In Sunday School today, we were discussing the story of Jonah, and there were a few things we discussed today that helped me to see the story in a new light.
As most people probably know, the story opens with the Lord telling Jonah to go preach to the residents of Ninevah, and Jonah abdicates this call by running away.
At the start of the lesson, the instructor asked the class why they thought Jonah was running away from the call, and most of the responses centred around the idea that Jonah was afraid of the Assyrians because of what they did to the Israelites.
But I think the answer to this question comes in verse two of the fourth chapter:
And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.
The word for is the key to understanding this verse. This word has many meanings, but one of those meanings is that it is synonymous with the word because.
We could rewrite that part as: “I fled before unto Tarshish because I knew that thou art a gracious God, merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness”.
In other words, Jonah knew that the Lord would be able to change the people of Ninevah. You see, Jonah didn’t try to hide because he was afraid of what the Assyrians might do to him if he did as the Lord asked. He tried to hide because he was afraid that the people of Ninevah would repent and, in the process, be spared from destruction.
And because of his own biases and prejudices, he wanted them destroyed.
The first verse of that same chapter tells the reader that Jonah is angry. We sometimes interpret that to mean that Jonah was angry that the people of Ninevah weren’t destroyed.
But check out verse 3:
Wherefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.
When we look at this verse in connection to verse 2, it seems to indicate that he wasn’t angry at the people of Ninevah not being destroyed. Rather, he seems angry at himself. He seems to recognize that his initial response to the prophetic call—to ignore preaching repentance so the people of Ninevah wouldn’t change and then not be saved from destruction—was wrong, and that realization now filled him with anguish.
One other lesson I learned was when the people on the ship that Jonah was travelling on and that was stuck in a violent storm cast lots to see who was responsible for the storm.
Up to this point, Jonah remained silent as to being the reason for the storm, assuming he had realized the connection between the storm and his abdication. He seems to have hid it for as long as he could. Even right up to the point where they are casting lots, he still hasn’t said anything. It wasn’t until the lot fell on him that he comes clean.
But how many of us are like that? How many times have you tried to hide responsibility for something you have done, whether denying it was you, blaming someone else, or just playing innocent, yet even when the evidence is pointing toward you being the culprit, you still dig in and deny your involvement?
At least Jonah had the integrity to come clean. Granted, he could’ve come clean much earlier, too.
I think the story of Jonah has more nuance and complexity than we are normally willing to give it.
