.8).

🔹 Just as Jonah’s sailors say they’ll ‘hurl’ (הטיל) him into the sea, so Jeremiah thrice says God will ‘hurl’ (הטיל) Israel into exile (Jer. 16.13, 22.26, 22.28).

🔹 And, just as the sailors do in fact ‘cast’ (השליך) Jonah into the sea, so God ‘casts’ (השליך) Israel into exile (Jer. 7.15, 22.28, 52.3).

In addition, Jonah’s experiences in ch. 2 (in the belly of the fish) allude to the Babylonian exile in various ways.

🔹 Jonah is said to sink down into the ‘heart’ of the sea, where the word ‘heart’ (levav) is the word ‘Babylon’ (bavel) spelt backwards.

🔹 Just as Babylon is said to be ‘appointed’ (manah) a time to govern the world (cp. Daniel 5’s ‘Mene, mene…’), so the fish is ‘appointed’ (manah) a time to keep Jonah.

🔹 Just as Jeremiah thrice describes how the people of Israel grow ‘faint’ (התעטף) in the aftermath of 587 BC (cp. Lam. 2.11, 12, 19), so Jonah grows ‘faint’ (התעטף) in the belly of the fish.

🔹 And, after he’s been swallowed up, Jonah explicitly describes himself as ‘expelled/exiled’ (נגרשתי) from God’s presence, at which point (per Daniel 9) he looks towards the Temple and prays.

These associations are further underscored by the text of Jeremiah 51, which portrays Israel’s exile in remarkably Jonah-esque terms.

Specifically, it portrays Nebuchadnezzar as a ‘sea monster’ (תנין) (a category in which a ‘dag’ = ‘fish’ is included),

who ‘swallows’ (בלע) the people of Israel,

strips them of their luxuries (מעדן) (cp. Lam. 4.5),

and ‘cleanses’ them,

at which point Babylon’s ‘bars’ (בריחיה) are broken in pieces (cp. Jonah and the בריחיה = ‘bars of the earth’)...

...and God leads (הוציא) his people forth from the king of Babylon’s stomach (Jer. 51.30, 34, 44).

Jonah thus figuratively undergoes what Israel will later undergo in exile,

which may explain why Jonah is said to be swallowed by a ‘dag’ (a masculine noun) (1.17)...

...but is later said to pray from the belly of the ‘dagah’ (a feminine/collective noun) (2.1).

Initially, the fish depicts Babylon’s king (masculine) (Jer. 51.34), who comes to Jerusalem and swallows its people,

but, afterwards, it depicts the location in which Israel resettle and pray, i.e., ‘Babylon’ (feminine/collective) (Jer. 51.44).

For Jonah, then, Babylon’s king is someone who both judges and preserves.

Nebuchadnezzar swallows up the people of Israel, which is a grievous experience for them,

yet Nebuchadnezzar also preserves them amidst a sea of hostile nations—an environment in which the people of Israel wouldn’t otherwise be able to survive (cp. Dan. 3.29’s decree).

And then, on the third day, a later king of Babylon (Cyrus) spews Israel up onto the dry land; that is to say, he sends her back to Judah.

Hence, while Babylon doesn’t resurface from the deep (Jer. 51.64), Israel does.

God hears and answers Jonah/Israel’s prayer, and Israel arises from the depths of exile to live again.

In sum, then, the first panel of the book of Jonah (chs. 1–2) describes Israel’s descent into exile and subsequent resurrection.

And, significantly, Jonah’s journey can be shown to follow the various stages of Israel’s departure from God as they’re set out in Leviticus 26.

——————— Jonah: The Sequel ———————

We thus come to the second panel of the book of Jonah (chs. 3–4), where God gives Jonah another chance.

As before, God commissions Jonah to take his word to the Ninevites. And, second time round, Jonah obeys.

He arises, goes to Nineveh, and proclaims the word of God. And the Ninevites respond in faith and repentance (3.5–10).

What, then, are we to make of Jonah’s second journey as far as its symbolism is concerned?

If the book of Jonah’s first panel (chs. 1–2) depicts Israel’s exile to and return from Babylon, then what does its second panel depict?

