Part of being a pastor or teacher in any church, is having this desire deep inside of you to teach through the book of Jonah. You can't help yourself. It preaches too well; it's too good of a story to ignore. Plus, every pastor knows the OT is hard and scary, but they also know they are supposed to use both testaments. But when they read Jonah, it feels like cheating. It feels like the NT. So they use Jonah to mark a nice break from the typical NT/topical sermon series they feel more comfortable doing.
So what this means, is that many of you have heard multiple sermon series on the book of Jonah over the course of your Christian lives. Basically, as many pastors as you've had, is how many times you've heard a series on it.
Which means that you think you know the book. You're familiar with it. Comfortable with it. And when you get that comfortable with a story, it's really hard for it to actually hit you anymore. It's like reading about the Good Samaritan-- you read it, and it doesn't actually do anything to you. It lost its force, 5 or 6 sermons ago. 10 or 20 years ago. 3 or 4 pastors ago.
I'm a teacher. And part of being a teacher, is having an itch to teach through Jonah. I can't help myself. It's too good of a story not to work through.
But how can I teach you a story that you think you already know? How can I cut through all of that, and help you to hear it with fresh ears, and see it with fresh eyes? How can I teach it in a way that, just maybe, the Holy Spirit will go to work on you, from inside of you?
Well. I have some ideas.
Part of what makes Jonah a great story, is that it doesn't explain everything all at once. Not by any means. But most teachers find themselves wanting to spoil the story. They want to jump ahead. They want to cheat.
Imagine a mom, who is most happy when she does kindnesses to her children. She loves to bless them; she loves to help them. Her favorite time of year is Christmas, because that's when she can give her children gifts. Picture her carefully choosing her present, lovingly, thoughtfully, wrapping it carefully. On Christmas morning, beaming, she hands it to her daughter, and says, "I got you a guitar!"
That's how we read most biblical stories. We spoil the surprise.
I'm going to do my best not to do this. I'm going to do my best, to let the book of Jonah mess with you the way it's designed to. Because I'm not the kind of person who spoils surprises.
The other thing I'm going to do, to break your familiarity with the book, is say Jonah's name right. Every time you see a "J" in the OT, it's pronounced "Y." So we are going to read the book of Yonah.
And that's all the intro you get. I'm not going spoil the story (Hebrew numbering throughout, sorry).
Yonah 1:1-3:
(1) And the word/Word of Yahweh came to Yonah the son of Amittai, saying,
(2) "Rise!
Walk! to Ninevah the great city,
and call! against it
that their evil has come up before my face,
(3) and Yonah rose to flee to Tarshish from before the face of Yahweh,
and he went down to Yopha,
and he found a ship going to Tarshish,
and he paid its fare,
and he went down on board to go with them to Tarshish from before the face of Yahweh,
Our story begins with the Word/word of Yahweh. "The Word/word of Yahweh came to Yonah." And we don't expect a puzzle here, at the beginning of the book, so we maybe don't even realize what we are reading. What does it mean that the Word of Yahweh came to Yonah, and spoke to Yahweh?
How can a "word" come or go?
We find this expression constantly in the OT. It's everywhere. But do we ever think about what it means? How can the word of Yahweh come to people, and talk to people (2 Sam. 7:4; Jer. 1:4, 11, 13, etc.)? That's not how my words work. My words don't travel from my mouth and have conversations with people.
Maybe we think that what we have here is simply an expression. When Yahweh speaks to people, his word comes to them. Maybe it's just a way of describing special revelation. That's possible.
But let's turn to Genesis 15:1-6:
(1) After these things, the word of Yahweh came to Abraham in the vision, saying,
"May you not be afraid, Abram.
I am a shield for you.
Your reward shall be very great."
(2) And Abram said,
"Lord Yahweh, what can you give to me,
while I am going childless,
while the heir of house---- he is Damascus Eliezer?
(3) And Abram said,
LOOK! To me you haven't given offspring,
and LOOK! A slave born in my house is my heir/possessor,
(4) and LOOK! The Word of Yahweh [came] to him, saying,
"This one shall not be heir to you,
except only the one who comes out from your body-- he shall be your heir,
(5) and he took him outside,
and he said,
"Look, please, toward the heavens,
and count the stars, if you are able to count them,
and he said to him,
"Thus shall be your offspring,
(6) and he trusted in Yahweh,
and he considered it to him as righteousness/faithfulness.
