Jared Byas

Love Tenaciously

Jonah 3

Today we’ll look at the contrast of character between Jonah and the “pagan” boat crew.

The first contrast comes in the form of “fear.” When the sailors cast lots to see who was responsible for this great storm and the lot fell on Jonah, they asked him who he was. He replied, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear (yare) YHWH.” But does he really? He has just run away from YHWH and has disobeyed him.

But the sailors, on the other hand, go through a “conversion experience” so to speak here in the first chapter of Jonah. When the storm first came about the sailors became afraid (yare) and each one cried to their own god.

Secondly, after Jonah tells the men that he is running away from YHWH, the one who made the heavens and the earth, they become “extremely afraid” (yare).

Then, to complete the conversion experience, in verse 16, after they have thrown Jonah overboard and the sea stops its raging, they “fear YHWH greatly” (yare), so much that they offer sacrifices and make vows.

Oh the irony, the true “prophet of God” who is a “fearer of YHWH” doesn’t fear him at all. Instead we have a whole boat full of pagans who see God for who he really is. They are appropriately afraid of the storm, then they become extremely afraid when they find out Jonah is running from “YHWH, the one who made the heavens and earth.” You ran away from who? That God? Are you crazy? Then finally, when the storm suddenly stops, the pagan sailors become true God-fearers, ironically unlike Jonah.

Who is the true follower of God in this story?

Jonah 2

Still in Chapter 1, there are a few other nice literary features in the text to consider.

A Children’s Story?

I had a professor tell me once that Jonah would’ve made a wonderful story for children (and maybe it was?). And he didn’t say this after the VeggieTales got hold of it, but because of the personification and the hyperbole (do you remember your 9th grade English class?)

Personification – is when you give animate qualities to inanimate objects, such as emotions, willful actions, etc.

1:5 – The ship “reckoned that it was about to break” or “thought it was about to break”
1:15 – The sea “stopped its rage (or indignation)”

Hyperbole – exaggeration or a use of “extreme terms”

Look at all these:

1:2 – Ninevah the great city
1:4 – YHWH hurled a great wind
1:4 – there was a great storm
1:5 – the men hurled the cargo
1:10 – the men were extremely frightened
1:12 – the great storm
1:12 – pick me up and hurl me into the sea
1:15 – so they picked Jonah up, hurled him into the sea
1:16 – the men feared YHWH greatly
1:17 – YHWH appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah
3:2 – Ninevah the great city
3:3 – a great city, a three day’s journey

Jonah 1

I have been posting about the literary aspects of Jonah over at the Encounter blog and thought they would be good to reproduce here. Comments, critiques, and questions are helpful.

For today:

Jonah’s “going down”

The very first word in the Hebrew after the introductory verse is the word “Arise” (Qum) followed by “Go” (Lekh). It is God speaking to Jonah and they are not requests but commands (or imperatives)

“Arise and Go.” That is how the book of Jonah begins.

How does Jonah react? He “arises” alright, but he arises to flee. So when you are reading it you would expect it to say “So Jonah arose and went,” obeying God. But instead you have “But Jonah arose to flee.”

But that’s just the beginning. Jonah’s disobedience leads him down the wrong path, literally. Instead of “arising” Jonah begins to “go down” to escape from God.

Verse 3: Jonah went down (yared) to Joppa
Verse 3: Jonah went down (yared) into the ship
Verse 5: Jonah went down (yared) to the hold of the ship
Verse 5: Jonah was asleep in the hold of the ship

As we’ll see later, Jonah “went down” to escape from God, but could not. Instead God takes Jonah even further down than even he wanted to go.

1:15 – Jonah was thrown into the sea, even further down than the hold of the ship
1:17 – Jonah went into the belly of the fish
2:2 – In this poem Jonah tells God that the fish has metaphorically taken him all the way down to the “depths of Sheol (hell).”
2:3 – It was God who cast Jonah into “the primeval deep,” into the “heart of the seas”
2:5-6 – Jonah “goes down” all the way to the bottom of the earth until he is “shut out” of creation, the ultimate “going down”

Then comes the climax. After Jonah, by his own disobedience goes down to Joppa, down to the ship, down to the hold of the ship, down to the ocean, down to the belly of the fish, down to the bottom of the ocean and the “great deep,” down until he is shut out of creation, then we have the climactic statement in verse 6:

“But You have brought my life up from the pit, O YHWH, my God.”

Talk about a powerful few chapters. No wonder Jesus alludes to it when he talks about his own suffering.

It seems as though the writer of Jonah knew what s/he was doing…