The answer, I suggest, is simple: it depicts Israel’s *second* exile from Jerusalem;

specifically, it depicts the time when the early church (an Israelite entity) is ‘scattered’ abroad in the aftermath of Jesus’ Jonah-esque death and resurrection...

...and Peter (bar Jonah!) proclaims God’s word to a Roman audience in Caeserea, which marks an epochal moment in salvation history (Acts 8–10).

We can thus compare the two panels of Jonah’s story to an incident in the Bible’s other sea-story (viz. the flood narrative).

As the floodwaters begin to subside, Noah sends out a dove (in Hebrew, a ‘Jonah’).

The first time the dove is sent out, it encounters a world engulfed in water, as do the exiled Israelites symbolised by Jonah (ch. 2).

Just as the dove finds no place of rest for her foot (לא מצאה היונה מנוח לכף רגלה), so Israel finds no place of rest for her foot among the nations (לא יהיה מנוח לכף רגל) (cp. Gen. 8.9 w. Deut. 28.65), and the dove = Jonah/Israel hence returns.

Seven days later, however, the dove is sent out for a second time,

which corresponds to Jonah’s references to ‘three days’ in the belly of the fish (1.17), a ‘three-day journey’ around Nineveh (?), and a ‘one day journey’ *into* Nineveh (3.4).

And, happily, the second time the dove is sent out, it isn’t simply confronted by a world under judgment;

rather, it returns with signs of new life in its mouth, just as Jonah/Peter returns with a story/song in his mouth.

All well and good, one might say. But are Acts 8–10’s events *intended* to be seen as events which ‘fill up’ the story of Jonah?

Does *Luke* portray Peter’s journey to Caeserea in a Jonah-esque manner?

He does. On the one hand the text of Acts 9 contains a number of points of contrast with Jonah’s first journey (ch. 1),

and on the other hand it contains a number of points of *resonance* with Jonah’s *second* journey (ch. 3).

The text of Acts 8–10 thus portrays Peter’s mission to the Gentiles as an event which both redeems Israel’s past failures (ch. 1)...

…and fills up Jonah’s successes (ch. 3):

Hence, in the lives of Jesus and the apostles, Israel become a light to the Gentiles.

——————— The Parable of the Plant ———————

Finally, then, we come to Jonah 4,

which draws a highly unusual book to a highly unusual conclusion.

Particularly noteworthy is the sequence of events described in 4.5–8.

In 4.5, Jonah builds himself a shelter from the sun and sits down underneath it.

In 4.6, God causes a plant (קיקיון) to spring up and overshadow Jonah. Jonah rejoices in the shade it provides, though whether he attributes it to the plant or his shelter is unclear.

The next day (4.7), God sends a worm to gnaw through the plant-turned-shelter’s root, which causes it to wither.

And then, in 4.8, when the sun rises, God sends a dry wind to afflict the now-exposed Jonah,

which drives him to despair.

How do these events fit into our discussion of Jonah’s story?

Doth God take care for mere gourds? Or is the parable of the plant meant to teach Jonah a lesson?

The answer, I suspect, is the latter.

4.5–8’s events are described in dramatic terms:

Jonah’s shelter from the sun ‘delivers him from evil’;

the worm ‘smites/slays’ (ותך) the plant;

the sun ‘smites/slays’ (ותך) Jonah’s head;

and, as a result of the sun and wind, Jonah wants to die.

The plant, worm, sun, and wind in Jonah’s parable thus seem to represent more than just features of the natural world;

they are matters of life and death.

With these considerations in mind, let’s see what else we can glean from 4.5–8’s details.

One thing we can note concerns the way in which the plant, worm, and wind enter into Jonah’s world/experience. All three are said to arise by divine ‘appointment’ (מנה).

Has anything else been ‘appointed’ by God in the book of Jonah?

It has. At the close of Jonah’s first panel, God appoints a fish (Babylon) to swallow Jonah up.

And, just as Jonah is said to ‘faint’ (להתעטף) because of the fish in ch. 2, so he is said to ‘faint’ (להתעלף) because of the sun and wind in ch. 4.

Suppose, then, we take the final appointed entity in Jonah’s second panel (the ruach kadim = ‘east wind’) to depict the final appointed entity in the first panel, namely Babylon.

Do other aspects of the parable then fall into place?

