God's Plan - The Rescue of Nineveh

God's Providence in Action - The Story of Jonah

We see during the ministry of Jesus that He referred to the "sign of Jonah" in rebuke to the unbelieving scribes and Pharisees:

Matthew 12:38-41 “Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered Him saying, 

    ‘Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.’  

But He answered them, 

    ‘An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah the Prophet; for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the Earth.’  The men of Nineveh shall stand up with this generation at the judgement and shall condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, someone greater than Jonah is here.”

An Evil Generation Seeks a Sign

Christ is revealed in the symbolism, the law, and the prophecies of the OT.  In the Matthew 12 passage, Jesus substantiates the book of Jonah, and points to its purpose - to stand as a sign to the people of Israel of the coming Messiah.  Jesus also points out that the generation of Nineveh that repented - and will stand in judgement of the generation of Israel Jesus was speaking to!

Is anyone seeking a sign today?  How many turn to false religions and self indulgence instead of turning to the Creator?  The Pharisees thought that their salvation was guaranteed by virtue of their heritage and their works.  Yet within a generation, the very judgement decreed by God on Nineveh was carried out on Jerusalem in 70 A.D.  The thing many people overlook is that Jesus is the sign -- the fulfillment all things:

Matthew 5:17-18 “Don’t assume that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.   For I assure you: Until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or one stroke of a letter will pass from the law until all things are accomplished.”

The purpose of the Book of Jonah

The Book of Jonah is not a “fish story”, but a declaration of the purposes and nature of God.  The most important concept in the book is in Chapter 2 verse 9: “Salvation is from the Lord."

Here are the major doctrines the Book of Jonah communicates:

1 - God will punish sin, but desires to show mercy to those who repent.

Jonah 4:2 “...I knew that You are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to become angry, rich in faithful love, and One who relents from sending disaster.”

Ezekiel 11:19-20 “And I will give them one heart and put a new spirit within them; I will remove their heart of stone from their bodies and give them a heart of flesh, so they may follow My statutes, keep My ordinances, and practice them. Then they will be My people, and I will be their God.”

2 - The doctrine of the resurrection of Christ

John 12:24 “I assure you: Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself. But if it dies, it produces a large crop.”

3 - Salvation is not by works, but by faith

Romans 3:27 “Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law?  By one of works? No, on the contrary, by a law of faith.”

 
4 - God’s purposes cannot be frustrated by man

Isaiah 41:4  “Who has performed and done this, calling the generations from the beginning?  I, Yahweh, am the first, and with the last—I am He.”

5 - God is a God for all men, Jew and Gentile

   

Romans 3:29-30 “Or is God for Jews only? Is He not also for Gentiles? Yes, for Gentiles too, since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.”

Historical Background

Jonah is a historical figure and a prophet; substantiated by another Old Testament.

2 Kings 14:25 He restored Israel’s border from Lebo-hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word the Lord, the God of Israel, had spoken through His servant, the prophet Jonah son of Amittai from Gath-hepher.

This story is not an allegory.  It was written as and is intended to be interpreted as historical fact.  The events described in this book most likely occurred between 800 B.C. and 750 B.C., when the Assyrian Empire was at its zenith.  Although he is called a prophet, Jonah performs the role of a "truth teller", not "foreteller" as we normally think of prophets. He predicts a "potential" future event that does not come to pass.  A careful study of God's foreknowledge of potential events can be read here: The Mystery of God's Divine Foreknowledge

Jonah's story is a sign that highlights the resurrection of Christ.  Jonah’s name means “dove”.  The Assyrians worshipped a god named “Dagon” the “fish” god....  One derivation of Dagon’s name is Oannes, which is very similar to the Aramaic spelling of Jonah.

Jonah is from Gath-hepher near the Sea of Galilee.  It is possible that Assyrian troops had raided his home town during his lifetime making his animosity towards them personal.  

Note that Jonah was called to preach to the Gentile world.  This was unusual in Old Testament times.  But Jonah was not the only prophet called to preach to the gentiles; Nahum, about 100 years later, predicted Nineveh’s destruction in 606 B.C.  

