Please note: This is a brief three part series about a very brief book, one of the shortest in the Bible.  The book of the Prophet Jonah is but four short chapters long.  It is printed after the body of the text as an appendix to each of the three posts of the series.  It is not necessary to read the actual text of Jonah, unless, of course, you want to make up your own mind about things that I opine in this short Bible study.  In other words, it is best to read it.

Part One: http://open.salon.com/blog/monte_canfield/2009/06/17/hell_no_i_wont_go_jonah_first_of_three_posts#post_comments

This is Part Two. Part Two covers Chapters One and Two of the Book of Jonah, found below, following this post, in the Appendix.

God's instruction to Jonah is very clear.  "Arise, Go to Nineveh and prophesy against it because it is wicked!"  That seems pretty clear.  And Jonah was a professional, royal, prophet, so you would expect Jonah to understand clear instructions from God and to do them, in proper, "Thus says the Lord" fashion.  After all, that is what prophets are for, to be the mouthpiece of God. Prophets are always to speak for the Lord, often the very hard truths that we don't want to hear, and never to speak for themselves.  That's how it works.

But that's not how it worked with Jonah.  Jonah arose. And then he made a 180 degree turn from the direction on Nineveh and went down to Joppa, intent on fleeing the presence of God altogether by going to Tarshish.  Tarshish was literally as far as one could get from Nineveh at that time, way out on edge of the Atlantic Ocean on the coast of what we now call Spain.  Tarshish was literally to the "end of the earth."

And here we get the first point of the story: it won't work!  It is not possible to escape from God when God is intent on calling us to a mission. And so, in a masterful use of metaphor, the writer tells us that Jonah then begins a series of "descents" from God.  He goes "down" to Joppa; he goes "down into the ship;" (the translation below says "went on board" but the Hebrew word is "down.") he then goes down into the hold of the ship; he lies down; and he drops down into sleep.  He is forced to get up, but not of his free will, is thrown overboard, and then goes down into the sea.

Before Jonah gets anywhere near Tarshish he is already going down, down from God, down, he says, to the very roots of the mountains, where the deep surrounds him, where weeds wrap around his head and the gate of the Pit closes upon him.. And there he lies dying; as good as dead.

 Jonah thought he knew what he wanted: to do whatever it takes to flee from God; to go to Tarshish; and, if necessary, to die.  But we learn here that it is impossible to escape the presence of the Lord.  The Psalmist knew what Jonah apparently did not: it can't be done.  From Psalm 139 :

Another truth is revealed to us here: it is impossible to escape the tasks that God assigns to us.  After all that happens to Jonah, after the fish spits Jonah safely onto the beach, God does not say, "Well, I hope that you have learned yours lesson.  Take a few days off.  Get some rest.  Then report to me next Monday and I'll find something for you to do that isn't so disagreeable to you."

Hardly.  The very next line, before Jonah has time to take a shower, comb his hair, or shave, or brush his teeth and put on some clean clothes, we are told, "The Word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, 'Get up; go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim the message that I tell you!'"   Jonah is back at square one.

But more important than these teachings is the teaching inherent in this story of deliverance: that it is impossible to escape the love of God.  Psalm 139 also clearly says this as do many other places in the Bible, such as Paul's great hymn of God's love in Romans 8: "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord."

Jesus himself tells a story, perhaps the most beloved story that he tells, of the prodigal son, who could not bear at home with his father, demanded and got his inheritance, left, squandered it, and then sunk "down" into the pit with the pigs that he fed to stay alive, literally eating the scraps thrown to the pigs he tended.  And so at the end of his rope he returned to his father. He came home, content to be a slave, not a son, if that be his father's will.  Yet, upon arriving home he learns that, in all his attempts at running away, he had not escaped the love of his father, who was beside himself with joy that his son had come home.

Jonah, like the wayward son in that story, had to learn the hard way.  And it is not by accident that, only after Jonah had exhausted all his own options, only when he reconsidered the death that he had shortly before thought he wanted, only when he was one tick away from drowning did God send the fish to save him.  It was sent not simply to save his life, but to save Jonah from himself!

Moving into Chapter Two we see Jonah within the belly of the fish reconsidering all he had done, a changed man, far different than the one we were coming to know in the first chapter. In fact, most scholars, including me, think that this prayer, a poem in the style of a psalm, was added to the story by a later writer who sought to rehabilitate Jonah by making him thankful for his deliverance from certain death.