They do. For one thing, its imagery becomes more transparent,

since, in Ezekiel 17, when Israel wanders away from God, Babylon is said to ‘smite’ (נגע) her like an ‘east wind’ (ruach kadim).

Meanwhile, the identity of the plant can be deduced without too much difficulty,...

...since if the wind is Babylon, then its precursor—the plant which previously shielded Jonah—must be Assyria.

And the identification of the plant with Assyria makes good sense, since:

a] in Ezekiel 31, Ezekiel depicts Assyria as a tree in whose ‘shade’ Israel have enjoyed protection;

b] in Isaiah 14, the Ezekiel-31-esque Assyrian king (of Babylon) is said to be eaten by ‘worms’ (cp. Isa. 14.11, 25, Ezek. 31.10, 15, 18); and

c] God encourages Jonah to reassess his view of Assyria’s salvation in light of his experience with the plant (4.10–11).

We can plausibly, therefore, view the main ‘actors’ in Jonah’s parable as representative of three different nations/empires:

Jonah depicts Israel (as before); the wind depicts Babylon; and the plant depicts Assyria.

With our parable’s actors identified, we can then unpack ch. 4 as a whole.

In ch. 4, Jonah removes himself (so to speak) from the events of his narrative.

He sits outside Nineveh, as an observer, and looks back at how God has treated the Ninevites.

As he does so, he feels aggrieved by God’s decision to have mercy on them.

Jonah’s assessment of God’s actions, however, is based on incomplete information and is far too quick, which God informs him of in 4.9–11 (the book’s final verses).

Not long ago, Jonah built himself a shelter from the sun.

He rejoiced in the shade it afforded him, although, unbeknownst to him, the shade in which he rejoiced owed to the plant *above* his shelter.

(In the plant’s absence, Jonah found the sun’s heat unbearable despite the fact his shelter remained intact.)

The next day, however, the plant died and the sun and wind arose, and Jonah lamented the plant’s absence.

The parable of the plant, I submit, is a picture of Israel’s experiences viewed from the same perspective Jonah adopts in ch. 2, i.e., the perspective of a Babylonian exile.

For many years, Assyria was a major thorn in the side of the Israelites.

Although Hezekiah survived Assyria’s onslaught, Assyria did the Israelites great harm.

Unbeknownst to Jonah/Israel, however, Assyria’s existence provided the Israelites with considerable shade/protection.

It shielded them (among other things) from more hostile forces in the ancient Near East, most notably Babylon;

hence, in the parable of the plant, as soon as the plant disappears, the dry east wind (Babylon) begins to blow.

In the context of ch. 4, these facts are intended to teach Jonah an important lesson.

Jonah is aggrieved at God’s decision to spare Nineveh.

Given a more complete view of history, however, Jonah would happily have spared Nineveh, if only to avoid the events of 587 BC (Jerusalem’s fall),

which represent the climax and culmination of Israel’s sorrows in Scripture (e.g., in the book of Lamentations).

Yet if Jonah would happily have spared Nineveh as a means to an end, then why (a fortiori) can’t God spare Nineveh both as a means to an end *and* as an end in itself?

That is to say, Why can’t God spare Nineveh because it is ‘a great city, in which are more than 120,000 people…and many cattle besides’?

The moral of the story is, therefore, as follows.

God’s ways are far beyond Jonah’s, and Jonah shouldn’t, therefore, be too quick to second guess God’s governance of history.

Indeed, consider Jonah’s God: a God who has hurled a wind down to the earth in such a way as to stir up the sea...

...so as to lead its sailors to hurl/cast lots and subsequently to hurl Jonah overboard…

…just in time to be swallowed by a fish and spewed out on the dry land three days later,…

…all of which has been convened so as to foreshadow Israel’s millennium-long history, ultimately to be lived out by God’s own Son in his (Jonah-like) death and resurrection.

Suffice it to say, Jonah’s is the kind of God to whom we (like Jonah) can entrust our lives,

even if, as churches, we find ourselves subject to apparently wild and hostile forces in the days to come.

The question posed by the book’s final verse is whether we’ll do so,

or whether, like Jonah, we’ll be aggrieved at the fact God hasn’t governed his world as we think he should have.

THE END.

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