The book of Jonah, just four chapters long, is well known for lots of reasons.
It is great literature, with a big fish that swallows a reluctant prophet and then vomits him back on the beach to complete his task. It is also the only story about a prophet who actually succeeds when he finally sets his mind to it and gets the entire kingdom to repent.
That’s why this was chosen as the inspirational liturgical reading for the afternoon of the Day of Atonement. That’s why it is meaningful to Christian thought - and important today, as the Christian community begins the holy journey of Lent, a period of reflective atonement.
Through the actions of its mysterious main character, the story asks of us a simple question:
What happens when one runs away from an important obligation that can save a life - or a world?
Many have pondered what’s going on between the lines of this - let’s call it a legend? - with a prophet of whom we know close to nothing although we get to know the rumbles of his deepest soul.
In some ways, this is a prophetic book about prophecy itself.
David Rosenberg writes in A Poet's Bible:
“Like a typical book of a prophet, the book of Jonah begins with the call to witness. But in place of Jonah’s words, we’re suddenly in the realm of narrative, as the prophet’s failings are characterized as bluntly as any common man’s. This is especially surprising because Jonah is, after all, the recipient of a call… even more extraordinary than the fantastic imagery of fish, plant, and naïve Ninevites, is that this is prophecy about prophecy.
The poet of Jonah is calling on men and prophets to listen to themselves critically. It’s not the castor-oil plant that is the object lesson in the last chapter, but imagination itself.”
Jonah, son of Amitai, no specific mention of time or place given, hears the divine call one day:
“‘ק֠וּם לֵ֧ךְ אֶל־נִֽינְוֵ֛ה הָעִ֥יר הַגְּדוֹלָ֖ה וּקְרָ֣א עָלֶ֑יהָ כִּֽי־עָלְתָ֥ה רָעָתָ֖ם לְפָנָֽי׃
Get up, go to Nineveh the great city, and call out against it, for their evil has risen before Me.’”
Jonah 1:2
Well, that’s a historical clue.
Nineveh is the fabled capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, located on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, in what is the modern-day city of Mosul in northern Iraq. Until 2014 it included the famous Al Nabi Yunus Mosque -a shrine to Jonah the Prophet who is also revered in Islam. It was famous in the Ancient East for its wealth and power.
But why was Jonah, presumably of Judah or Israel, sent beyond enemy lines - to persuade the Assyrians to repent - in their hometown?
Robert Alter explains the mythic dimensions of this literary choice:
“Although there are a couple of rare instances in the Book of Kings of an Israelite prophets going on a mission to a foreign country, the call to go to Nineveh is anomalous and hardly historical. Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire, no longer existed by the likely time of Jonah’s composition; however, it is remembered as the power that entirely destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel and later seriously threatened the southern kingdom of Judah as well. To send a Hebrew prophet to Nineveh would be rather like sending a Jewish speaker to deliver moral exhortation to the Germans in Berlin in 1936.”
What happens next is what drives the plot.
Jonah runs away from his mission impossible, boards the first ship he finds in the Jaffa port, falls asleep in the belly of the ship and wakes up to a storm that threatens to drown them all and a captain who shakes him awake with the famous words - Human Being - why are you sleeping now?
The storm is of divine proportions and by the end of chapter one Jonah will be picked by lots to be a human sacrifice that will pacify the raging deity.
So what is this all about?
Jonah Potasznik, a contemporary Jewish scholar delves deeper into his namesake’s ordeal:
“What happens when you run away from something you know you need to do? Jonah’s attempted escape from his prophetic destiny reveals what any procrastinator knows all too well. The tension created by a task both necessary and ignored does not magically dissipate over time. In fact, it grows, like waves on a stormy sea. As hard as we might try to shut our eyes, and “sleep away” the task at hand, it remains directly in front of us.
Here it is worth noting that Jonah is not the only human character in chapter one. In the climactic scene of this chapter, it is the captain of the ship who finally manages to wake Jonah up to the un-avoidability of his prophetic mission.
There’s two potential messages here: one, in the end it is not the chosen prophet who saves the day. It is the salty sea captain, the prototypical “everyman,” who provides Jonah with the wisdom he needs to progress on his journey: You can not run away from this. Wake up! Clearly, the ability to communicate with the divine is a source of wisdom, but holds no monopoly on it.
Two, while Jonah was able to run away from his mission for a time, he was not able to run away from other people. The image of the prophet as the “lonely man of faith” here gives way to an image of a man who is ultimately reliant on those around him to push him towards his full potential. Thus, it is not Jonah the prophet, but Jonah the human, who teaches us that our own processes of maturation and self-realization do not happen in vacuums of independence. Rather, they occur alongside friends, family, or even ship captains, who open our eyes to the missions we have been avoiding.”
For now, we leave our reluctant hero on his hero’s journey - hurled into the stormy sea, presumed dead.
But that’s when the big fish shows up and the saga continues, larger than life.
Go Below the Bible Belt. Link in bio. subscribe.Below the Bible Belt: 929 chapters, 42 months, daily reflections.
Become a free or paid subscriber and join Rabbi Amichai’s 3+ years interactive online quest to question, queer + re-read between the lines of the entire Hebrew Bible. Enjoy daily posts, weekly videos and monthly learning sessions. 2022-2025.
#Jonah #Jonah1 #ProphetJonah #NabiYounas
הנביאיונה# #BookofJonah #תריעשר #treiasar #minorprophets #Prophets #Neviim #Hebrewbible #Tanach #929 #labshul #belowthebiblebelt929 #Nineveh #Musul #runawayprophet #cityofsin #PortofJaffa #wakeup! #kingdomofIsrael #Assyria #stoptheviolence #peace #prayforpeace #nomorewar #hope