Chapters

• The prophet himself
• Joel 1: Israel in the Last Days
• Joel 2
• Joel 3: The Last Days

1:3 But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

The instruction to Jonah was: “Rise up, go to Nineveh and cry against it”. But the prophet, resenting this commission, “rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord”. Giving Jonah the benefit of the doubt, so to speak, one would like to interpret these words as meaning that he went out from the presence of God in the temple. But twice more the words are repeated (1: 10; 4: 2), in such a context as to mean that he thought he could evade this unwelcome responsibility by getting away from his God, and that he could achieve this by going as far as possible from God’s Land.

So he determined to go to Tarshish. Which Tarshish? Josephus says this was Tarsus. But in this he was surely mistaken, for if Jonah believed that the judgment of the Lord might reach to Nineveh, it could certainly reach him in Cilicia. The Indian Tarshish must also be ruled out, for ships sailing thither used Ezion-geber (1 Kgs. 22: 48) as their port of departure. And the alternative route round Africa was out of question. So it seems more likely that either Tartessus in Southern Spain or the Tarshish in Britain (Ezek. 27: 12) was the intended destination.

But why did Jonah not go to Tyre or Zidon, the two great sea-ports of that era and country? Both were nearer to Zebulun than Joppa was. The explanation must be that Jonah “went down” from the temple at Jerusalem, where the Lord appeared unto him, to the nearest sea-port.

And, by God’s providence, no doubt, he immediately found a passage in a ship just about to set sail for Tarshish. The immediacy of this may surely be inferred from his fatigue; for having paid his fare, he forthwith went below and fell asleep and snored (so the LXX version of v.5 has it)!

That expression: “went down” was not inappropriate, for the road from Jerusalem drops more than two thousand feet to the coast; but also there is about this phrase a special implication of spiritual declension. When Abraham “went down” into Egypt (Gen. 12: 10), it was one of the worst decisions of his life; and, by and by, he was glad to recognize this and to “go up” back to the Land of Promise, unto “the place” (tabernacle) where he had been at the beginning. Jonah, in a day or two, you will have the like experience!

That detail, that Jonah “paid his fare” is a reminder that the prophet was a man of some substance, for such a considerable journey would assuredly cost him more than ten cents.

Very soon the voyage was fraught with difficulty and hardship. “The Lord sent out a great wind into the sea”. The language implies that an angel was sent expressly to produce this tempest (LXX: clydon; cp. Acts 27: 14), “so that the ship was like to be broken” (LXX has s.w. as in Lk. 8: 23).

But, down below, Jonah slept on. He had no bad conscience to keep him awake. So, convinced that his judgement was better than the Almighty’s, he slept. And the message of Heaven’s euroclydon was lost on him — for the present.

1: 1,2 Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.

Since, beside these four short chapters, there is only one brief mention of Jonah in the Old Testament, he is virtually an unknown quantity apart from the vivid story now told about him. But certainly by the time these forty-eight verses have been read and pondered, his remarkable personality and even more remarkable experiences leave a lasting impression on the mind. If he could know how marked that impression has been on generations of godly readers, he would probably feel that he had not lived (and died, and lived again), to no purpose.

The inferences to be made about him from his name Jonah ben-Amittai are somewhat unsure, Amittai may mean “My truth”, or more probably is a shortened form of “The truth of Jehovah.” The fact that Jonah was a prophet of the Lord may point to a godly upbringing in the increasingly ungodly environment of the northern Kingdom; but since some of the worst kings of that apostate regime bore the name of Jehovah, such inferences are precarious.

Jonah means Dove, a strange name for a man. Perhaps a parent who remembered that Noah’s dove was the first token of a new and better age bestowed it on him. Then, were these hopes that this son would lead the decadent northern tribes of Israel back to God?

Gath-hepher, with which place Jonah was associated, was in the territory of Zebulun, and hard by the northern border adjoining the immensely strong Syrian city of Hamath.

The one other clear-cut detail known about Jonah is the brief reference in 2 Kings 14: 25:

“He (Jeroboam II, one of the most powerful of the kings of Israel) restored the border of Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain (the Dead Sea), according to the word of the Lord God of Israel which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah…the prophet which was of Gath-hepher”. That prophecy foretold the removal of Syrian threat to his hometown.

However, the modernists, having no confidence that prophets of the Lord could foretell, promptly assume that Jonah lived in the reign. of Jeroboam, about seventy years earlier than the time of Hezekiah of Judah. But, if indeed that snippet of prophecy came well ahead of fulfilment, Jonah’s date may be pushed back to the time of Jehu. By and by reason will be found for thinking this conclusion not unlikely.

