Hebrew Exegesis: Jonah 4: 1-5

 

Translation

But this was greatly displeasing to Jonah.  He was miserable and incensed and he urgently sought God saying, “God, was this not what I said while I was in my own country?  I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God who is patient, slow to anger, full of loving kindness and one who repents from punishing!”

“This is the reason I fled to Tarshish in the first place!”

“So, since you have chosen to spare Nineveh, please take my breath from me.  For it is better, for me, that I am dead than alive because of your decision.”

God responded to Jonah saying, “Is it right for you to be angry with me?”

Then Jonah left the city and went east where he made a temporary shelter / booth.  He sat beneath it in its shade and waited to see what would become of the city.

Introduction

By way of consensus from the articles and commentaries read it is widely held that Jonah is a comedic text.  Almost as a comic strip of sorts which was intended for laughter.  “Rethinking Humor in the Book of Jonah: Tragic Laughter as Resistance in the Context of Trauma by Juliana M. Claassens offers another perspective for the laughter which is a defense to trauma suffered by the Hebrew people.   One possible departure from the consensus is Miguel A. De La Torre article, “Liberating Jonah: Forming an Ethics of Reconciliation”, which discusses, in great detail and modernizes the severity and possible consequences of what God was requesting of Jonah.  De La Torre finds nothing funny according to his premises.  While all of these authors may hold a truth, they do not take into consideration the God of Black Theology.  Could it be that the God that they refer to as fantastical and exaggerated, (regarding God hurling the storm, the size and facility of the fish, etc.), actually be the supernatural God who exists beyond the limits of the normal physical universe and who has dunamis power?  A God who is able to level the playing field, open closed doors, give vision and offer strategy in a society that does not favor us.  The God of Black Theology is an all seeing, all knowing, sovereign God who seeks fellowship with his creation.   As a historically, continuously oppressed and marginalized people we need a God with these characteristics.  Not only is our hope attached to that God but our resilience and ultimately our survival.  So, it is with this lens we peer into scripture to find meaning in Jonah’s experience.  

While Jonah has been viewed by many as a failed prophet my faith informs me otherwise.  That Jonah was indeed a very successful prophet.  Secondly, that the purpose of the Book of Jonah is for God to once again reveal another aspect of his character.  This time to postexilic Israel and that what we are witnessing in the story of Jonah is his journey to this revelation.  

Analysis

The opening scene of Jonah 4:1 we are confronted with a Jonah that is displeased, miserable and incensed because God has chosen to repent of his destruction of Nineveh.  Jonah than “urgently sought God”, is an attempt to convey the level of emotional upheaval Jonah was experiencing.  He did not just pray as to indicate passive prayers however he is speaking aggressively with God which hints not only to previous conversations but a level of intimacy and familiarity between God and Jonah.  In this prayer Jonah is reminding God that long before they ever started on this journey, he had already shared with God that he (Jonah) knew that God would repent (Jonah 4:2).  

This statement opens a wide space within the narrative of this story.  Through it we are referred to a conversation that is not documented in the Book of Jonah.  This brings up the questions of who wrote the book?  When was the book written?  Are the remains of what we have just a paraphrase of a larger more detailed volume?  Or possibly a longer oral story that has lost it fullness.  Either way it would appear there is more to the story.  

Jonah the False Prophet 

While this appears to be a prevalent thought through the commentaries I am inclined to think differently.  Here we have Jonah whom, as James Limburg  calls him, “a believer” and whom we have documented as having a fellowship with God.  I would venture a step further to say that Jonah is an educated man based on the level of demonstrated understanding of God’s character that he exhibits (Jonah 4:2).  Where I part with James Limburg is where he states that after pronouncing the prophecy and God relents from Nineveh’s punishment that Jonah is angry because after he had “obediently announced the prophecy he was irritated because his reputation as a prophet had been thrown into question by the sparing of Nineveh.”   Deuteronomy 18:15-22 outlines the guidelines for prophetic voices in the Old Testament.  Subsequently, verses 21-22 provide discernment for false prophets.  This I believe has come to be known as the Prophetic Formula by which many an exegete has determined that Jonah’s prophecy was false.  While that may be true, I want to contribute another thought to this narrative.  

What about the prophetic category that is referred to as a “Word of Warning”? This type of pronounced prophetic is designed intentionally to illicit a response from the hearer and prompt them to make a choice.  The characteristics of this type of prophetic voicing are as follows: 

• It names the sin and the offender, 

• gives insight to the future should the sin continue, 

• calls the offender into repentance, 

• offers instructions on how to repent 

• and gives insight into the future should the offender repent.

Examples of this type of prophecy would be Gen. 20:7 when God counselled Abimelech to return Abraham’s wife; 2 Kings 18 in the cycle where Elijah calls Israel into repentance under King Ahab and Queen Jezebel; and   ?  

