I'm going to begin this morning, simply by rereading Jonah 1. I'm hoping, as we reread it, that you'll realize you understand it better, and differently, than before last week:
(1) And the 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,
(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,
(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,"
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,
(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,"
(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,
(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."
(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.
Our story ended last week by focusing on the sailors. After seeing Yahweh's power over creation and his mercy toward them, the sailors feared Yahweh, sacrificed to Yahweh, and made vows to Yahweh. And when they do this, they show that they've become, basically, Yahweh-fearing Israelites. And we wondered if that was a good thing. Maybe. Maybe this was a good trade-- that one man should die, so that others may live.
But that's not really the end of the story. As we keep reading in chapter 2, it turns out that Yonah didn't die. Who knew? Normally, if you get chucked over the side of a ship in the storm, that's basically the end of your story. But not for Yonah.
Let's start by reading 2:1-3 (Hebrew numbering throughout):
(1) And Yahweh appointed a great fish to swallow Yonah,
and Yonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights,
(2) and Yonah prayed to Yahweh his Elohim from the belly of the fish,
(3) and he said,
"I called from my distress to Yahweh,
and he answered me.
From the belly of Sheol I cried for help.
You heard my voice,
In chapter 1, we saw that the sailors instinctively respond to the storm with wisdom. When you know you're about to die, you cry out to your Elohim. Maybe-- just maybe-- when you cry out, you will get your Elohim's attention, and he will act for you.
But Yonah didn't do this. He refused to call to his Elohim, Yahweh. He repeatedly chose death over life. He went down below, rather than hurl stuff over the side. He fell asleep, rather than cry out. And he'd rather be hurled over the side himself, than pray. He does all of this because, for some reason we don't understand, he is determined to hide from the face of Yahweh. He can't pray, because the second he opens his mouth, he will be acknowledging that Yahweh is still...right...there.
All of this finally changes in chapter 2. Yonah gets chucked over the side of the boat, and now he finds his voice.
Now he cries out to Yahweh. Verse 3:
(3) and he said,
"I called from my distress to Yahweh,
and he answered me.
From the belly of Sheol I cried for help.
You heard my voice,
We who are Christians live with the expectation that when we die, we will go to be with Jesus. Paul says this, as clearly as he possibly could, in Philippians 1:21-24 (NRSV):
21 For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. 22 If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which I prefer. 23 I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; 24 but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you.
But in the OT, it was widely understood that when people die, everyone goes to the same place-- to Sheol. Sheol is not "hell." It's not "heaven." It's a dark, shadowy world where everyone goes when they die, not doing much of anything. To give you just a feel for this, let's turn to Ecclesiastes 9:10:
All that your hand finds to do, with your strength you must do it,
for there isn't work, or thought/conversation, or knowledge, or wisdom in Sheol,
[to] which you are going to there.
The point Qohelet (=the "Preacher") makes here, is that this life is the only chance you have to do something. After you die, there's no work. There's no thought. There's no conversation. There's no knowledge. There's no wisdom. The only thing waiting for you after you die is Sheol. So when you find something worth doing on earth, while you are alive, do it with all your strength.
Yonah says that he was in Sheol. Actually, he says he was in the belly of Sheol, as if Sheol is a hungry monster (Numbers 16:30, 33; Isaiah 14:11, 15). We maybe read this, struggling to keep up with Yonah already, and we try to simplify this. Was Yonah dead?
We evangelicals tend to read everything as literally as possible, whenever we can. But when Yonah prays here, he sounds like the psalms (see Psalm 18:1-12, esp. 4-5). Yonah prays using poetic language, and we are supposed to be sophisticated enough readers to understand that this is in some sense metaphorical speech. It's like when you hear someone say that they're drowning in work. Are they? Are their lungs filled with reports and memos, so that they can't breathe? Or when people say that their life has been a living hell. Has it? You understand what they mean. They are painting a picture of how miserable they've been, and ordinary language just isn't adequate. Yonah can't simply say he was dying. That doesn't begin to describe what happened to him. Yonah was in the belly of Sheol.
So the way to understand chapter 2 is something like this: Yonah gets chucked into the water. He's dying. He cries out to Yahweh, and Yahweh sends a great fish to save him. He then sits in that great fish for three days and nights, and it's then, that he offers this prayer to Yahweh. This is a prayer/psalm of thanksgiving, spoken after Yahweh saved him. What Yonah is going to do in this prayer is describe his situation, and he's going to talk about how Yahweh rescued him out of that. And he's going to describe this using poetic language, that's in some sense metaphorical.
Picking back up in verse 3, and pushing ahead:
(3) and he said,
"I called from my distress to Yahweh,
and he answered me.
From the belly of Sheol I cried for help.
You heard my voice,
(4) and you threw me deep into the heart of the seas,
while the ocean currents were surrounding me.
All your breakers and your waves, over me they passed,
(5) while I said,
"I have been driven away from before your eyes.
However, I shall again look on the temple of your holiness,"
Let's pause here.
If you asked the sailors how Yonah ended up in the ocean, they'd raise their hands. But in verse 4, Yonah says that Yahweh threw him deep into the heart of the seas. Yahweh is the one who did this to him. Why? Yahweh was determined to drive Yonah from before his eyes. He didn't want to look at Yonah anymore.
Maybe we read this and think, Yonah got exactly what he wanted. He was fleeing from before the face of Yahweh, and he tried to go as far away from Yahweh as he could. He wanted to go to Tarshish. When that failed, he went as deep into the ship as he could. He certainly wouldn't pray.
But at some point along the way, Yahweh actively joined him in this task. Yahweh didn't want to look on Yonah, any more than Yonah wanted to look on (the Word of) Yahweh.
And it was at this point, when Yahweh joined him in this task, that Yonah realized he'd made a huge mistake. It's one thing when I run from God, and do what I want. When I choose not to pray, or have fellowship with the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 13:14). It's another, when God turns his back on me. Drives me away from him. And when I realize that God has withdrawn his presence from me (Psalm 51:13).
And so there Yonah "sits," and he realizes, he's made a terrible decision. The entire ocean is passing over him. He's dying. He's far from Yahweh; Yahweh is actively pushing him as far away as possible. What Yahweh is doing, truthfully, is killing him.
But in the midst of this, Yonah had hope. This is what he said at the end of verse 5:
However, I shall again look on the temple of your holiness,"
Yonah was confident that Yahweh would rescue him. That the day would come, when he would once again see the temple of Yahweh's holiness.
Why would Yonah think this? We have to keep reading to get our answer:
Waters encircled up to the neck.
The premaeval sea was surrounding me.
Seaweed was wrapped around my head.
(7) To the base of the mountains I went down.
The earth/underworld-- it's bars were around me forever,
and you brought up from the pit of Sheol my life, Yahweh my Elohim/God.
(8) When my life/neck was growing faint, Yahweh I remembered,
and my prayer came to you, to the temple of your holiness.
In these verses, Yonah describes what happened to him, using several pictures. He was in water so deep that it was up to his neck-- the sensation of near-drowning. He was surrounded by the primordial sea. Seaweed was wrapped around his head. He descended to the very base of underwater mountains. He was locked in the underworld. He was in the pit of Sheol. I could try, probably without success, to explain all of these images. But even if I could do that, I'd probably be missing the point. Yonah is piling up these pictures to talk about how hopeless things were for him. He was doomed.
But the other thing that these images do, is help highlight Yahweh's power and his mercy.
Yonah was dying, about as badly as anyone can go. This was it for him. And as he was dying, he remembered his Elohim, Yahweh. He prayed to Yahweh, and Yahweh heard his prayer.
Many of us, if we were Yonah, would've simply accepted our fate at this point. We'd made our decisions in life. We knew we deserved our separation from Yahweh-- it's what we'd actually wanted in the first place. We'd run as far as we could from God. And we'd feel regret, maybe, in our final seconds to live. But we'd tell ourselves, it's too late to repent. It's too late to cry out to Yahweh, for his mercy and help.
But Yonah knows and understands Yahweh in a way that you maybe don't. As long as you have a breath in your body, it's never too late to cry out to God for mercy. Yonah's prayer came to the temple of Yahweh's holiness, and Yahweh heard his cry.
And then Yahweh saved him. He sent the great fish. The fact that Yonah is able to pray, from inside this fish, is proof that Yahweh was still willing to listen. It was proof that Yahweh was still willing to show mercy.
With this, we come to verse 9. And you are maybe going to read this, and be bothered by it:
(9) The ones revering worthless idols, their loyalty they are abandoning/forsaking, ["their loyalty" is focused]
(10) while I with a sound of thanksgiving shall sacrifice to you.
What I vowed, I shall fulfill.
Salvation [belongs to] Yahweh,
We maybe read verses 9 and 10, and we raise our eyebrows. We think to ourselves, Really? Yonah has not exactly been a picture of loyalty himself.
But these verses are a vow-- a pledge. Yonah here commits to loyalty. He says he is not like people who serve worthless idols/elohim. His Elohim is Yahweh. Yonah is truly grateful to Yahweh for saving him, and so he offers vows-- promises-- to Yahweh. He will show loyalty to Yahweh. He will offer a sacrifice to Yahweh at his temple. What he vowed, he will fulfill.
When Yonah says all of this, who does he sound like?
You could say, Yonah sounds like a faithful Israelite-- a loyal member of Yahweh's people.
But when we hear these words, our first thought, really, should be that he sounds like the sailors from chapter 1:
1:14-18:
(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."
(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.
So Yonah, finally, reaches the same place that the sailors did. He cries out to Yahweh, who saved him. He thanks Yahweh. He promises to offer sacrifices. He promises to fulfill his vows. We still don't know why he ran from Yahweh, and why he refused to pray. But Yonah is apparently over it. He's now committed to doing what Yahweh wants again.
And how does Yonah end his prayer of thanksgiving? By pointing to Yahweh. He says,
"Salvation [belongs to] Yahweh."
For two chapters in a row, we have seen Yahweh listen to people when they cry out to him for mercy. Yahweh didn't want the sailors to die. Yahweh didn't want Yonah to die, either. Yahweh takes no delight in the death of anyone. Yahweh is The Elohim Who Saves. Salvation belongs to Yahweh.
If this leaves you cold, I honestly don't know how to help you. We who have been saved by God through King Jesus are thankful, from the bottom of our hearts, to God for considering us (1:6), for hearing our cries for mercy, for rescuing us.
We know that we didn't deserve mercy. We know how wickedly we lived. We know how hard we ran from God.
And we know that this running away from God is not always a past tense kind of thing. Even as Jesus' disciples, there have been times in our lives that we have been like Yonah. There have been times in my life where I've stumbled badly. I've run from God; I've tried to hide from him and what he wants. Although, more often for me it's felt more like just a slow gradual drift away from God. I sin more and more, and drift farther and farther, until one day I realize, I'm just going through the motions at church. I pray, and I don't mean anything I say. And I think to myself, what have I done? How have I gotten here?
I stand here this morning as someone who knows what it's like to come crawling back to God, asking God to hear me. Asking for a mercy I don't deserve, grateful to be alive, thankful for God's grace. And I stand here as proof that salvation belongs to Yahweh.
I assume that you are not all in the same place this morning. Some of you have never cried out to God for salvation. You're know you're a terrible sinner. You know you deserve God's anger. I don't have to convince you of that. But I have good news for you. God offers you salvation through Jesus. He wants to forgive your sins. He wants to free you from your slavery to sin. He wants to make you his child, part of his family. What he asks from you, is that you cry out to him for mercy. Turn from your sins, give your loyalty to Jesus. Today would be a good day to do this. It's not too late.
Others of you, at some point in your life, repented from your sins, and you gave your loyalty to King Jesus. But now, when you look at your life? Now, you know you're just going through the motions. Or, you're actively running from God.
If it wasn't too late for Yonah to ask God for mercy, it's not too late for you. Salvation belongs to God. He can help you. He wants to help you. But you have to humble yourself, and cry out to him. Renew your loyalty to him. This isn't something I, or anyone else, can do for you. This is something only you can do.
Others of you-- hopefully most of you-- are doing great this morning. You read Yonah's prayer, and you find yourself thinking, "That's me. When my life was most hopeless, and I'd been as far from God as I could possibly be, God heard my cry and had mercy on me." You find yourself wanting to cheerfully, joyfully, echo Yonah's prayer of thanksgiving. Because you know that God is good, and God is merciful.
That's me this morning. So what I'd like to do, in closing, is offer my own prayer of thanksgiving to my God. This is my prayer, but you are welcome to join me:
"Father, I praise you for saving me. I offer you a sacrifice of praise. I offer you my loyalty. I offer you myself as a living sacrifice, out of thankfulness for what you've done for me through King Jesus. There have been times in my life when I've sinned badly against you, when I've really wanted nothing to do with you. I thank you for hearing my prayer when I came crawling back. I thank you for showing mercy to me in forgiving me. I praise you for being the God Who Saves."
