A Day a Prophet is Thrown Overboard.
Lessons from Jonah 1 - Rejecting the "the word of the LORD"
“All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness;” - 2nd Timothy 3:16
Jonah an Uncooperative Instrument.
The book of Jonah, draws the casual reader in its drama and emotion, some key words to start out in chapter one include ‘afraid’, ‘cried’, and ‘great’ (describing Ninevah, the storm, and the fish), these words repeated three times in Chapter 1 for emphasis. Jonah is a reluctant prophet asked to be an instrument for God to bring a message of repentance to a cruel, wicked, and dislikeable people in the city of Ninevah, part of the Assyrian Empire.
The name Jonah, means “dove” which was a symbol of peace (Genesis 8:8-9) and God's presence (Mark 1:10, Luke 3:22, John 1:32 ), his name is repeated twenty-four times (24) in the bible depending on the translation and he is considered a minor prophet. Jesus referred to Jonah as a ‘sign’ to the lost (Matthew 12:39, Luke 11:29-30).
The setting of the Jonah takes place during the divided Kingdom of Israel, after King David and King Solomon, during the reign of King Jeroboam II (793BC-752BC) (2nd Kings 14:15-16) of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and King Uzziah of Judah (801BC-733BC) (2nd Kings 14:17-27). The story is recorded over 700 of years before the birth of Christ. Listed below is a map of the divided kingdom of Israel at the time of Jonah. Jonah lived in the Northern Kingdom in a town called Gath Hepher, which was two miles away from Nazareth in the region of Galilee.
Repentance is the theme of Jonah.
The main theme of the story of Jonah is repentance but it's the way and the type of sinners God calls to repent that Jonah has issue with. Jonah is like the proud older brother who becomes angry over the return of lost prodigal brother (Luke 15:11-32).
Jonah is obviously biased and racially discriminatory against the Assyrians, the opening in chapter 1, “the word of the Lord” that came to him while he was apparently sleeping was less than twenty (20) words but they were words he did not want to obey or agree with. Jonah was spiritually blinded by his cultural bias of Assyrians.
“God does not see as man sees, since man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” - 1st Samuel 16:7b
God desires Jonah to have concern for the Spiritually Lost Ninevites.
In some translations like the New American Standard Bible (NASB) the opening of Jonah records as follows:
“The word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and cry out against it, because their wickedness has come up before Me.” – Jonah 1:2 (NASB)
In other translations the word ‘cry out’ is replaced with ‘preach’, ‘call or called’, or ‘proclaim’. Just to provide insight, the word in Hebrew is “Qara” and it used eight times in the book of Jonah (1:2, 1:6, 1:14, 2:2, 3:2, 3:4, 3:5, 3:8).
The definition of Qara is: “To cry out, call; to name; to proclaim, pronounce; preach; to summon to court, invite. Essentially denotes the enunciation of a specific message which is usually address to a specific recipient and intended to elicit a specific response.” (Source: Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible New International Version. Copyright 1996 by AMG International, Inc. Old Testament Lexical Aids, Page 1549.)
Map of the Nineveh, Assyria at the time of Jonah
Jonah’s response to God was “You got the wrong guy”.
The initial call for Jonah was to cry out against the wickedness of the Ninevites. When Jonah received this summons from the Lord he responded with basically, “God, you got the wrong guy”. Jonah decides to get as far away from Nineveh as he can. Instead of going east to Nineveh he plans to go west (Tarshish) (modern day Spain) by sea, over 2,500 miles away his original starting point when he heard “the word of the Lord”. When I was writing this, the U2 lyrics “I want to run, I want to hide” in the song, Where the Streets Have No Name made me think of a playlist to describe Jonah’s initial reaction to the Lord’s request.
Jonah is Thrown Overboard.
As Jonah decided to flee in the opposite direction of what the Lord told him by sea, he and his shipmates encounter great winds and a great storm by sea.
“But Jonah got up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So he (Jonah) went down to Joppa, found a ship that was going to Tarshish, paid the fare, and boarded it to go with them to Tarshish away from the presence of the Lord. 4 However, the Lord hurled a great wind on the sea and there was a great storm on the sea, so that the ship was about to break up. 5 Then the sailors became afraid and every man cried out to his god, and they hurled the cargo which was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them.” - Jonah 1:3-5
The great storm causes the sailors to choose lots and the lot falls on Jonah. Though initially these sailors nobly wanted to steer the ship to dry ground with Jonah onboard to save him, the storm just became more intense and they settled that Jonah was the cause of the storm.
“So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea stopped its raging. Then the men became extremely afraid of the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. - Jonah 1:15-16
The Lord provides a vessel for Jonah’s discipline and correction.
As the drama unfolds, the Lord provides another vessel for runaway Jonah perfectly suitable for discipline and correction.
“And the Lord designated a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish for three days and three nights.” - Jonah 1:17
Questions for Subscribers:
How has the Lord corrected you in certain circumstances?
Why do you think the Lord wants us to be concerned for the spiritually lost?
Why do you think God uses storms of life to get our attention? Note the disciples observation of the storms of life (Matthew 8:27).
Has God ever given you a message you did not want to receive?
For Pastors and Ministry Leaders, have you ever given a message you did not want to preach about?
Answering your Q. About 20 years ago, I thought I figured God out. I told people that God does not care for non-faithful Egypt/Egyptians. I backed the claim up with the passage from Joel - out of Egypt I called my son- then listed all the Faith Hall of Fame persons that used trickery, but God got them out of Egypt. Then I had my ears open when I again heard the story of Abram & Sarai who couldn’t wait/doubted God’s promise of a natural son and Sarai’s idea to have Abram sleep with Hagar…from Egypt. I was ready to hear how she gave him a son, Ishmael. Then the originally promised son was born (God would later refer to Isaac as his son, his only son) and Sarai told Abram to ditch the woman and her son. So I thought I knew who God favored & who He had cursed. Then I came to understand that God loved Hagar and Ishmael & things were not as simple as I previously thought. God even loves the Ninivaites, as Jonah found out. I received my “Jonah” lesson, as Philip Yancey has written & stated we need to be dispensers of Grace.
God has continually used the message of Jonah to remind me to finish what he's asked me to do. I was saved into a cult church for 20 years. God had me there as a witness. He's asked me to write my story. His story. I'm working on it but life continually gets in the way. Elderly parents with dementia. Estates. Addiction and homelessness. Cancer. But God first. You said Jonah means dove. Interesting that God sends doves to speak to us. Finding your substack has been a gift. Looking forward to reading more.