The Runaway Prophet

The hundreds of characters that walk through the pages of the Holy Bible are not all saints. Most of them are ordinary people like us. Referring to one of the greatest of the prophets, Elijah, James says he was an average man like us (James 5:17)! The Bible never touches up its heroes, but reports things as they happened, 100% objective reporting! One religious book says the David-Bathsheba affair never happened. A great Nabi like David would never stoop to adultery and murder, they claim!

If there ever was a book in the Bible that was unlikely to be true, it is the book of Prophet Jonah. Yet its impossibilities have been proved factual Jonah son of Amittai might not hold an honorable position in the hearts of Christians as a prophet. In fact, they wonder if he was a prophet at all. Many are not aware God has used him before. See 2 Kings 14:25. Jonah is unique in many ways. He was the only prophet the Lord compared Himself to – not once but twice. He was the only prophet sent out of the country to preach God’s love and forgiveness. In that sense he becomes the oldest of the ‘missionaries’ on record. On the flip side, he is probably the only prophet who tried to conceal God’s message in direct disobedience to God and paid for it. We need people like Jonah in the Bible!

The slim volume of the book of Jonah is also unique. Listed as one of the ‘minor prophetical books’, it contains no prophecy. It is the only prophetic book that focuses more on the messenger than the message.

Before passing any judgment against Jonah, we must understand  the psyche of the Israelites,  the socio-political condition of the nation and their hatred for Assyria, the greatest world power then, who had conquered Israel half a century ago and were ruling them with an iron hand. They were notorious for flaunting their power through their numerous acts of heartless cruelty.

Read Nahum 3 for a chilling description of their merciless character or for a curse pronounced on them—(v. 19) : “There is no healing for your injury; your wound is severe. All who hear the news of you will applaud your downfall, for who has not experienced your endless cruelty?”. Or read 2 Kings 18:32-35 to hear the arrogance and bragging of one of her kings about their military might—“ do not listen to your king, for he misleads you when he says, ‘The LORD will deliver us.’ Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?  Who among all the gods of these lands has delivered his land from my hand? How then can the LORD deliver Jerusalem from my hand?” Nowhere else in the Bible can you see any such insult directed against the Almighty.

It is to these people, to capital city Nineveh about 800 km northeast of Israel, that  Jonah was being sent to warn them of judgment and to declare that the people could receive mercy and forgiveness if they repented. It is no wonder that Jonah found his commission extremely distasteful, even wrong, and he did the unthinkable. He decided he was not going to do it.   He went down to the port of Joppa, where he found a ship leaving for Tarshish. He bought a ticket and went on board, hoping to escape from the Lord by sailing to Tarshish. It is naïve to say Jonah was actually ‘running away’ from God. It was his way of protesting against the God whom he worshipped. As a prophet surely he must have read the eloquent Psalm 139 (already in existence for 200 years) in which King David asserts from his personal experience that it is not possible to escape from His spirit.

It didn’t go well with Jonah. A powerful storm hit the ship and every sailor’s life was in danger. When Jonah realized he was at the center of the catastrophe he explained it to the sailors and told them getting rid of him was the only way to save the ship. He courageously asked to be thrown out into the sea. Did he think it is better to sacrifice his life than obey an “unfair” command? The Bible says God’s eyes are roving all over the earth to identify the faithful and strengthen them. In His mercy, he rescued Jonah by making a whale (or some large fish) to swallow him. In the bowels of the fish, in the depth of the ocean he prayed and promised to ‘behave’. He was safely transported submarine to his original destination and thrown up on Nineveh’s shores.

If God had chosen you for a particular purpose, to promote his work on earth, he will use any means to achieve His end. He’s not going to give up on you that easily. In this case, He used the storm, the sailors, the fish, a worm, a vine, whatever it takes. We won’t know why He chose this recalcitrant prophet for His work, but we know His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts.

            Occasional failures in your life or ministry don’t disqualify you for His service. No human is perfect. We have all failed Him from time to time.   Even faith giants have floundered and have disobeyed Him. David’s sin with Bathsheba is a case in point. His repentance was total and God forgave him and restored him. Curiously, it was after this debacle that  David won the title from God-- “a man after my own heart”! Abraham,  Elijah and Gideon had all failed Him. Jesus rehabilitated Peter after his terrible act of denial.

Well, Jonah started his preaching reluctantly, walking across the great city, "In forty days Nineveh shall be overthrown."  He delivered his message as a summary judgment, not mentioning a word about repentance and forgiveness, concealing the possibility of an escape from divine wrath through a change of heart. After Jonah has walked across Nineveh, the people of Nineveh began to believe his word and proclaim a fast. The king of Nineveh himself puts on sackcloth and sat in ashes, making a proclamation which decrees fasting, the wearing of sackcloth, prayer, and repentance. God saw their repentant hearts and spared the city at that time. The entire city was humbled and broken with the people (and even the animals) in sackcloth and ashes. Even the wicked will be saved if they truly repent of their sins and turn to God.

Ironically, Jonah’s deliberate act of disobedience (that started this story) was a direct result of his fierce hatred of the powerful and wicked Assyrians. It is not salvation he wanted for the Assyrians, but judgment. His patriotism came in the way of His understanding and blinded him to the truth that God’s grace and love are universal and we are not to limit our focus on our own only. As God loves the whole world and its people irrespective of their background, race, caste or religion, we also have a duty to love them. It is those who are the farthest from the Kingdom are that have to be more urgently told about God. No other Old Testament book teaches this principle more strongly that the book of Jonah.

Psalms 22.27, 28 says “All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, And all the families of the nations will worship before You. For the kingdom is the LORD’S  And He rules over the nations.” God told Abraham “And through your descendants, all the nations of the earth will be blessed--all because you have obeyed me."(Genesis 22.18).

Jonah’s experience does remind us the place of patriotism in our lives. Christians are told to obey authorities, pay taxes, cooperate and pray for the rulers. The Pharisees tried their best to cause  Jesus to slip up on political issues, but every time the Lord managed the table upon them putting them to shame. St. Paul went one step higher -- pray for them even if they are good people or wicked people in power, he advised. But when God’s words clash with governmental edicts, Christians have to make hard decisions. Remember Nebuchadnezzar and the Hebrew youngsters; Remember the disciples’ answer to the Pharisee when warned not to preach the name of Jesus anymore.

Where was Jonah? He was sitting outside the city watching it. The 40 days were over. He’s fulfilled his mission or so he thought. No one would have repented.  Anytime now sulphur and fire would start drenching the wicked Nineveh. With the capital city gone up in flames, the Assyrian empire, that grand and guilty edifice will soon pass into history. Israel would be a free nation again and be restored to its old glory that was under Solomon. They have learned their lesson. They will sin no more. As he was gloating over these thoughts, the people of Nineveh were spared by a compassionate, merciful God. The unpredictable God of Israel had let him down again!

With ill-concealed rage, Jonah confronts God. God causes a plant (in Hebrew a kikayon) to grow over Jonah's shelter to give him some shade from the sun. God causes a worm to bite the plant's root and it withers. Jonah, now being exposed to the full force of the sun, becomes faint and pleads for God to kill him. And the LORD replied and said: "you would care for a plant , which you had not planted or make it grow, which came up in a night, and perished in a night; and should not I have pity on Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than 120 ,000 persons who live in spiritual darkness, not to mention the animals.

Did Jonah learn his lesson? We don’t know. The story ends abruptly. Probably Jonah himself wrote it. Some churches consider him a saint. Christian theologians have traditionally interpreted Jonah as a type for Jesus Christ. Jonah being in swallowed by the giant fish was regarded as a foreshadowing of Jesus’ crucifixion and the fish vomiting Jonah out onto the beach was seen as a parallel for Jesus’ resurrection.

The book of Jonah also illustrates the power of God’s word, particularly among the Gentiles. The readiness to worship God displayed by the sailors on the ship, and the people of Nineveh contrasts ironically with Jonah's own reluctance and the  stubbornness  traditionally expressed by the people of Israel.

The NLT version of the Holy Bible has the following comments at the end of the book of Jonah: God spared the sailors when they pleaded for mercy. God saved Jonah when he prayed from inside the fish. God saved the people of Nineveh when they responded to Jonah’s preaching. God will always work His will, and He desires that all come to him. We can be saved if we heed God’s warnings to us through his word. If we respond in obedience God will be gracious, and we will receive His mercy, not His punishment’’.

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