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What is most notable about Jonah is not his remarkable experience in the belly of a whale—although this is the event that has sparked the imagination of artists and children for centuries. Rather, it is the fact that of all the prophets, Jonah alone succeeded. Unlike his highly esteemed colleagues Isaiah and Jeremiah, Jonah actually convinces the people to repent. When the Lord sends Jonah to preach in the vast Assyrian capital of Nineveh, the people listen. As he walks the streets, he proclaims merely one sentence—“Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” (Jonah 3:4)—and that is sufficient: “The people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast, and great and small alike put on sackcloth.” Even the king of Nineveh donned sackcloth and sat in ashes. “Let everyone turn back from his evil ways,” the king proclaimed, “and from the injustice of which he is guilty. Who knows but that the Almighty may turn and relent? He may turn back from his wrath, so that we do not perish” (Jonah 3:5–9).
The king was right. The Almighty did relent: “And the Almighty saw from their works that they turned from their evil way; and He repented from the evil which He said He would do to them. And He did it not” (Jonah 3:10).
Paradoxically, Jonah’s success causes him acute grief. So great is his despair over his achievement that he asks the Almighty to take his life: “I know that you are gracious and compassionate, long suffering and abundant in mercy and that you repent from doing evil. Therefore, I beseech you, take my life from me for it is better for me to die than to live” (Jonah 4:2–3).
Why?
As with most of the Bible, to understand this passage, we must read between the lines and draw on information found elsewhere in the text.
Jonah’s story is set in the world of the eighth century B.C.E., when Nineveh was the most powerful capital in the world. We know from a brief mention in 2 Kings 14:25 that Jonah was an experienced prophet, who for years had prophesied among the ten tribes that constituted the northern kingdom of Israel. Apparently, Jonah was not as successful in northern Israel as he was in Nineveh. Indeed, he was one in a long string of prophets whose message was ignored by the northern tribes.
More than a century earlier, these ten northern tribes had broken with Jerusalem, with the dynasty of King David and, most significantly, with the Torah. The northern tribes adopted the religion of the nations of that period. They built pagan altars in the high places and practiced pagan rituals that the Almighty found obscene (1 Kings 16:30–33). Over the decades, they repeatedly rejected the prophets’ call for repentance.
The Torah, or first five books of the Hebrew Bible, is quite clear about the consequences of such behavior: “Beware lest you allow your hearts to be deceived and turn away and serve other gods…for you will perish from the good land that the Lord has given you” (Deuteronomy 11:16–17).
After decades of apostasy, of rejecting the call for repentance, the time for punishment had come for the northern tribes. But who would execute the judgment?
The Assyrians. By repenting, by improving their moral standing at Jonah’s behest, the Assyrians would qualify to be the executioners.
Why did Jonah want to die? Because he realized that the Lord had asked him to save those who would destroy his own people.
The Book of Jonah is only 48 sentences long, yet it marks a turning point in Jewish history. In the year 722 B.C.E.—perhaps, in biblical terms, during Jonah’s own lifetime—the Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom of Israel, destroyed its capital, Samaria, and exiled the ten northern tribes. The northern tribes were assimilated into the gentile nations, among whom they were forced to live. Eventually, they disappeared from history. And it was Jonah’s mission to bring about this major break in history.
What is most notable about Jonah is not his remarkable experience in the belly of a whale—although this is the event that has sparked the imagination of artists and children for centuries. Rather, it is the fact that of all the prophets, Jonah alone succeeded. Unlike his highly esteemed colleagues Isaiah and Jeremiah, Jonah actually convinces the people to repent. When the Lord sends Jonah to preach in the vast Assyrian capital of Nineveh, the people listen. As he walks the streets, he proclaims merely one sentence—“Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” (Jonah 3:4)—and that is sufficient: […]