The record begins with the Hebrew for “and”, as though presenting an extract from a fuller narrative. And chapter 4 ends in a somewhat abrupt fashion, as well. The Old Testament has quite a catalogue of other writings not included in the received Scriptures, so maybe Jonah had other prophetic activities long since lost from sight or sound.

Indeed, there is some interesting speculation that Isaiah 15: 1-16: 12, which looks like an older prophecy quoted en bloc by Isaiah with high approval: “This is the word that the Lord hath spoken concerning Moab since that time (i.e. long since, or from of old)”. Isaiah then continues: “But now the Lord hath spoken (by me), saying, Within three years, as the years of an hireling (a firm agreement), and the glory of Moab shall be contemned” (v.13, 14). And it was, by the swelling tide of Sennacherib’s empire-building.

Well, it might have been a Jonah prophecy. But the evidence is meagre, virtually non-existent.

How did the word of the Lord come to Jonah? To some prophets the message was imparted by dream by night, or in a vision by day (Is. 6; Dan. 7: 1,2). Men like Jeremiah and Paul knew that divine inspiration was at work in them. The former of these may provide a close parallel to Jonah, for his commission to his nation was such that he sought to repress it:

“His word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay” (Jer. 20: 9). The Spirit of this prophet was subject to the prophet only so far. Speak he must! Was this Jonah’s case also?

To other men of God there were angelic appearances. Among these, Gideon perhaps comes close to Jonah, for he argued with his directing angel, but only so far.

The last chapter of Jonah ends with a colloquy between God and prophet. This must surely have been by an angelic appearance. It encourages, but does not prove, the conclusion that this also was the character of Jonah’s initial commission to go and preach repentance to the Ninevites. In his prayer (4: 2) there is indication of the prophet remonstrating against the charge laid upon him: “O Lord, was not this my saying while I was yet in my country?” Evidently that dislike of the job crystallized out into direct refusal.

Jonah, a prophet of Jehovah, must have belonged to the faithful remnant—”seven thousand that have not bowed to the image of Baal”— in the northern kingdom. Then is it not fairly probable that his commission to go to Nineveh would come to him from a divine appearance when he was worshipping in the temple at Jerusalem (cp. Isaiah’s experience: Is. 6: 1). One or two small hints pointing to such a conclusion will be touched on as this study of Jonah proceeds.

What sort of a place was this Nineveh to which Jonah was being sent?

Few cities go so far back in history. The archaeologists think they have found a reference to it in a tablet dated about B.C.3000 (sic!) And an inscription by Shamshi-adad (about B.C.1700) suggests that at Nineveh the worship of Ishtar was instituted there, a long time before that. Another archaeological mention goes back roughly to the time of Abraham.

By far the most informative ancient account of Nineveh is Genesis 10: 11,12: “And out of that land (Shinar, Babylon) went forth Asshur, and built Nineveh and the city Rehoboth (even the city of broad places), and Calah and Resen (Larissa, Kuyunijik?) between Nineveh and Calah: the same (Nineveh) is a great city.” This Genesis statement should almost certainly read: “He (Nimrod; v.8,9)went forth to Asshur, and built…”. Such a reading is supported by Micah 5: 6, where a parallelism describes Assyria as “the land of Nimrod.” In “Abraham” (H.A.W.), page 10f, it has been suggested that “Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord” was a persecutor of the faithful. These three cities were sufficiently close together to grow into one enormous metropolis including in its compass not only splendid temples to Ashur, the special god of this empire, and to a variety of other deities, but also even more splendid palaces erected and adorned by conquering Assyrian monarchs.

In the period now being considered, Nineveh had not yet reached its full glory, but already Assyrian rapacity and greed had begun a policy of plundering every state, which its mighty warriors invaded. From earliest days violence was a normal characteristic of these Assyrians, even in their dealings with one another (see Jonah 3: 8). Hence the charge laid upon Jonah:

“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me”.

That Hebrew verb ‘alah, “come up”, is normally used regarding persons. So there would seem to be a suggestion here of angelic inspection and report, as happened regarding Sodom; “I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me” (Gen. 18: 21).

When, in earliest days, God took Israel to Himself as His own peculiar people, He declared: “Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and an holy nation” (Ex. 19: 6). Yet hardly ever did Israel show signs of rising to the challenge of such a high destiny. Since the function of a priest was to be an instructor of the people and to be God’s representative among them, the intention that Israel be “a kingdom of priests” meant, in effect, that they become a missionary nation, as God’s representatives among the Gentiles, instructing them in the knowledge and service of God.

But throughout their history Israel showed few signs of ever fulfilling this exalted and privileged role, because it meant also being “an holy nation”, and they were not interested in holiness.

