Actually the title of this article should be “Cool Stuffs Part 3”, as the topic started in my family vacation, but afterwards there’s some further development, so I changed the title.
So the Book of Jonah is perhaps one of the most interesting and awkward ending book in the Old Testament. It is also of great significance because Jesus mentioned Jonah TWICE during his ministry. So this book definitely deserves a better treatment than it is getting right now (just look at Veggie Tales’ movie version shows how shallow people are viewing this book to be). After all, if he’s one of the favorite prophets of BOTH my dad and Pastor Tong, the book’s gotta have some value.
So let’s go over this in more detail.
Perhaps the most interesting part about Jonah is its abrupt ending. It gives us no clue about how Jonah ends up being, and what he learned from this experience. However, it can be inferred by the existence of this book. As Pastor Tong put it, “I like Jonah because he’s is the only prophet in the Old Testament who will do everything (including making himself look bad) to make people focus more on God’s Word and His Will”.
Indeed, if Jonah never repented, how will this book be written in the first place? Even if he wrote it without repenting, he’ll obviously try to make himself look better if he believes that God is wrong in this incident. But instead, we have the book as it is now. So we can be sure that Jonah repented afterwards.
Also, Jonah is perhaps the prophet that understands God the most. Why? Look at this passage:
1 Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.” 3 But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.
You should be like “WHAT??!! God just want you to deliver a message; it’s so simple, why do you run away?” Could it be that Jonah’s afraid that he’ll get killed at Nineveh?? Impossible!! If he is that cowardly, he would not have act so calm went his ship encounter the storm, and wouldn’t even suggest that they throw him into the ocean.
So there can only be one valid explanation: JONAH KNOWS THAT GOD WANTS TO SAVE THE NINEVITES. Just by the 2nd verse (which barely tells you anything), Jonah is able to tell the heart of God and realize that He wants to have mercy on the Ninevites. But being a partriot, he refuses to offer the enemy of his people salvation, and decide to flee. There, Jonah truly knows his God.
Then when you get to chapter 3, if you read carefully, you’ll find out that although the city of Nineveh is so big that it takes 3 days walking, JONAH ONLY PREACHED FOR ONE DAY, and the whole city repented!!! How OWNAGE of a prophet are you going to get more than that??!! My dad jokingly said that Jonah is the only prophet who lost his job, because all other prophet died before people listen to their messages, but Jonah preached once and all his audience repented.
Then we get to chapter 4:
1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry. 2 So he prayed to the LORD, and said, “Ah, LORD, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm.
Many people think that the second part of verse 2 is spoken in a sarcastic tone, but I disagree. From the previous passages, we know that Jonah really knows the heart of God, and therefore when he said this prayer HE MEANT IT. But if that’s the case, this is something extraordinary: these characteristics of God are rarely depicted in the Old Testament; my father can only recall Moses as the only other Old Testament prophet who described God in this way. Combine this with the fact that Jonah is the one of the two men (the other being Moses) in the Old Testament who God is willing to have an argument with, instead of just smiting him to death or mute him for like ten months at the first sign of disobedience. (Abraham’s story is different in a slight detail, which I shall cover sometime later), We can safely say Jonah is one of the man in the Bible who’s closest to God.
Com’on, even Peter, who walked with Jesus and is appointed as the first apostle (and Pope if you will), needs God to give him a hint for 3 times before he realize that there’s a chance that God wants to save the gentles too, JONAH CAN GRASP GOD’S PLAN JUST BY ONE VERSE!!! This is simply amazing.
So when you read Jonah next time, keep in mind that this is not the story of an ignorant man who go against God, but the story of a faithful servant who struggles between the order from God and his love for his people. Also compare it with the understanding of God in the time period, you’ll find how revolutionary the Book of Jonah is.
