THE MINOR PROPHETS
5. JONAH
John H. Paterson
AMONG the Minor Prophets Jonah is unique. In terms of response to his message, he was arguably history's most successful preacher; he had barely begun his sermon when a whole city of 120,000 people was converted -- and converted genuinely enough for God to be moved to withhold His judgment. Yet of this remarkable preaching all we have is a single sentence (consisting of only five Hebrew words): "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown". That, in fact, is all that constitutes the 'prophecy' of Jonah, properly speaking. The rest is the story of the man, rather than his message.
This lack of a detailed message has led some students of the book to suppose that, in order to give it value and justify its inclusion in the canon of Scripture, it must be read as an allegory -- that Jonah should be taken to represent disobedient Israel, or the three days in the fish as the captivity in Babylon. It would be hard to prove this -- or disprove it, for that matter -- and it seems to be making heavy weather of the story. The Lord Jesus referred to Jonah, and certainly seems to have intended the reference to be taken as historical rather than allegorical: "as Jonah ... so shall the Son of man" (Matthew 12:40). It will be well for our understanding of the book if we can keep out of the realm of speculation and stick to what can be learned directly from the story.
It has been suggested in each of the articles in this series that the twelve Minor Prophets were raised up by God to draw attention to different aspects of His character which were in danger of being forgotten. Most of the prophets did this by means of a spoken message. Hosea, as we have earlier seen, did it partly by speaking and partly by acting out a role which God assigned to him -- that of a man with an unfaithful wife. In Jonah's case, uniquely, all of the message is in the prophet's own experience or, to be more precise, in the parallelism between three experiences in which he was involved.
At first sight, the conundrum posed by the life of Jonah seems very obscure: what is the connection between a disobedient prophet, a wicked city and the plant ricinus or gourd? And the answer seems to be: a God who is a God of resurrection.
The dictionary defines 'resurrect' as 'to restore to life'. In this literal sense of the word there were three situations in Jonah's experience where a resurrection was called for. The first and most obvious was when Jonah was thrown into the sea, far from land and in a raging storm. At that moment, he was as good as dead, and only a divine intervention could bring him back to life again, by way of the fish's belly. The second situation was when Jonah finally reached Nineveh and announced that the city had just 40 days to live. Only a miracle could save it from destruction; its inhabitants were as good as dead. The third situation was when the gourd under which Jonah was sheltering from the sun withered and died. To judge by his remarks (4:8-9), Jonah felt strongly that a fresh miracle of resurrection was called for, to bring the gourd back to life. [92/93]
5. JONAH
John H. Paterson
AMONG the Minor Prophets Jonah is unique. In terms of response to his message, he was arguably history's most successful preacher; he had barely begun his sermon when a whole city of 120,000 people was converted -- and converted genuinely enough for God to be moved to withhold His judgment. Yet of this remarkable preaching all we have is a single sentence (consisting of only five Hebrew words): "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown". That, in fact, is all that constitutes the 'prophecy' of Jonah, properly speaking. The rest is the story of the man, rather than his message.
This lack of a detailed message has led some students of the book to suppose that, in order to give it value and justify its inclusion in the canon of Scripture, it must be read as an allegory -- that Jonah should be taken to represent disobedient Israel, or the three days in the fish as the captivity in Babylon. It would be hard to prove this -- or disprove it, for that matter -- and it seems to be making heavy weather of the story. The Lord Jesus referred to Jonah, and certainly seems to have intended the reference to be taken as historical rather than allegorical: "as Jonah ... so shall the Son of man" (Matthew 12:40). It will be well for our understanding of the book if we can keep out of the realm of speculation and stick to what can be learned directly from the story.
It has been suggested in each of the articles in this series that the twelve Minor Prophets were raised up by God to draw attention to different aspects of His character which were in danger of being forgotten. Most of the prophets did this by means of a spoken message. Hosea, as we have earlier seen, did it partly by speaking and partly by acting out a role which God assigned to him -- that of a man with an unfaithful wife. In Jonah's case, uniquely, all of the message is in the prophet's own experience or, to be more precise, in the parallelism between three experiences in which he was involved.
At first sight, the conundrum posed by the life of Jonah seems very obscure: what is the connection between a disobedient prophet, a wicked city and the plant ricinus or gourd? And the answer seems to be: a God who is a God of resurrection.
The dictionary defines 'resurrect' as 'to restore to life'. In this literal sense of the word there were three situations in Jonah's experience where a resurrection was called for. The first and most obvious was when Jonah was thrown into the sea, far from land and in a raging storm. At that moment, he was as good as dead, and only a divine intervention could bring him back to life again, by way of the fish's belly. The second situation was when Jonah finally reached Nineveh and announced that the city had just 40 days to live. Only a miracle could save it from destruction; its inhabitants were as good as dead. The third situation was when the gourd under which Jonah was sheltering from the sun withered and died. To judge by his remarks (4:8-9), Jonah felt strongly that a fresh miracle of resurrection was called for, to bring the gourd back to life. [92/93]