Now, at this late hour, when Israel was steadily becoming more decadent than the Gentile nations they should have been evangelizing, Jonah is selected to be an example to his own people of how they should fulfil this role: ‘Jonah, go down to Nineveh, and denounce it for its wickedness’.

There was doubtless another divine purpose behind this mission. If Nineveh’ hearing the word of the Lord, repented through fear of the judgment of heaven, then perhaps wayward Israel would take notice and by following such an example would likewise repent and save itself from the wrath of God.

However, Jonah had other ideas. As a shrewd man of affairs he had already come to recognize that the growing might of Assyria was a threat to be feared. How long would it be before that rising tide of Assyrian expansion swept west and south to engulf his own land? Then why should he lift a finger or raise his voice to fend off the violent judgment of God from such a nation? Assessing the situation as a politician, he thought he knew better than the angel of the Lord.

And there was a personal consideration as well. Had not he, Jonah, published a prophecy that by and by the territory of the kingdom of Israel would expand to recover the lost northern territory near Hamath and also would sweep southwards through Moab to the Dead Sea? Then if Nineveh, repentant, remained prosperous and strong, its expansion would leave no room for the fulfilment of Israel’s territorial ambitions — and thus he, Jonah, would turn out to be a false prophet, boosting the ego of his own people with futile forecasting.

So, rebellious, and with a certain feeling of self-righteousness, he determined to have no part in this missionary work in Nineveh.

Jonah, you poor fool, do you realize what a distinguished company you are enrolling in — men of God who jibbed at the wisdom of heaven, thinking that they knew better: Moses, Gideon, Elijah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Peter. How many more?

By and by Jonah’s rebellious flight from God was to make him into a witness to other Gentiles besides Nineveh. Did it also teach him that rebellious Israel would follow the same pattern — proclaiming God’s truth through their adversity because unwilling to be a holy nation and carry the holy Word of God to the rest of the world? And if repentance would pull back Nineveh from the brink, what would it not achieve for Israel?

1: 4-16 But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken. Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god, and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of them. But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep. So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not. And they said every one to his fellow, Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah. Then said they unto him, Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us; What is thine occupation? and whence comest thou? what is thy countrv? and of what people art thou? And he said unto them, I am an Hebrew; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land. Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou done this? For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them. Then they said unto him, What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us? for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous. And he said unto them, Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you. Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring it to the land; but they could not: for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous against them. Wherefore they cried unto the Lord, and said, We beseech thee, O Lord, we beseech thee, let us not perish for this man’s life, and lay not upon us innocent blood: for thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased thee. So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord, and made vows.

The state of that ship — a pathetically little barque, by modern standards — rapidly became desperate. Great seas crashed on her deck and flooded her hold. Since no pumping or baling out was possible, the only other expedient was to throw overboard as much cargo as possible, in the hope of keeping her afloat. Before long it seemed likely that the ship would break up. Had the storm found a weakness in her construction, or were they driving before the gale on to a rock-bound coast? But if the latter, where is the rocky shore in that corner of the Mediterranean?

And through all this, Jonah still slept — in some relatively dry and secure corner, in the fo’c’s’le, perhaps. But all the ship’s crew were hard at work, doing anything they could think of to bring them through this predicament, more fraught with danger than anything any of them had ever known. They were a mixed lot, these sea-faring men, as ships’ crews usually are. So there was hardly a deity known to the superstitions of the Middle East who was not assailed with desperate prayers and promises, interspersed with all the purple oaths that belonged to their trade.

For all this importunity, things only got worse. The captain was desperate to know what else might be done to save their lives, but when he learned that their supercargo was sleeping hard through all this tumult, he knew at last the explanation of their peril: they had an atheist on board!

So Jonah found himself being roughly shaken into wakefulness whilst equally rough exhortations were being shouted at him! “Don’t you realise that we may be foundering any minute? And you the only one on board who doesn’t care! Every man jack of us is praying, except you! Haven’t you got a god to pray to? Yes? Then why don’t you? Man, our lives are at stake as well as yours!”

It was not for nothing that through past years Jonah had been a witness in the Northern Kingdom to the True God worshipped in Jerusalem. Now he made his confession again before these devotees of such a variety of heathen deities.

“I am an Hebrew, and I fear Jehovah, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land”.

The guess may perhaps be hazarded that the proposal about the casting of lots, which now came up, was a suggestion made in the first instance by Jonah himself. If he knew how (in 1 Samuel 14: 41,42) a crisis situation in the days of king Saul had been resolved by means of Urim and Thummim (see ’Samuel, Saul, David’ on this), the present circumstance would surely appeal to him as not dissimilar. He himself would be glad to have any lingering doubts set at rest as to whether any connection was to be seen between this terrifying peril and his recent rebellion against prophetic duty.

The lot would be immediately organized with the tossing of a coin or any other heads or tails device. Jonah accepted the result as implicitly as if he had had it from the high priest of Jehovah.

So, now, without hesitation, he told his story, not at first in a succinct tidy fashion, for he found himself bombarded by a torrent of questions. There was no hint of bullying in these, but only a tone of respect. His story about being a prophet of Jehovah, worshipped at the world-famous temple in Jerusalem, was accepted at its face value. And when he told of his refusal of the Lord’s commission to proclaim impending doom against Nineveh they were aghast. No wonder they were involved now in such a storm at sea as beggared all past experience. “Why, why hast thou done this?” They couldn’t understand such an attitude as his. These simpleminded pagans, hearing the truth of Jehovah for the first time, judged Jonah’s behaviour to be that of a lunatic. They now saw everything clearly. With a disobedient prophet on board, no wonder the God who made the earth and the sea was angry. The shrieking of the wind and the violence of the waves, as high as their mast, were now explained.

Jonah too weighed the pros and cons. Rather than be party to what he was convinced was a wrong policy of the angel of the Lord, he had been prepared to sacrifice his own nationality, but their present straits showed that the problem had come to sea with him. Then, what next? Was his foolishness now to mean irreparable disaster for these harmless ignorant seamen just because they had Jonah on board? It was obviously useless to persist in following his own judgement or inclination. Just think what had befallen Balaam when he thought he knew better than the angel of the Lord!

Then he came to a heroic decision. If there must be a price paid for his wilfulness, let it not be paid by these good fellows who shared none of his blame.

“There’s no safety for you chaps whilst I am on board”, he explained. “So, dump me in the sea, and then you will come through. The wrath of Jehovah is against me, not against you.”

They got his point. They knew he was right in what he bade them do. But all their better instincts revolted against the idea of having one man die, swept away in a swirl of angry water, to save their skins.

“ No! Not that! “ The captain spoke for them all. “ Lads, get her bow round to the wind, and we’ll ride this storm out yet”.

They went to it with a will. With sweeps out, they strained until their muscles cracked. But what could those feeble endeavours do against that wild welter of wind and water?

Very well. If they must, they must. But first, fearing a great fear, with a devoutness that shamed Jonah’s self-reliance, they prayed to the God that Jonah told them held those boiling seas in the hollow of His hand.

“Jehovah, we beseech thee, let us not perish for this man’s life, and lay not upon us innocent blood: for thou, O Lord, hast done as it hath pleased thee “

Innocent blood! Those words were eloquent. They declared: ‘We haven’t got anything against him. But, Lord, you know what you are doing!’

Then two of those lusty fellows helped Jonah to the stern of the ship, and there with a mighty heave they pitched him clear, and saw him swept away into the darkness.

The effect of this propitiatory sacrifice had those hard-bitten seamen speechless with awe. The wind suddenly dropped. One moment there was a venomous howling and shrieking of the wind through the rigging. The next, complete stillness and the silence of a sea at rest. Never had they known the like of it. AII at once, the sea and the waves were no longer roaring (s.w. Lk. 21: 25).

Their reaction to this deafening silence of God was instinctive. The captain spoke for them all:

“Boys, let’s hold a prayer meeting, to thank Jehovah that He has brought us through, and to pray for Jonah, that headstrong, yet selfless, Hebrew”.

So, again fearing a great fear, with bowed heads they gave thanks for their survival and made solemn declaration that, once on land again, they would find their way to Jerusalem and there offer to Jehovah a sacrifice of thanksgiving.

Already, in chapter5, it has been demonstrated from verses 5,6 that Jonah died in stormy seas, drowned in violent waters in which the strongest of swimmers would have had no chance of even a few minutes’ survival. And Jonah was given his life back again after being swallowed by the whale.

The tenses of Hebrew poetry are admittedly rather precarious to argue from. But the tones, as well as the tenses, of these opening verses of Jonah’s prayer here do suggest that in his last minutes of consciousness Jonah prayed to the God whose mandate he had so flagrantly flouted. And now, inside the whale, in his first moments of new life, that prayer was repeated. “Out of the belly of hell cried I, and Thou heardest my voice”. Even here the prophet is an unwitting witness to the truth of God, that is, against those who would teach a destiny of unquenchable hell-fire for those whom God rejects. For this hell of Jonah’s was a very cold and clammy sort of place.

