What Jonah Didn’t Say: Yeshua in the Prophets
A Reasonable Call, a Resistant Prophet
When the word of the LORD came to Jonah, the instruction for a prophet was clear: Go to the great city of Nineveh and cry out against its wickedness. Fifty years before Assyria would capture the last part of Israel’s northern kingdom, the LORD was sending a warning of certain doom to its capital. Before taking action, the slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness God of Israel was giving these people a chance to repent. It’s exactly what we would expect from the God of our salvation, but Jonah wanted no part of it.
Who Was the Real Audience?
At first glance, it seems Nineveh was the chosen mission field and intended audience for what the LORD was about to do. But after a second and third reading of the book, you might reconsider. After Jonah buys a ticket for a ship heading anywhere but Nineveh, a group of frightened sailors and their captain are soon heard calling on any god who can control a raging sea.
They learn the prophet has just paid a fare that will not only take him away from Nineveh but even further from the heart of the One now stirring the water. Searching for a solution to what was putting their lives at risk in the violent storm, the complacent seafarer forces their hand and declares that throwing his body overboard will calm the sea and the God he has angered.
Silent When He Could Have Spoken
It’s all very straightforward:
I’m a Hebrew, I fear the LORD God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. Pick me up and throw me into the sea, for I know that this great storm has come because of me.
Just before the launch, we hear no praise from our prophet, only a prayer from the group of idol-worshipers now thankful for their salvation. In fact, unlike the unashamed apostle Paul, who joined God in spreading the gospel to Jews and Gentiles, Jonah seems to slip into the sea without caring about the spiritual state of his sailing companions (who were still saying things like: "Perhaps your god will be concerned about us so that we will not perish"). He had every chance to share how good His God was with these men, but he didn’t. It turns out Jonah was ashamed of Yahweh, or at least more selective with his audience than Paul was.
A Sacrifice Without Compassion
I have to ask, when Jonah offered his body as a human sacrifice to hold the sea at bay, was he at all afraid of the raging sea or too full of anger to care? Not once in these four chapters do I read fear words from the prophet’s lips. He delivers some of the most beautiful words of repentance after the fish-swallowing (Chapter 2), yet any thought of remorse is quickly washed away once the Lord commands the fish to spit him out. And once he is out of the fish and on the way to Nineveh, his gospel message is narrowed down to the few words the LORD gave him: In forty days, Nineveh will be overthrown. It’s not that the words given weren’t enough (after all, it was the LORD who brought salvation and not Jonah). I guess it’s what Jonah didn’t say.
The God Who Relents—and the Prophet Who Resents
The whole city—Nineveh’s king and all their animals—put on sackcloth and ashes because they saw God as gracious and compassionate and one who relents from calamity. Nineveh’s repentance was a best-case scenario for the LORD, but a big problem for the man whose compassion was only for himself. It seems Jonah could call to God in his distress, look to His holy temple, sacrifice a voice of thanks, and pay his vows, but those who were not God’s chosen people? They had no right to put God’s holy words in their wicked mouths (see Psalm 50:16-23).
The Message Is for the Neighborhood Too
Maybe I’m being too critical in analyzing Jonah’s mistakes, but I just find so many. He had every intention of moving away from the task of Nineveh, even if it meant distancing himself from the LORD. When he had the opportunity to share the gospel with a group of sailors about a God who is concerned about those who will perish without His mercy, he was silent. When he could have offered more than a warning of doom, he only said what was necessary. When God relented concerning the calamity He had declared He would bring, he could have rejoiced in the God of salvation, but he didn’t. Jonah was never thankful for the salvation of the lost, only for the expected comfort a covenant-keeping God should have for His people. I guess that’s why I see the message in these four chapters as more than a call to go to the unreached of the world; I see it as a call to bring God’s salvation to those who live in my own neighborhood.
Crossing the Street With Compassion
After just returning from Mexico, I could say that I have paid a fare to take the gospel to another culture. And if I make a list of the countries and missions I’ve been a part of in the past twenty years, I would be able to present a sizable list with a sizable receipt. But how many times have I crossed the street with the message I so eagerly take around the world? How often do I speak about the gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness God with family that don’t know Him? How can I comfortably sit under my own shade tree and lament when the sun seeps in, knowing there are so many who have never felt the cool breeze of grace? Have I also entered God’s holy temple with words for myself, keeping my thoughts silent when considering a prayer for those who are uncertain, and who knows God, who is concerned about others (Jonah 1:6 and 3:9)?
A Question That Still Stands
The Book of Jonah ends with a question (I always see these as God’s way of inviting us into a relationship); He asks Jonah if He should have compassion on the lost. I want to think that my answer to this question is: Yes, LORD! Please, LORD! Despite the discomfort it will cause when I am exposed and humiliated before those who might repent today but fall deeper into their sin tomorrow, I am desperate for Your compassion. Without it, I too am lost forever!
If Jesus could see a group of people and feel compassion for them—because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36)—shouldn’t I see them as well? If Jesus is fully aware of what’s in the field and is not asking for more wheat but willing workers to harvest it, will I respond by asking for my own comfort? Can I move away from what provides shade and step into the hot mess of a world who, just like me, needs the salvation of a compassionate God?