Additionally, it has been determined through superscriptions, that prophets have territories and dispensations such as Daniel to exiles in Babylon, Jeremiah in Jerusalem? And in exile Ezekiel to Judah and Babylon, and Isaiah in 8th century Jerusalem to which they minister.  Could it not be that we never hear from Jonah again not because he failed but because his assignment in his territory is complete?  Is it very possible that Jonah was a Prophet of Woe with the specific assignment of Nineveh?  

If we reference back to note 3, where we indicate that information appears to be missing from the story, is it possible that although the Book has been included with the other prophetic works it doesn’t appear to have been given the same attention that we see in other prophetic literature and for some very validate reasons.  We recognize that the Book of Jonah is an anomaly amongst the old testament prophetic books who seem to minister only to Israel in their various states as a nation while the Book of Jonah speaks of ministry to a people who is not of Israel but also their worst enemy. 

Jonah’s Request for Death

Now the question that remains is why Jonah is so upset that he was asking God to take his life again.  Certainly, God was not requiring a small task of Jonah in asking him to minister a Word of Warning to a historically violent empire who had destroyed and continued to crush Jonah’s people, identity and ultimately his nation.  Being the instrument by which God desires to offer repentance to his nation’s nightmare coupled with the understanding that God is a forgiving God was more than Jonah could handle which is why I believe he fled to Tarshish in the first place.  Miguel De La Torre places Jonah’s dilemma in our dispensation and in my context by suggesting that Jonah is an African-American who God requests to go into the deep South in the 1920’s to reconcile with the Ku Klux Klan.   These circumstances are troubling to say the least and Jonah is well within his right to be disturbed.  

God, seemly asking for the unthinkable, appears to understand Jonah’s perplexity of emotion and will by displaying great patience (Jonah 1:3 – 2:9) towards him as he wrestles within himself and the will of God.  Robert Alter on The Better Questions Podcast discusses the downward spiral that is repeated in the Hebrew from the time God speaks to Jonah until Jonah enters a deep sleep not unlike a depressed person withdrawing from life.   It takes all the turmoil of his journey “west”; the storm, being thrown overboard and a three-day stint in the belly of a large fish for Jonah’s life to become reprioritized by his immense gratitude for his salvation (Jonah 2). His recognition and gratitude that God could have killed him, for his disobedience, but had patience and spared him postured / indebted Jonah to do God’s bidding.   I can’t imagine that he felt any differently about Nineveh, but his experience with God had changed him.  

Now back in alignment his responsibilities as the Prophet of Warning to Nineveh awaited him (Jonah 3:1-2); which he dutifully carried out (Jonah 3:4); almost like presto, the people repented (Jonah 3:9); God forgives and relents against Nineveh (Jonah 3:10).  Even though Jonah understood YHWH’S capacity from an intellectual perspective, I’m perceive there must have been some confusion as to why and how the God of Israel is pardoning their worst offender.  This is Jonah’s worst case scenario revealed.   Jonah’s paradigm concerning his nation and their relationship to their God has been split wide open.  After all that Jonah has been through both physically and emotional a request for death considering the circumstances is not unreasonable.  It is almost as if Jonah is saying to God, “In spite of myself I have been obedient and done your bidding. Now remove me from my turmoil”.

However, God is not finished.  He addresses Jonah in his weaken and confused state and implies that Jonah should not be angry with him (Jonah 4:4).  Jonah then goes east, representing a further state of instability, and builds a booth and finds rests beneath it as he watches and pounders the perplexing city (Jonah 4:5).

Conclusion:  Purpose of the Book of Jonah

Might I do away with the notions that the Book of Jonah is about Jonah’s status as a prophet, obedience to God, or comedic satire even though those elements are valid however there is an overarching illumination that can encompasses all of those claims.  I submit that the Book of Jonah was intended to introduce another facet of YHWH’s being to Israel by way of Jonah’s experience.  As he revealed himself to Abram Gen 12:1; Hagar Gen 16:13; Moses Ex 3:13-14, again appearing to the exiles as the wheel in the middle of the wheel, “God 2.0” Ezk1:16, God’s latest reveal is that he is not the God of Israel alone but the God of all of creation.   

This disclosure would have to had to have been explosive in the paradigm for a postexilic nation who was clinging to their identity in the midst of horrific obliteration that they mattered because they alone were the chosen people of the Great God of Heaven.  This would have been a pivotal pronouncement by God for Israel as it is for us today.  Alter brings it forward to say, “What does it mean that our God is the God of all creation.  Not just of our denomination, or Christians or our nation but everybody and all living things ”.   And we like Israel will have to wrestle with what it means to be the chosen people of God who is also the God of all creation.  This is a work we must address as a people both individually, collectively and in our own context.