The Word of Yahweh here comes to Abram, interacts with him, has a conversation with him. Abram finds himself struggling to trust the Word of Yahweh, so what does the Word of Yahweh do? In verse 5, the Word takes Abram outside. The Word is a Being. The Word is doing physical things.
So when we read about the Word of Yahweh in the OT, I don't think we are supposed to understand this as an expression or phrase. I think we are supposed to think of the Word of Yahweh as a Being. As God incarnate, in some sense. As a Person, who speaks for Yahweh.
And maybe the most remarkable thing about this is verse 6. Let's reread it:
(6) and he trusted in Yahweh,
and he considered it to him as righteousness/faithfulness.
Abram trusts who? Abram trusted in Yahweh. So who is the Word of Yahweh? It's not clear, but in some sense, the Word is Yahweh.
Many of us know how the gospel of John starts. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1, also 14). Where does this language come from? How does this make sense? Well, maybe when we read about the Word of Yahweh in the OT, we are supposed to understand this as a veiled reference to Jesus. If this all seems crazy, remember that Jesus says he saw Abraham (John 8:56-58). Does this make sense, if Jesus isn't the Word of Yahweh?
So this is how our story begins. The Word of Yahweh comes to Yonah. In verse 2, the Word of Yahweh gives Yonah three commands:
(2) "Rise!
Walk! to Ninevah the great city,
and call! against it
that their evil has come up before my face,
As far as prophetic callings go, this one seems a little incomplete. Yonah is supposed to get up and go to Ninevah. Why? His job is to tell the city that "Their evil has come up before my face."
The Word of Yahweh has seen their evil; he knows what they are doing.
And that's the whole message. He's supposed to walk all the way to Ninevah, just to tell the Assyrians, "The Word of Yahweh has seen your wickedness."
Your natural reaction, when we read this, should be to wonder what's next. There must be another shoe to be dropped, right? If the Word of Yahweh has seen your wickedness, what will He do to you? But there's no threat here. It's just thrown out there.
Now, we know that in the 8th century BC, Yahweh used Assyria to punish Israel for their sins. Assyria conquered the northern kingdom, and took everything in the southern part except Jerusalem itself (Isaiah 36-37). Yahweh used Assyria as the rod of his anger to beat Israel, but Assyria didn't realize it was empowered by Yahweh, and instead became proud (as superpowers always do). Let's turn to Isaiah 10:5-19 (ESV):
Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger;
the staff in their hands is my fury!
6 Against a godless nation I send him,
and against the people of my wrath I command him,
to take spoil and seize plunder,
and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
7 But he does not so intend,
and his heart does not so think;
but it is in his heart to destroy,
and to cut off nations not a few;
8 for he says:
“Are not my commanders all kings?
9 Is not Calno like Carchemish?
Is not Hamath like Arpad?
Is not Samaria like Damascus?
10 As my hand has reached to the kingdoms of the idols,
whose carved images were greater than those of Jerusalem and Samaria,
11 shall I not do to Jerusalem and her idols
as I have done to Samaria and her images?”
12 When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he[a] will punish the speech[b] of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the boastful look in his eyes. 13 For he says:
“By the strength of my hand I have done it,
and by my wisdom, for I have understanding;
I remove the boundaries of peoples,
and plunder their treasures;
like a bull I bring down those who sit on thrones.
14 My hand has found like a nest
the wealth of the peoples;
and as one gathers eggs that have been forsaken,
so I have gathered all the earth;
and there was none that moved a wing
or opened the mouth or chirped.”
15 Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it,
or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it?
As if a rod should wield him who lifts it,
or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood!
16 Therefore the Lord GOD of hosts
will send wasting sickness among his stout warriors,
and under his glory a burning will be kindled,
like the burning of fire.
17 The light of Israel will become a fire,
and his Holy One a flame,
and it will burn and devour
his thorns and briers in one day.
18 The glory of his forest and of his fruitful land
the LORD will destroy, both soul and body,
and it will be as when a sick man wastes away.
19 The remnant of the trees of his forest will be so few
that a child can write them down.
So when we read in Jonah that Ninevah's evil has come up before the Word of Yahweh, we find ourselves thinking, Assyria is about to get what's coming to it. The day of judgment prophesied by Isaiah must be here. Because Assyria isn't just Israel's hated enemy; it is Yahweh's as well. Superpowers, in the end, are always judged by God for their arrogance and oppression.
Our story continues in verse 3, but I'm just going to start from the top:
(1) And the word/Word of Yahweh came to Yonah the son of Amittai, saying,
(2) "Rise!