The Book of Jonah was viewed with great respect in the Jewish world.  It is read on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur (the Feast of Atonement) around the world.

You will detect a lot of “arising” and “going down”.  When God calls Jonah, it is to arise.  Jonah “goes down” when he acts against God’s commands.  But God shows mercy and patience, and ultimately accomplishes His will.

There are at least 10 miracles are performed in the book.[1]   And while the “fish” always get the most discussion, almost everyone ignores perhaps the greatest spiritual miracle entire Old Testament: the entire city of Nineveh repented and worshipped Yahweh!

Verse by Verse analysis

One interpretation (that is an allegorization of the Book of Jonah) is that he represents Israel, whose mission was to declare God’s truth to the unsaved world.  Since Israel failed in that mission, the great fish (symbolized by Babylon) “swallowed” the remnants of Israel.  The disgorging of Jonah on the dry land represents the return of the Jews to Israel from their exile.  Jonah’s attitude after successfully preaching to the “world” is to be like the older son in the Prodigal Son story - he pouts that it isn’t “fair” that all the diligence and service performed by the nation of Israel does not rate special status.  This allegorization could be held and the facts reported in the story still be true - and the spiritual lesson that God will save all who call out to Him is still as true.

1: 1-3 

Nineveh was the largest city in the world at that time, “3 days’ journey around” or sixty miles, surrounded by walls 100 feet high and wide enough to race 3 chariots abreast, with 1500 watch towers.  Its population was about 1 million.  Tarshish has been associated with Phoenician settlements in Spain and Britain.  It is likely the sailors we are introduced to are Phoenician.

1: 4-6 
These were professional mariners.  They threw their cargo overboard, which meant they understood this storm to be very unusual.  This storm was a miracle.  

Jonah was asleep.  Notice how someone’s sin can terribly affect others, and yet the sinner is totally oblivious.  There is no such thing as a “victimless” sin because God loves us.  Jonah’s disobedience put other men’s lives at risk, and cost them their cargo.

1: 7  
God allowed the mechanism of casting lots to reveal His will:

Proverbs 16:33 “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.”

There were other occasions where the lot was used to discern God’s will in the Old Testament -

- discovering the identity of Achan in Joshua 7:16, who kept the gold
- division of the land among the tribes of Israel is Joshua 15
- Jonathan’s trespass in I Samuel 14
- the Urim and Thumim in Exodus 28:30

The only New Testament example was the selection of Matthias in Acts 1:26, and in this case it was not really God’s will.  Paul was the apostle of God’s choice.  We have the Holy Spirit, and have no need for such mechanisms.

1: 8-13  
The mariners attempted to fix the problem by “working harder”.  You’ve heard the saying “work smarter, not harder”.  Some people get that backwards in the faith.  Not just our sins, but our righteousness is not worthy of the Lord

Isaiah 64:6  “For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment....” 

Why does Jonah insist on being cast overboard?  Why doesn’t he just jump?

1: 14-16  
The mariners now have the beginnings of faith; they call upon a God they don’t even know.  They now make vows to the God of heaven. God took Jonah’s disobedience to save souls!  Their ‘vows’ were to follow God - another miracle.

The storm ceased raging.  Imagine the fear that swept over the crew.  This storm was supernatural, and ceasing the storm suddenly is also a miracle.

1: 17   
The Hebrew word for fish is ketos.  Note that God prepared it.  God foreknew these events would occur and made preparations.  As a reminder that there nothing that we do that surprises God.

Poetic Descriptions of Sheol

2: 1-9   
Clearly Jonah “went down” into the sea -- He could not have emphasized this more:

Jonah 2:3 “You threw me into the depths, into the heart of the seas, and the current overcame me. All Your breakers and Your billows swept over me.  

Jonah 2:5-7a The waters engulfed me up to the neck; the watery depths overcame me; seaweed was wrapped around my head.  I sank to the foundations of the mountains; the earth with its prison bars closed behind me forever!  But You raised my life from the Pit, Lord my God! As my life was fading away, I remembered Yahweh.