The outstanding feature of Jonah’s prayer is the remarkable number of echoes of the Book of Psalms. In some instances exact phrases are quoted, but there are virtually no continuous quotations of verses (or of half-verses). Yet the entire prayer is dominated by the words and spirit of the temple hymnbook. This requires one fairly certain conclusion — that although Jonah lived in the far north, he was very familiar with the temple service; and this surely means that he had been very assiduous in his keeping of the Feasts of the Lord in spite of all the discouragement which would be met with from the northern separatists.

The following list is probably incomplete:

Two other very significant features of Jonah’s prayer call for special attention.

Verse 9 is remarkable: “I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that I have vowed”.

The obvious intention behind these words is a firm resolution to make good his earlier deficiencies: Lord, I will go to Nineveh and preach, little as I like the task!

Nor must the further implication be overlooked. Jonah, finding himself alive again, although still inside the great fish, now leaped to the splendid logical conclusion that God would give him a new life and new opportunity to witness as he had been bidden formerly.

The other remarkable thing to notice here is the evident allusion in Jeremiah’s prophecy to Jonah’s experience.

“Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me…he hath swallowed me up like a dragon (s.w. also translated: whale, sea monster), he hath filled his belly with my delicates, he hath cast me out” (51: 34).

The resemblance to Jonah’s experience is not to be missed. Why, it may well be asked, should Jeremiah harness it in his lament of the fate of Judah in his time? There can be no doubt that Jeremiah knew that that captivity would last only seventy years and that then Judah would be “vomited up” with a further undeserved opportunity to serve Jehovah. So it would seem that Jonah’s “death and resurrection” was intended by God to be an acted parable and prophecy of the nation’s experience at the hands of the men of Nineveh. Jonah had refused his commission, hoping thereby to save his people from the rising tide of Assyrian power. Indeed, what happened to him, enacted beforehand, was this very thing that he feared. In the later days of Sennacherib God’s people were drowned by the Assyrian flood, two hundred thousand of them (Taylor prism) were swallowed up in a mighty captivity (actually greater than Nebuchadnezzar’s) and were promptly vomited up by a miraculous deliverance. The details of this are worked out at length in “Isaiah”, H.A.W.

Ch.4 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. 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. Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry? 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. 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. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. 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. 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. 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: 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?

Jonah should surely have been mightily pleased with the outcome of his campaign of warning. Nineveh had taken notice. There was a dramatic and drastic change in their morality. So his God would certainly be pleased and would now show a marked approval of His prophet’s work.

But if God was pleased, Jonah wasn’t. In a record that is peppered with Hebrew intensives and hyperboles, the verse (4:1), which describes Jonah’s reaction, is one of the most vigorous.

The soliloquy, which follows probably, took place between himself and the angel of the Lord (there is one small hint in the text that this may have been so).

Jonah’s expostulation began with his quoting the words of the angel of the Lord to Moses at Sinai:

“Thou art a gracious God, merciful, slow to anger, of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil” (cp. Ex. 34: 6,7).

He went on: ‘I knew it would work out like this. When I was first told to go lo Nineveh, did I not say then that this would be the outcome? And now that I have done my duty, as I was made to do, my life is in peril and is even now a present misery — and all this as a reward for obedience and hard dedication to a difficult duty, forty days of it! And when I chose to abandon Nineveh to its fate, that horrific destiny came on me instead. As a prophet of the God of Israel, I am between the upper and nether millstone. I just can’t win.’

So self-righteous, self-pitying Jonah was angry. He felt that he had every right to be.

But why should he be angry at the sight of a violent greedy power-drunk city of Nineveh all at once showing respect for Jehovah and trembling at His word? Ought not a prophet of the Lord to rejoice at such a reformation?

In high dudgeon he went out of the city (on its east side because there was high ground, and on the west Calah abutted on the wide fast-flowing Tigris). There he built himself a booth, of the sort he had made in early days at Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles; and there he would discipline his impatient soul with patience. Perhaps, after all, his remonstration to the angel would bring thunderbolts from heaven, something comparable to Sodom’s grim fate and would “turn Nineveh to ashes, condemning it with an overthrow.” What a satisfaction it would be to himself and to his countrymen to see a politically-inflated Nineveh wiped out!

And as he sat there, waiting and expectant, and feeling the growing heat of the day more and more, he noted that already the stem of a fast-growing gourd plant, rather like a vine but with more foliage, was climbing up and over his booth. He marked with amazement the rapidity of its development. What a blessing this added shelter was to save him from the exhausting heat of a fierce mid-day sun.

All that day and all that night Jonah camped out there, comfortable and expectant. But still nothing happened.

Next day, the angel of the Lord went into action. A plague of caterpillars appeared on the gourd, as if from nowhere. These greedily devastated all that rich vegetation. Then, as the day wore on, a hot, hot wind blew up from the desert with vehement intensity. There was no escaping the fierce heat of scorching sun and blasting wind combined. It was worse than being in an oven.

And Jonah groaned aloud in his misery. Now he had an added reason for wishing himself dead.

Then, all at once, the angel of the Lord stood before him again, coolly rebuking his self-pity.

“Doest thou well to be angry, Jonah? Why feel so full of complaint at losing the cool shade of your gourd? Yet you are mighty indignant when that vast sprawling city, full of pathetic, ignorant, superstitious people, is saved from the fierce heat of Almighty wrath. Is that reasonable? When will you begin to allow that God, far wiser than you, knows what He is doing?”

Why did not Jonah want Nineveh to be saved? Why should he reckon his own life would be put in peril if his preaching were to save the city from destruction?

It had probably become a firm conviction in the northern tribes of Israel that, before long, the aggrandisement of Assyria would be sure to mean an irresistible threat to the survival of Israel. It were far better if Nineveh perish. On the other hand, a Nineveh converted to high respect for Jehovah would be sure to lead to friendship between Assyria and Judah, and thus Israel might find itself with strong enemies on both flanks. So, after preaching repentance in Nineveh, how could Jonah possibly show his face again in his own country? He was convinced that his dutiful obedience to the Lord’s behest had put him in an impossible position.

But think again, man! Your God does not enjoy destroying the creatures of His hand. And there in Nineveh are 120,000 people, and all of them spiritually no better than uninstructed children who cannot tell right hand from left. Indeed, are they any better than “much cattle”? Can’t you have pity, Jonah, as your God has pity?

Indeed, there is more to it than that, Jonah. Why don’t you learn from the parable of your own gourd? Just as it sheltered you, so the strength of Nineveh sheltered your people by holding in check the perennial threat from Syria. But your gourd withered away and became useless to you. Learn also from this part of the parable. This repentance is only a flash in the pan. It won’t last. Very soon, they will forget Jehovah and the judgment He can bring, and they will turn back to their violence and wickedness and to their false gods. And then both Israel and Judah will feel the blast of Assyrian heat. There will come an ambitious brutal monarch called Sennacherib who will resent the respect his forefathers were constrained to show to the God of Israel. He will challenge Jehovah with the might of his national god Ashur, and will bring against the tribes of Jacob the worst ferocity Assyria can muster. You have seen, Jonah, what Heaven’s compassion has done for Nineveh in your time. But live to the end of this century, and you will see that God is not mocked.

The obvious authority for seeing Jonah as a divinely-provided prototype of Jesus is, of course, in the words of Jesus himself: “As Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Mt. 12: 40).

Reasons have already been advanced for seeing both of these periods as meaning “on the third day”. Other details of like significance are these:

Gath-hepher, Jonah’s home, was in the immediate vicinity of Nazareth.

The name Jonah ( = Dove) suggests the Holy Spirit, and the beginning of a New Creation (Gen. 8: 8).

Jonah was willing to die to save his fellows from certain death.

He died, and revived in the tomb, and emerged to life again.

Thereafter he offered sacrifice in the presence of God.

Those whom he saved vowed (and fulfilled) a self-dedication to God.

There followed a mission to Gentiles, crowned with remarkable success.

Forty years, and Jerusalem shall be overthrown.

The details of the storm at sea were very closely recapitulated in the storm on Galilee (Mt. 8: 24-27).

1. Jesus led the way on board ship.
2. He slept whilst
3. A great tempest raged.
4. The sailors were terribly afraid.
5. There was an impassioned appeal for help.
6. A great calm and stillness followed.

All this seems to be intended as typical anticipation of the saving work of Christ, thus:

Corresponding to his sleep in the ship, there is his apparent absence from his disciples.

The final storm will be such as to rock the faith of all those who consider themselves to be his disciples.

When strong effort is made to ‘waken’, him, he will rebuke little faith.

And then with a word he will still the wind and the sea.

Other significant details in these incidents are:

1. “like to be broken” is, in LXX, s.w. as in Lk. 8: 23: in jeopardy.
2. “The sea wrought and was “tempestuous” (1:11) has the same word, in LXX, as Lk. 21: 25, “the sea and the waves roaring”
3. “Lay not upon us innocent blood” (1: 18) has the same phrase as was used about Jesus (Mt. 27: 4). A chapter in “Gospels”, H.A.W., p.747, shows how these words occur in a variety of prophetic and typical Scriptures.

Ch. 3 And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd not flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? 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.

When the call came to Jonah the second time, there was no hesitation, no argument. He went — almost certainly preceded by an astonishing story of a mighty tornado brought to stillness by a man being thrown overboard, a man who was swallowed by a great fish and was vomited up, none the worse for his unique experience. So when Jonah began his campaign, the populace was already agog to see and hear him.