Obviously, regardless who wrote it, we are expected to learn something from this prayer, this psalm.  The first thing I believe we can learn from it is that when we are down, when we have exhausted all of our own resources, the only thing left to do is to pray to God for deliverance.  For someone of faith, and perhaps also for those of no faith, when we, like Jonah, go down, and then the bottom falls out; or when we reach the end of our rope; when we cannot possibly create a new future for ourselves; when the god we have made of ourselves fails us, what is left to us is to pray to God for deliverance.

When he was going down into the depths of the sea Jonah's initial thought was that he had been thrown into the sea by God, and then had been abandoned by God.  But if we read the story carefully we know that neither of those thoughts were true.  Jonah did it to himself!  Can we learn something here?  Isn't it often true that when, by our own decisions and actions, we are cast into the depths of despair, of desperation, real or imagined, we want to blame our misfortune on someone, and often that someone is God?  

Well, so did Jonah.  But when he finally realizes that he is getting his wish, that he will forever dwell in the Pit, when he fears that he will be barred from the face of God forever, then and only then does he wake up.  "When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, God!"  And God remembered Jonah. 

And so Jonah completes his psalm of praise with the one thing that he now knows for certain: "Deliverance belongs to the Lord!"  Deliverance is something we mostly think we can handle ourselves.  But faith teaches that when things get really rough, when we are finally done shifting the deck chairs on the Titanic, our salvation comes as a pure gift, a free grace from God.  Salvation belongs to the Lord. Jonah here learns that important lesson.

And so we end this exploration of the first half of the tiny Book of Jonah.

 Next, in the third and final post in this series, we will learn lessons every bit as important and practical as those we have learned here.  These will be lessons that are clearly applicable to our daily lives, and the big question is whether we will see them clearly and then willingly open our hearts to accept them and make them a part of our lives.  

Some of the simplest, most important, and yet most overlooked, things that God is trying to tell us will be found in Chapters Three and Four. If you wish you can read those chapters before I post my commentary on them in the Appendix attached to this post.

Monte

The Book of Jonah, Chapter One

1:1  Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying, 2  "Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me." 3  But Jonah set out 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 his fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD.

4  But the LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea, and such a mighty storm came upon the sea that the ship threatened to break up. 5  Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried to his god. They threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea, to lighten it for them. Jonah, meanwhile, had gone down into the hold of the ship and had lain down, and was fast asleep. 6  The captain came and said to him, "What are you doing sound asleep? Get up, call on your god! Perhaps the god will spare us a thought so that we do not perish." 7  The sailors said to one another, "Come, let us cast lots, so that we may know on whose account this calamity has come upon us." So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.

8  Then they said to him, "Tell us why this calamity has come upon us. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?" 9  "I am a Hebrew," he replied. "I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land." 10  Then the men were even more afraid, and said to him, "What is this that you have done!" For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them so. 11  Then they said to him, "What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?" For the sea was growing more and more tempestuous. 12  He said to them, "Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you; for I know it is because of me that this great storm has come upon you."

13  Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring the ship back to land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more stormy against them. 14  Then they cried out to the LORD, "Please, O LORD, we pray, do not let us perish on account of this man's life. Do not make us guilty of innocent blood; for you, O LORD, have done as it pleased you." 15  So they picked Jonah up and threw him into the sea; and the sea ceased from its raging. 16  Then the men feared the LORD even more, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows.

17  But the LORD provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

The Book of Jonah, Chapter Two

2:1  Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish, 2  saying, "I called to the LORD out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. 3  You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me. 4  Then I said, 'I am driven away from your sight; how shall I look again upon your holy temple?' 5  The waters closed in over me; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped around my head 6  at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever; yet you brought up my life from the Pit, O LORD my God.

7  As my life was ebbing away, I remembered the LORD; and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple. 8  Those who worship vain idols forsake their true loyalty. 9  But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Deliverance belongs to the LORD!"

10  Then the LORD spoke to the fish, and it spewed Jonah out upon the dry land.

The Book of Jonah, Chapter Three

3:1  The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2  "Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you." 3  So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days' walk across.

4  Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's walk. And he cried out, "Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" 5  And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. 6  When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7  Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: "By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. 8  Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. 9  Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish."

10  When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

The Book of Jonah, Chapter Four, Final Chapter

4:1  But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. 2  He prayed to the LORD and said, "O LORD! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. 3  And now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live."

4  And the LORD said, "Is it right for you to be angry?" 5  Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city. 6  The LORD God appointed a bush, and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very happy about the bush. 7  But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. 8  When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said, "It is better for me to die than to live." 9  But God said to Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?" And he said, "Yes, angry enough to die."

10  Then the LORD said, "You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11  And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?"