Walk! to Ninevah the great city,
and call! against it
that their evil has come up before my face,
(3) and Yonah rose to flee to Tarshish from before the face of Yahweh,
and he went down to Jopha,
and he found a ship going to Tarshish,
and he paid its fare,
and he went down on board to go with them to Tarshish from before the face of Yahweh,
Verse 3 comes as a total shock to us. It starts off fine. "And Yonah rose." There's no hint anything is wrong-- there's no "but" in the Hebrew. But the verse ends with a complete surprise: "And he rose to flee to Tarshish."
That's not how the sentence is supposed to tend. Tarshish is about as far as you can run in the wrong direction, to the outer edges of the known world.
Why does Yonah flee?
He's running from the Word of Yahweh. He's running from the face of Yahweh-- from Yahweh's presence. Why? Was it something the Word said? Does he simply want nothing to do with Yahweh? We don't know. We could try to answer this, but if we did, we'd ruin the story. But this is the question that should bug you. Why does Yonah do, what no prophet ever did?
Why does Yonah run? If you don't let this question gnaw at you, you aren't going to hear the book the way you should. Why...does...Yonah...run?
And, what will Yahweh do about this? Verse 4-5 tell us that much at least:
(4) And Yahweh hurled a great wind/spirit on the sea,
while the ship thought to break up,
(5) and the sailors were afraid,
and they cried out, each to his elohim/god/gods,
and they hurled the objects that [were] in the ship to the sea to lighten from on them,
while Yonah went down into the innermost part of the ship,
and he laid down (to fall asleep),
and he fell into a deep sleep,
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There are two really different ways to read verse 5. One way, followed by every translation, reads the waw-x-qatal as a pluperfect. "Now, Yonah HAD gone down into the ship." And it can certainly be used this way.
The other way of understanding this, is that simultaneously to the sailors dumping stuff over the side, in contrast to this, Yonah goes below deck, and falls asleep. He responds to the storm by taking a nap.
I'm taking the weird view on this for three reasons. First, I think there's an artful symmetry between the actions of the sailors and Jonah. Both of them do three verbs ("afraid, cried out, threw stuff"), but they are very different verbs.
Second, I think Jonah for some reason would rather die than do what God wants. Throughout the story, Jonah prefers death to obedience, and I think that starts in chapter 1.
Third, waw-x-qatals are usually describing simultaneous actions-- it's a way to add another subject/topic to an existing situation.
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When you think you are about to die, no one has to tell you what to do next. You might live like a pagan as soon as you leave these doors, and hardly anyone is the wiser. But when you're about to die, you find yourself instinctively crying out to God to save you. You'll promise anything, do anything, if He will let you live.
The sailors here know they are going to die. A great wind comes on the sea, and a huge storm comes up. The ship itself has a mental debate, about whether or not it should fall apart. And so the sailors instinctively do the intelligent thing. Each man cries out to his Elohim/god/gods. And while they are crying out, trying to get their Elohim's attention, they are throwing everything over the side to lighten the ship.
What does Yonah do during all of this? The most natural way to read the Hebrew, we find impossible to take at face value. So English Bibles "help" you by making sense of it. They make it sound like Yonah had already gone down below decks, before all of this happened, and decided to take a nap.
But more likely, grammatically, is that while all of this is going on above, what Yonah decides to do is go down below decks, deliberately lie down to sleep, and fall into a heavy sleep. The sailors are terrified, crying out to their Elohim, and hurling stuff, while at the same time Yonah goes down into innermost part of the ship, deliberately lays down to sleep, and falls into a deep sleep.
Is Yonah an idiot? Every sailor knows he is about to die. Every sailor knows that when you're about to die, you cry out to your Elohim, and you desperately do what you can to avoid your death. But Yonah? Yonah goes below deck-- the absolute last place you'd want to be in a sinking ship. He deliberately finds a place to lie down in the innermost part of the ship, and falls asleep.
Yonah refuses to cry out to Yahweh. Won't do it. He won't throw junk over the side. He'd rather die. In fact, he embraces death. He wants to spend the last few minutes of his life sleeping.
Why?
Verse 6:
(6) and the captain of the sailors drew near to him,
and he said to him,
"What do you want, being in a deep sleep?
Rise!
Call! to your Elohim.