There is a lovely double entendre about the description given here of Nineveh as “an exceeding great city”, for literally this is: “a city great unto God” (an example of the occasional use of Elohim to emphasize the extraordinary, e.g. 1 Sam. 14: 15; Acts 7: 20; Gen. 23: 6). All kinds of guesses have been made about the description of Nineveh as “a city of three days’ journey”. Three days to cross it? Three days to go all round it? But since Jonah “began to enter into the city a day’s journey”, this might suggest that he needed a full day in each of the three great sub-divisions of the city (see on ch.2).

“Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown”. The effect of the message was electric, especially on the rulers of the city. The phrase: “the king of Nineveh” is rather remarkable, for the city’s monarchs were always titled: “king of Assyria” and also, in later days, “king of Babylon” as well. So possibly the ruler mentioned here was the mayor of the city.

Thus, by preaching, example and edict, the entire city was made to realise both the gravity and urgency of its condition in the eyes of Jehovah, the God of Israel. The sweeping transformation from evil and violence (an Assyrian speciality!) is intimated in language of extraordinary hyperbole, for, of course, the animals also were not literally arrayed in sackcloth; and it was the people, not the beasts, who “cried mightily (with strength) unto God”. Sayce says that in later years in the reign of Esarhaddon, there was another similar occasion when a like proclamation was made.

The transformation that took place was breath-taking in its magnitude and comprehensive character. But it is not unlikely that the impact of the message of such an extraordinary man as Jonah would be reinforced by the considerable reputation of those other notable prophets of the Lord, Elijah and Elisha. It may be, too, that Jonah’s campaign went on for all the forty day period which was Nineveh’s time of grace. However it happened, the transformation in those Ninevites far surpassed the effect produced by John the Baptist in Jewry, and of all the prophets there was none greater than he (Mt. 11: 11). And after John the Baptist, Jesus was to hold up to the same people the example of this city’s repentance: “The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here” (Mt. 12: 41). The message of John was: “Yet forty years and Jerusalem shall be overthrown!” (A.D.30-70). Those Ninevites changed their lives so dramatically because led by the good example of their ruler. What a lesson was held out here to Judah and Israel, with their sequence, rarely interrupted, of unworthy kings, so often downright wicked. The narrative here is careful to specify “the high and the low”, appropriately reversing the phrase: “both small and great” (Jer. 31: 34), this latter form being more usual because God has greater regard for the humble than for the proud.

In Jonah’s preaching there was no assurance that repentance would bring a reversal of the threatened judgment, for the ruler’s best hope, expressed to his people, was: “Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?”

Who can tell? Nearly two hundred years later Jeremiah could tell: “If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them” (18: 8). The words are almost a direct quotation of Jonah 3: 10.

This problem of God’s “change of mind” meets the reader of Holy Scripture not only here but in a variety of other situations. It is a matter for no little surprise that such a question as this should have been the subject of so much sloppy thinking and even of downright neglect.

Clearly there is a paradox involved here. If God is omniscient and knows the end from the beginning — a timeless God — how is it possible for Him “to repent” or “change His mind”?

There are more examples of this than is commonly realised. Here are a few, to be going on with:

1. The classic instance: Num. 14: 30-34: Because of the faithless Israelite acceptance of the report of the ten faithless spies, the people were condemned to wander in the wilderness for forty years longer than they need have done. If, instead, they had followed the good counsel of Joshua and Caleb, they would have been in the Land of Promise in a matter of weeks. “Ye shall know my breach of promise (mg: the altering of my purpose)”.
2. A proper reading of Acts 7: 25 (see RV) and Dt. 9: 24 requires the interpretation that when Moses made his first intervention on behalf of his people, “God was giving them deliverance”, but they rejected him and it (“the reproach of Christ”; Heb.11: 26 — anticipating a like situation applying to A.D.30-70).
3. Two examples associated with the reign of Ahab: 1 Kgs. 20: 42 and 21: 19.21 RV.
4. King Hezekiah: “Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live” (Isaiah 38: 1). But because of his prayer, for fifteen years he lived and did not die.
5. After the numbering of the people, David opted for three days of plague; yet, according to 2 Sam.24: 15,16 (Heb. text), the plague was stayed on the first day.
6. “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen.2: 17) was stretched to cover nearly a thousand years because of faith expressed and sacrifice offered.

“Explanations’’ of the phenomena indicated here tend to specialize in woolly verbiage and vague ideas. Something better is called for.

It is agreed that the concept of a God who “repents” or “changes His purpose” is one not readily acceded to by a mere human mind. But then, “ My ways are not your ways, neither are your thoughts My thoughts, saith the Lord” (ls.55: 8). Then ought we not to stop trying to reconcile seeming contradictions in the ways of God? If Holy Scripture repeatedly talks about a God at work in this strange fashion, is it not because He wants His creatures to think of Him in this way. ‘You small beings can no more understand those things than you can understand or even guess at the processes behind Creation in Genesis 1. What you are being told in the Word of Truth is what is best for you to believe, whether you can understand or reconcile or not’.

The sheet anchor is Jeremiah 18: 6-10. It is a Scripture to be believed, not explained away.

For a fuller expansion of the theme developed here, and for more important application of it, see “Revelation”, H.A.W., Appendix.

1: 17 Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

There is no detail about Jonah more familiar and more certain, than the simple fact that he was buried inside the whale for three days and nights. Nor is there any detail of greater importance, for did not Jesus make it so?

“As Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Mt. 12: 40).

A simple fact, a very simple fact — in need of interpretation!

On the strength of the words just quoted it is very dogmatically asserted by some that there is a great error in the long received idea that the Lord Jesus was crucified on a Friday and rose from the dead on the Sunday morning.

Not possibly! For where is the room between Friday afternoon and Sunday sunrise for ” three days and three nights”?

Accordingly, it is decided that the crucifixion was on a Wednesday, followed by a Passover Sabbath on the Thursday and then an ordinary Sabbath on the Saturday. Thus, reckoning from Wednesday sunset to Saturday sunset, the body of the crucified Lord lay in the tomb for exactly seventy-two hours.

Leaving on one side the strange incongruity that the Sun of righteousness should rise just as darkness fell; there is a large accumulation of unexplained difficulties before the theory can be fully accepted:

1. Whilst the New Testament mentions this “three days and three nights” only once, it also uses the expression “after three days” and no less than ten times it says “the third day” when speaking of Christ’s resurrection.
2. The words of the two disciples talking to Jesus on the road to Emmaus on the day of his resurrection: “Today is the third day since these things (the crucifixion) were done” (Lk. 24: 21). But if Christ had lain in the tomb for seventy-two hours, ought they not to have said “the fourth, or even the fifth, day since these things were done”? This point is surely decisive.
3. The Lord’s enemies, the chief priests, give the same kind of witness. They came to Pilate: “That deceiver said…After three days I will rise again. Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day” (Mt. 27: 63,64). “After three days” would require, would it not, a guard at the tomb until the fourth day? But they were content to have the guard until the third day.
4. If the theory is correct, why should the women leave their visit to the tomb, to anoint the body (Mk.16: 1,2), until the Sunday, when Friday would have been the most obvious time? The problem of corruption of the body would decide this, wouldn’t it? (Jn.11: 39).

It seems strange that there has not long ago been clear recognition that “three days and three nights” is a familiar Bible idiom for “the third day”. Considering that the phrase is not of common occurrence, it is surprising how many times this idiom crops up—with the explanation in the context:

1. Queen Esther, faced with a great threat against her own people, bade them fast with her “three days, night and day” (Esth. 4: 16). Yet before this seventy-two hours fast was concluded, she went in “on the third day” to intercede with the king. Thus “three days and three nights” was interpreted as meaning “on the third day”.
2. “They continued three years without war between Syria and Israel”. Yet “in the third year” war broke out again (1 Kgs. 22: 1,2). Here the same idiomatic usage is applied to years.
3. In the fourth year of Hezekiah, the king of Assyria took Samaria “at the end of three years” in the sixth year of Hezekiah (2 Kgs.18: 9,10).
4. King Rehoboam told the deputation, who came appealing to him, that they should “come again unto me after three days.” They returned “on the third day” (2 Chr.10: 5,12).
5. Similarly, Mk. 8: 31 has the phrase “after three days”, and what is certainly the parallel record in Mt.16: 21 has “on the third day”.

There are other examples of the same sort, but these should suffice to establish that the solitary use of “three days and three nights” (Mt.12: 40) about the Lord’s entombment is to be understood as meaning “the third day”. The eight occurrences of this latter phrase (Mt.17: 23; 20: 19; Mk.9: 31; 10: 34; Lk.9: 22; 18: 33; Acts 10: 40; 1 Cor.15: 4) besides those already quoted should surely settle the question.

There is also the very striking double type of the wave sheaf of barley and also the Jamb of the first year (the Passover lamb reconsecrated to God), which were both offered on the day after the Passover Sabbath (Lev. 23: 11,12). Thus the death and resurrection of Jesus correspond exactly with the slaying of the Passover lambs on the 14th, and the reconsecration of a Passover lamb on the morning of the 16th.

Now the question needs to be asked afresh and answered afresh. How long was Jonah in the whale?