Insight

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Pharaoh in Nineveh? What are you talking about? Pharaoh was the king of Egypt.

All true, but that is the kind of imaginative leap that midrash can make. Midrash is the elaboration of Scripture by Jewish sages in the centuries following the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. The rabbis knew their text, all right—every letter of it. They asked all kinds of questions of the text. They saw all kinds of possibilities in it. They made all kinds of connections. Reading their midrashim, we not only marvel at their imagination and the connections they were able to make, but we also learn to understand the biblical text better. As they themselves put it, “Turn it and turn it again, for everything is in it.”¹

Which end of the story the rabbis started from is unknown. Did they find a need to explain the repentance of Nineveh? Or did they notice a lacuna in the text of Exodus? We’ll begin at the Red Sea.

After he finally allowed the Israelites to leave Egypt, we are told, Pharaoh had “a change of heart” (Exodus 14:5). “He took 600 of his best chariots, and the rest of the chariots of Egypt, with officers in all of them…and he gave chase to the Israelites. As the Israelites were departing defiantly, the Egyptians gave chase to them, and all the chariot horses of Pharaoh, his horsemen, and his warriors overtook them encamped by the sea” (Exodus 14:7–9).

You know the rest. The people were greatly frightened and blamed Moses for bringing them into the wilderness. Moses stiffened their spines, promising that the Lord would deliver them. On God’s instructions, Moses lifted up his rod and held out his arm—and the sea split! The Israelites could walk through on dry ground.

The text continues: “The Egyptians came in pursuit after them into the sea, all of Pharaoh’s horses, chariots, and horsemen” (Exodus 14:23). We thus know about Pharaoh’s horses, Pharaoh’s chariots and Pharaoh’s horsemen, but what about Pharaoh himself? No mention of him!²

When Moses again held out his arm over the sea, “the waters turned back and covered the chariots and the horsemen—Pharaoh’s entire army that followed them into the sea; not one of them remained” (Exodus 14:28). Again, no mention of Pharaoh himself. What happened to him? If he too drowned, it is strange that the text makes no mention of him.

The rabbis saw the hole—and they filled it with an answer (one among many):³ Pharaoh survived!⁴ And they even knew what happened to him: He did tshuveh, he repented!⁵ What a lesson. Even someone as evil as Pharaoh could repent! And be forgiven!⁶

Then what happened to Pharaoh? “He went and ruled in Nineveh.”⁷ He simply became king of Nineveh. How and when Pharaoh managed to do this, the midrash does not relate. He was there when a reluctant Jonah arrived. You will recall that the prophet first tried to flee so as to avoid God’s direction to proclaim judgment on Nineveh. Jonah took a ship in the opposite direction.

He was finally thrown overboard to quell a storm and was swallowed by a great fish, which after three days spewed him up on dry land. Finally, Jonah went to Nineveh to deliver the word of the Lord.

Now the biblical text: “When the news [of Jonah’s proclamation] reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his robe, put on sackcloth, and sat in ashes” (Jonah 3:6). In short, he repented and urged his people to repent. “They proclaimed a fast, and great and small alike put on sackcloth” (Jonah 3:5).

How can we explain this action of the king of Nineveh? He was none other than our old friend, the repentant Pharaoh.

Yes, Pharaoh saved Nineveh! That the pharaoh of the Exodus lived in the 13th century B.C.E. (or perhaps the 15th century B.C.E. according to the biblical chronology) and Jonah lived in the eighth century B.C.E. (2 Kings 14:25)⁸ is of no concern to the midrash. Pharaoh knew the power of the Lord. He had been there, done that—back in Egypt. He had learned his lesson. Indeed, according to the midrash, he had been spared for this very purpose. Had not Moses long ago said to Pharaoh in the name of the Lord, “I could have stretched forth my hand and stricken you…and you would have been effaced from the earth. Nevertheless, I have spared you for this purpose: in order to show you my power” (Exodus 9:15–16)?

Here then was the purpose, the reason: that the people of Nineveh would know the power of the Lord and themselves repent. 058And they did. Then “God saw what they did, how they were turning from their evil ways. And God renounced the punishment he had planned to bring upon them” (Jonah 3:10)—to Jonah’s dismay!⁹ This was just what Jonah feared would happen. This was why he initially tried to flee. He knew that God was a “compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in kindness, renouncing punishment” (Jonah 4:2). God remonstrates with his prophet: You cared for the plant that gave you shade, the plant that withered in the night. Yet “should I not care about Nineveh?” (Jonah 4:11).

Is this the only interpretation to explain Nineveh’s repentance? Hardly. “Turn it and turn it again, for everything is in it.”¹⁰

Pharaoh in Nineveh? What are you talking about? Pharaoh was the king of Egypt.