Either Jonah was quoting Psalm 116, or Psalm 116 is a rendition of Jonah’s prayer. 

This author believes Jonah physically died in the belly of the fish and was resurrected 3 days later.  Read verse 2:2 and 2:6. He prayed prior to becoming unconscious, or perhaps he prayed from Sheol itself.  Verse 2:6 is a poetical way of saying he died.  While he was fainting away (verse 2:7), he finally called upon the Lord.

He cried from the depth of Sheol, and descended to the roots of the mountains.  King Hezekiah used similar language when he became ill to death and prayed to be healed:

Isaiah 38:10-12 “I Hezekiah said, ‘In the middle of my life I am to enter the gates of Sheol; I am to be deprived of the rest of my years.’  I said, ‘I shall not see the Lord, the Lord in the land of the living; I shall look on man no more among the inhabitants of the world’.  ‘Like a shepherd’s tent my dwelling is pulled up and removed from me; as a weaver I rolled up my life.  He cuts me off from the loom....’.”

The Bible describes several places that are the abode of the dead:

Sheol is the OT (Hebrew) abode of the dead.  Although Jonah and Hezekiah are using poetical language, Sheol is a literal place, identified by several prophets, apostles, and Jesus himself.  Apparently, there were two compartments, one for those to receive a reward, and one to receive punishment.

Hades is the NT (Greek) for Sheol.  Jesus specifically mentions Hades 4 times, and it is mentioned 4 more times in Revelation. Jesus makes reference to it in Luke 16:19-31 in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.  For examples references, see footnotes [2].

Salvation is of the Lord

The most important phrase in the book (verse 2:9) “Salvation is from the Lord.  Even if Jonah died, it was not outside of God’s power to resurrect him.  A fellow prophet intoned:

Amos 9:2 “Though they dig into Sheol, from there shall My hand take them; and though they ascend to heaven, from there I will bring them down.”  Nothing is out of God’s reach.

2: 10    

To try and explain away how Jonah survived in the belly of a fish for 3 days misses the whole point.  God prepared this sea monster to chasten Jonah and bring him to repentance.  Jesus points to this as a sign representing His coming resurrection, and therefore to disbelieve Jonah’s account is to deny Christ. 

3: 1-3    

God is the God of the second chance.  Jacob, David, Peter, Paul are examples -- so is the nation of Israel, and even the city of Nineveh. God commanded Jonah to “cry against” Nineveh in 1:2, here He commands Jonah to “preach unto” Nineveh.  This was probably His original intention, but He knew Jonah would run from God first, and would need to be broken first to be useful in God’s service.

The word (preach/proclaim) in verse 3:2, in Hebrew is qara meaning to accost someone, call out, cry out to, or pronounce; it is a very aggressive verb.  This verb is used only one other place in the whole OT (Nehemiah 6:7).

3: 4-9    

On the very first day Jonah “preached” the people believed and repented!  What kind of sermon must he have given!

The repentance of Nineveh was perhaps the greatest spiritual miracle in the Old Testament.

These pagans didn’t even know or understand the nature of Jehovah God. They fasted and prayed on the chance that this unknown god would relent.  They showed more faith than most Christians do with all the benefit of the New Testament and all of history.  They also understood that praying and fasting weren’t enough, but that each must ‘turn from his wicked ways’.

    

Jonah bore fruit by being obedient to God. I believe it fits the model of the death and resurrection Christ, who taught this to His disciples:

John 12:24 “I assure you: Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself. But if it dies, it produces a large crop.”

Jonah was the most successful evangelist of the Old Testament age, and possibly of all history.  

Other men of faith like Noah, Abraham, Daniel, Elijah, John the Baptist did not reap the harvest of the million or so inhabitants of Nineveh.  It wasn’t Jonah’s skill, he didn’t tell them about God, just that God would destroy them. This adds credence to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Can God Repent?