Perhaps the Elohim will give a thought to us so that we won't perish,"
(7) And they said, each to his neighbor,
"Come/walk,
and let us cast lots, so that we shall know on account of whom this evil [has come] on us,"
The captain, in all of this, comes to find Yonah. English Bibles all phrase the captain's question a little differently. But it's the same question Caleb asks Acsah in Joshua 15:18 when she flies off the donkey toward him-- "What do you want?"
This is the question we should all be asking Yonah. What is it that he wants?
The captain then continues by commanding Yonah to do the obvious, sensible thing. "Call to your Elohim.
Perhaps the Elohim will give a thought to us so that we won't perish."
Maybe, God doesn't want them to die. Maybe God will think about them. The captain knows it's worth crying out to Elohim, on the off-chance he will give a thought to them and save them. You just never know.
In verse 7, the sailors decide that a storm like this can only be explained as divine punishment. And so they cast lots to decide who is responsible.
But notice what this means. Notice what's missing in our story. Yonah still refuses to cry out to his Elohim. He won't talk to Yahweh. He won't do what the captain tells him to do. And so the story continues with this lot casting instead.
Starting up again at verse 7:
(7) And they said, each to his neighbor,
"Come/walk,
and let us cast lots, so that we shall know on account of whom this evil [has come] on us,"
and they cast lots,
and the lot fell on Yonah,
(8) and they said to him,
"Tell us, please, on whose account this evil [has come] on us?
What is your occupation,
and from where are you coming?
What is your country/land,
and from where are this people of yours?
(9) And he said to them,
A Hebrew [am] I,
while Yahweh the Elohim of the heavens I fear,
who made the sea and the dry ground,"
(10) and the men feared a great fear,
and they said to him,
"What is this you have done?"
For the men knew that from before the face of Yahweh he was fleeing,
For he told them,
The sailors were already scared. But when they hear who Yonah serves, they are terrified. Yonah's Elohim is Yahweh, the maker of the heavens, the sea, and the dry ground. There is no escaping an Elohim who made all three.
"What is this you have done?"
Verse 11:
(11) And they said to him,
"What shall we do to you, so that the sea shall quiet down from over us?"
For the sea was growing more and more stormy,
(12) And he said to them,
"Lift me,
and hurl me into the sea so that the sea shall quiet from over you."
For knowing I am,
that on account of me this great storm [has come] upon you,"
The sailors ask him, what should we do? For Yonah, there's only one option. The only possible choice they have, is to lift him up, and hurl him into the sea. He will have to die, so that they live. He knows all of this has happened because of him.
Why is this the only choice? Because Yonah will not cry out to his Elohim. There is no alternative here.
Verse 13:
(13) and the men rowed to return to the dry land,
and they weren't able.
For the sea was growing more and more stormy against them,
The sailors aren't monsters. They aren't murderers. They don't want to do this. So they hear Yonah's words, and row harder. But the storm is only getting worse. Yahweh is overpowering them. So they give up, and we read this in verse 14:
(14) and they cried out to Yahweh,
and they said,
"Please, Yahweh, may we not, please, perish because of the life of this man,"
and may you not place on us innocent blood guilt.
For you are Yahweh.
Just as you pleased, you have done."
What is their prayer? They are terrified of throwing Yonah into the sea. They don't want to die because of the life of this man. And so they do what Yonah will not. They cry out to Yahweh, asking as nicely as they possibly can for Yahweh to show mercy on them. They tell Him they have no choice-- just as Yahweh pleased, so he has done. They ask him not to hold this against them.
And then they chuck him over the side.
Verse 15:
(15) And they lifted Yonah,
and they hurled him into the sea,
and the sea stood from its raging,
(16) and the men feared with a great fear Yahweh,
and they sacrificed a sacrifice to Yahweh,
and they vowed vows.
And so chapter 1 ends with the sailors, confronted with the reality of Yahweh's power and his mercy on them, fear/revere Yahweh, sacrifice to Yahweh, and give vows to Yahweh.
You know who normally does all of these verbs-- fearing Yahweh, sacrificing to Yahweh, giving vows to Yahweh? Israelites.
People who are part of God's chosen family. And now, the sailors have joined God's family. Jonah is like an accidental evangelist.
Is this good news? Should we be happy about this?
I don't know. Maybe it'd be better if God only had mercy on people who are already part of his family. We'll have to keep reading, to decide if this is really a good thing or not.
But what I want to leave you with, is two simple questions:
(1) Why is Yonah running from Yahweh?
(2) Why would Yonah rather die, than cry out to Yahweh?
