Jonah Was a Jerk!
 

Sometimes you believe you know the story and then when you're reading it again, something new gets your attention.

"""The word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.” But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD."""

I've always heard it preached that Ninevah was a wicked city and Jonah fled to Tarshish because he was afraid to go to Ninevah due to the cruelty and violence against the prophets.

Until I read today:

"""Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”""

"""Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them"""

"""When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it."""

Jonah finally went to Ninevah and preached judgment. Incredibly the whole city turned to God! Awesome!

So how does Jonah respond?

"""But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry."""

I've known this part. Jonah preached, Ninevah repented and turned to God and then Jonah got angry because God didn't destroy Ninevah anyway. Jonah must be the only prophet, minister, evangelist, pastor, etc who became angry over people getting saved, much less 120,000 people!

Here's what I've probably read a hundred times and just passed over without much thought until today:

"""He prayed to the LORD and said, “Please LORD, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity."""

Jonah was a jerk! He didn't flee to Tarshish because he was afraid of how evil and cruel the Ninevites were. He fled because he knew God would forgive and have mercy on Ninevah and he wanted it destroyed!

Re: Jonah Was a Jerk!
 

Re: Jonah Was a Jerk!
 

Foreshadowing the Judeans dispising the Romans coming into the church. So much that they wanted them to be circumcised to be physically part of Israel. So, they could continue in the Law. Jonah hated the Ninevites they were uncircumcised, they had no covenantal right to mercy. They were equal to rocks, and beasts of the field. Dogs, yapping at the heels of Israel. Jonah hated the Niveites because they weren't of Israel.

Re: Jonah Was a Jerk!
 

Re: Jonah Was a Jerk!
 

Great comparison!

:thumbsup

Re: Jonah Was a Jerk!
 

I hope not. Certainly didn't think of that when I was typing the OP.

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Re: Jonah Was a Jerk!
 

So Nineveh was in Assyria correct? If so, it's crazy that after this happened God called Jonah to prepare the people, that we're going to take Israel into captivity.

Jonah was a racist bigot.

Re: Jonah Was a Jerk!
 

Jonah believed the Nenevites were not worthy of God’s mercy. I have studied this and I don’t have a source but, the way I understand it the Ninevites were incredibly mean, cruel people. The comparison would be similar to the Isis of today. Jonah did NOT want to be any part of their salvation. God scolded him for caring more for the gourd plant that had shaded him, when it withered and died than he did for the 120,000 people and the cattle.

Do we sometimes feel like some people are not worthy of salvation, while others are “too good to be lost “?

I used to have thoughts like this, but this story convicted me of believing this way.

Re: Jonah Was a Jerk!
 

The Ninevites were funded by the CIA?

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John McCain was seen meeting with them ...

Re: Jonah Was a Jerk!
 

Wow that's deep. :nod

Re: Jonah Was a Jerk!
 

Good thoughts, and when you compare the cruelty of the Ninevites to that of isis, I can't say I would blame Jonah. Perhaps I would have been the jerk, would I have been Jonah.


Reading the book and the comments here, it is a bit convicting.

Re: Jonah Was a Jerk!
 

Matthew 10:37-38 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. (38) And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.

Matthew 22:8 Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy.

Luke 20:35 But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage:

Luke 21:36 Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.

2 Thessalonians 1:5 Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer:

2 Thessalonians 1:11 Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power:

Revelation 3:4 Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy.

Revelation 16:6 For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.

Re: Jonah Was a Jerk!
 

I believe references regarding worthiness should first be used for us to check ourselves, not to render a judgment about others. Next, it should be applied to those aspiring to leadership. And finally within the body, those who continue in willful disobedience.

I don't know how much of this is true, but I was told...

I had been told that Ninevites worshipped a fish-like god. And so, after the great fish (whale) had spat Jonah up on dry ground, God called him to go forth and prophesy, the people not only heard his message, but saw that he was draped in sea weed and covered in fish bile. Rumors of this prophet being delivered up on the beach from a fish also spoke to their superstitions, and this caused them to heed Jonah's words because it looked like Jonah's God had total control over the sea, and provided Jonah taxi service in the belly of a fish, demonstrating God's authority over the sea, proving their God false. And that's why they didn't kill Jonah on sight and repented so readily.

God used Jonah's desire to go to Tarshish to set up what it would take to bring the city to repentance, because God wanted to spare them and give mercy. However, Jonah wanted to see them perish.

Re: Jonah Was a Jerk!
 

:thumbsup

I also think of the Apostle Paul, who was zealous for the Law and couldn't accept the New Covenant which they called "the Way". Acts 9:2

I think there were people who were selfish jerks and those that held so tightly to the Law that they would have laid down their life for it as Saul/Paul appeared to be prepared to do later. He was assuredly protecting the LAW against the Way at all costs.

Re: Jonah Was a Jerk!
 

I was thinking about a comment I heard Jeff Arnold say - Words to effect - "You are stupid for not liking me, because God LOVES me. How does someone hate what God loves?"

Same with Jonah and Tarshish. How could Jonah hate what God loved?


Or maybe we don't understand that he felt that Tarshish would have a shallow repentance and come after them later. Maybe he didn't want to be viewed as a false prophet.

Re: Jonah Was a Jerk!
 

It was always my understanding that Jonah just didn't want God to forgive them because they were abundantly violent cruel, especially to children.

Re: Jonah Was a Jerk!
 

:highfive

Re: Jonah Was a Jerk!
 

I'm not saying Jonah was right, but I don't think calling him a jerk tells the full account. Or even calling him a racist bigot. It's more complex than that.

Jonah's people were pretty much annihilated by the Assyrians in or at least by 722 BC. It wasn't a pretty sight. Assyrians used to skin their enemies alive, impale people on poles, and lead their slaves around with fish-hooks through their lips attached to ropes or chains, and otherwise, completely brutalize their conquered subjects.

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f4a...d13832cd46.pdf

So, if you are a prophet, and you know the Word of God so far written up to that point, you know the LORD is good and His mercy endures forever, and you know that His prophets of old have ever spoken of His great grace and steadfast love, even for heathens.

So, deep down, you know that God could very well spare the heathen Ninevites, and grant them mercy in repentance, because that's something God has been doing with your people since day one, even when your people have acted worse than the heathens surrounding your nation.

So, you know it down to the core of your being, but you just can't bring yourself to desire to see it come to pass, because you know how horrifically your people have suffered under their reign of terror.

Put yourself in his place for a moment. If someone invaded your home, slaughtered as many as they could, raped and pillaged across the land, brutalized your women, your children, your elderly, enslaved however many they didn't outright kill, and took them all away never to be seen or heard from again, and then, sometime after that, God speaks to you and tells you to go and preach to that invading force because He desires to save them from their wickedness: that's Jonah.

And, you could even scale back all of that, and just speak to a home intruder that murders half your family and kidnaps your children, or some other terrible, but closely related crime, then imagine that God tells you to go and visit the perpetrator in prison and share the Gospel with them.

Can you forgive such atrocities so easily and just go and be a saint? If not, does that make you a jerk? A racist bigot? Not at all. It makes you someone so hurt and enraged and inflamed with feelings of hatred, that getting past all of that requires a sovereign, miraculous work of the Holy Spirit, something Jonah wasn't prepared to experience.

The story, therefore, is designed to show us that even though we might be God's people, we sometimes don't understand or refuse to comprehend, the lengths God will go to to save His creation, even when they are at their most vile. So, Jonah teaches us that we must learn to be like God, to forgive the worst humanity has to throw at us, to care more for lost, corrupted, despicable, horrible humans, than our own petty concerns of comfort and religiosity. That even our worst enemies can still repent, while they live, and that their eternal life is more important than the pain or hurt they've caused us.

Because if we don't, there's nothing left for us but being swallowed by Sheol at the bottom of the ocean.

Re: Jonah Was a Jerk!
 

Wow. Awesome post!

https://media.giphy.com/media/jShr8wkP38XTO/giphy.gif

Re: Jonah Was a Jerk!
 

Votive,

I remember hearing a rabbi talk about the book of Jonah. He mentioned several of the things you did in your post. He then brought up how the book appears to end so abruptly, and with a question. Let's take a look...

Jonah 3:10
10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.

Jonah 4:1-11
1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.
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.
3 Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.
4 Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry?
5 So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city.
6 And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.
7 But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.
8 And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.
9 And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death.
10 Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:
11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

In his rabbinical manner, he explained that he believed that the book ends so abruptly with a question because God desires us, the readers, to ponder how we would respond to God's final statement if we were Jonah.

Thoughts?

Re: Jonah Was a Jerk!
 

The Book of Jonah is part of a greater wisdom heritage amongst Jewish literature, whether of the OT canon, or otherwise. It's designed to speak a profound truth in an otherwise somewhat off-putting or humorous way. At the end, you are supposed to see Jonah as something of a Rumplestiltskin figure, stomping around because he isn't getting his way, then, realize you're Jonah because you do the exact same thing, and yet, still want God to bless you and grant you mercy and forgive you, when you're acting the heathen, whining about why your small-time problems are happening to you while the rest of the world goes to hell.

Re: Jonah Was a Jerk!
 

All good stuff.

From childhood, this was one of my favorite books. And it continues to dazzle me in some way every time I read it and listen to men of wisdom elaborate on it.

Thank you so much for your insight on this wonderful book.

Re: Jonah Was a Jerk!
 

:highfive