3: 10

Repent means to have a change of heart.  Can God really change His mind?  No.  God is immutable, unchanging, but He also knows the beginning from the end.  His purposes had already been set before the foundation of the world.  He knew the Ninevites would repent, so would the Phoenician mariners, so would Jonah.  

God didn’t change, the city of Nineveh changed.  But the author uses anthropic (human like) emotions to explain that God, knowing all things, still allows the people of Nineveh to make a genuine decision of their own to repent, and turn from their evil ways.  

The Prodigal Son’s Brother

However, the repentance of Nineveh displeased Jonah...

4: 1-4    

God did not rebuke Jonah but uses an object lesson to explain His grace.  How often do we begrudge the worker who enters the Kingdom at the last hour?  Jonah wanted the unworthy to receive justice that they deserved.  Yet how many of us deserve grace?

• Justice - we get what we deserve.
• Mercy - we don’t get what we do deserve.
• Grace - we do get what we don’t deserve.

Jonah certainly did not preach “grace”, but judgement, and he explains why in verse 4:2.  Jonah’s heart is like that of the Prodigal Son’s brother.

4: 5-11    

Over 120,000 children were in Nineveh.  God’s mercy extended to them just as it does to us now.  Jonah mourned for the passing of a plant, but wanted vengeance and suffering to befall people who did nothing evil to him.

Notes the miracles of the gourd, the worms, the East wind:

• God’s lesson to Jonah is that while some plant, others water, and still others harvest, but God gives the increase.  
• God’s word does not return empty, but has the power to save those of us who are unworthy:

Isaiah 55:10-11   “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth, making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so shall My word be which goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.”

_____________________

[1] Miracles in the Book of Jonah:

               1 - The storm

               2 - Selection of Jonah by lot

               3 - Sudden calming of the storm

               4 - The “great fish” in the right place at the right time

               5 - Preservation/ resurrection of Jonah

               6 - Ejection of Jonah on dry ground at the proper place

               7 - The gourd the grew over night

               8 - The worms to eat the gourd

               9 - The hot East wind

               10 - The repentance of Nineveh based on the word of one man.

[2] Other citations for Sheol:

Psalms 16:9-10 Therefore my heart is glad and my spirit rejoices; my body also rests securely. For You will not abandon me to Sheol; You will not allow Your Faithful One to see decay  

Psalms 49:13-15 This is the way of those who are arrogant, and of their followers, who approve of their words. Selah   Like sheep they are headed for Sheol; Death will shepherd them.  The upright will rule over them in the morning, and their form will waste away in Sheol, far from their lofty abode.  But God will redeem my life from the power of Sheol, for He will take me. Selah

Psalms 55:15 “Let death come deceitfully upon them; let them go down alive to Sheol, for evil is in their dwelling, in their midst.”

Isaiah 5:13,14 “Therefore my people go into exile for their lack of knowledge; and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude is parched with thirst.  Therefore Sheol has enlarged its throat and opened its mouth without measure; and Jerusalem’s splendor, her multitude, her din of revelry, and the jubilant within her descend into it.”

Ezekiel 31:16-17 I made the nations quake at the sound of its downfall, when I threw it down to Sheol to be with those who descend to the Pit. Then all the trees of Eden, all the well-watered trees, the choice and best of Lebanon, were comforted in the underworld.  They too descended with it to Sheol, to those slain by the sword. As its allies they had lived in its shade among the nations.

Matthew 5:29  “If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out, and throw it from you; for it is better for your that one of the parts of your body perish, than for your whole body to be thrown into Gehenna.”  Jesus speaking.

Matthew 10:28  “Do not fear those who kill the body, but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.”

Acts 2:31  “he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ that He was neither abandoned to Hades, nor did His flesh suffer decay.”  restates Psalms 16:10

2 Peter 2:4 “For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell (Tartaros) and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgement...”

Revelation 20:13 “And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds.  And death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.  This is the second death, the lake of fire.” 

         

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Scripture citations are from:  Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) © 2009 Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville TN or New King James Version®. (NKJV) Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson