Jonah 1:1-4a - being the actual opposite of a prophet

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•       Introduction

This first chapter of Jonah is FULL of surprises … opposites to what you’ve a right to expect.

Fundamentally and in reality Jonah, this peculiar prophet, behaves like a pagan.

The pagans on the other hand seem to find the sort of faith that’s expected of a prophet.

It’s a tale of contrasts from the first to the last, and it highlights the dangers of being a theoretical believer, but then living more like a pagan than a prophet.

Yes, God DOES pursue His wildly wayward prophet.

Yes, He DOES get Jonah back onto track (on this occasion).

But Jonah is a horrible depiction of everything he shouldn’t really be, shirking the big call out from God … and it’s shirking that big call out from God which reveals that Jonah is living more like a pagan than a prophet.

And that certainly doesn’t make life anything like easy for himself.

Here’s something we need to wise up on, because this is something painful and traumatic and troubling which every believer needs to maintain their awareness of.

The illuminating drama starts in 1:1-3, where the prophet makes a surreptitious escape … or so he thinks.

         •       Jonah surreptitiously ‘escapes’, vv. 1-3

““The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai:

‘Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it,

because its wickedness has come up before me.’

But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish.

He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port.

After paying the fare, he went aboard and

sailed for Tarshish

to flee from the Lord.”

Jonah 1:1-3

https://www.bible.com/113/jon.1.1-3.nivuk

 

There are two things in this immersive introduction to the book of Jonah which DUMP you straight into the action without pre-amble.

The literary effect is similar to being dropped into cold water.

Sudden intake of breath … rapid mental activity … shock.

Both elements … the commission and the rejection of it are shocking - a literary double whammy.

          •         Commission, 1a-2d

This starts off with what’s known as ‘the prophetic word formula’ … it’s a very common phrase in prophetic narratives, but here it is followed by something unimaginably unusual:

‘The Word of the Lord came to Jonah, son of Amittai, as follows …’ 

tha's already got the old timers nodding in the pews when:

WHAM!

v. 2 “‘Go to the great city of Nineveh and

preach against it,

because its wickedness has come up before me.’”

 

Jonah 1:2

 

https://www.bible.com/113/jon.1.2.nivuk

 

Nineveh, what really?

That GREAT city?

It is a TERRIBLE city of APPALLING violence with an unparalleled human rights record (but not in a good way) and it is already not happy with the Hebrews at all!

The sending of an Old Testament prophet to go to and preach to a foreign nation seems unparalleled elsewhere in Scripture.

 Go and talk to them, what … initiate an inter-faith dialogue?

Not exactly.

Announce a rebuke:

 ““Go immediately to Nineveh, that large capital city, and announce judgment against its people because their wickedness has come to my attention.”

Jonah 1:2

https://www.bible.com/107/jon.1.2.net

In verse 2 of the very  first chapter!

Now the New English Translation is usually excellent but it oversteps the mark here when it calls Nineveh the capital city.

• It WASN’T that in the eighth century BC.
  
  
• It WAS a very ancient city of Assyria.
  
  
• It WAS the city that heads the list of cities built by Ashshur who founded Assyria (Genesis 10:11)

So Nineveh was the first of the great city states on which Assyria was founded, was closely associated with the origins of Assyria and came to stand for the violence and the expansionist militarism, national pride and indiscriminate use of power that characterised Assyria.

“Nineveh’s association with Assyrian cruelty made it an undesirable destination and an even more undesirable audience for Hebrew prophecy. 

The whole point of prophecy in Israel was to warn of impending judgement in order to encourage repentance and avert disaster (Amos 3:1-7; 5:3-6). 

In the case of Assyria, however, few could believe anything good would come from sparing such a ruthless enemy of Israel and Judah.”

Kevin J. Youngblood (ad loc.)

I mean … Nineveh?

Let’s face it, no-one had seen THAT one coming!

And God is quite directive and insistent about this with Jonah … that ‘Go’ in the NIV translation is actually two imperatives without the ‘waw’-conjunction which forms a verbal hendiadys 

(which I'm sure gives yoiu great thrill to know) 

so the first verb functions adverbally and the second one has the proper verbal force:

‘Go IMMEDIATELY’ … this construction emphasises the URGENCY of the command.

It’s a BIG ask, but Old Testament prophets DID that sort of big-screen, heroic stuff.

It’s what they did.

It’s what they were for.

They were the theological special forces … they did brave stuff.

What’s WEIRD about the situation that develops here, though, is what happens as immediately and urgently as God indicated to be necessary.

It's urgent: 'get up and GO!'

But IMMEDIATELY, Jonah rejects that.

          •         Rejection, v. 3

It was certainly NOT unusual for Old Testament prophets to baulk at what was asked of them.

Isaiah’s response to God’s call in his famous call vision in Isaiah 6:5 is classic:

“‘Woe to me!’ I cried. ‘I am ruined!

For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips,

and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.’”

https://www.bible.com/113/isa.6.5.nivuk

Only when God sent an angel with a coal from the altar to purify his lips did Isaiah accede to God’s call on his life.

Or there’s that great prophet Moses (yup, he was a prophet and we’re told in Deuteronomy about a future ‘prophet like Moses’ who would in future be sent).

Famously Moses came back at the Lord three time in Exodus 4 when the Lord called Moses to lead the people into redemption and liberty … until God was famously angry and gave Aaron to Moses as a mouth-piece (a prophet WITH a mouth-piece? A prophet was supposed to BE a mouth-piece!)

Anyway, the point is that you often get this back and forth commission and objection with Old Testament prophets as their doubts are addressed and their faith is strengthened … they preserve and persevere in their relationship with God.

The first readers or hearers of this Book of Jonah would almost expect something like that …

But here’s the second element of surprise.

The commission of Jonah to go to Nineveh and do what he was called to do there was shocking, but the blank rejection instead of dialogue with God is outrageous.

Jonah ups and offs immediately alright … but with no ‘by your leave’ Jonah’s off on his toes in the totally opposite direction to get away from God!

Funnily enough, the language used to describe what Jonah doe starts off running parallel to God’s command … the get up and go part.

But then it diverges radically as instead of doing a ‘get up and go’ Jonah very definitely does a ‘get up and run’!

This isn’t the struggle of faith for a prophet-sized task, it’s an act of rebellious desertion … desertion not only of the duty of a prophet, but desertion of the God Jonah doesn’t even seek to plead with.

Silent Jonah is up and he’s off.

You couldn’t get further west than Tarshish in the understanding of the people of that place and time.

Joppa (the port of departure) was due East from where Jonah stood.

Jonah wasn’t making objection, but responding with total rejection … and it wasn’t God’s commission he was objecting to, but his relationship with the God that he was rejecting.

“But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish.

He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port.

After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to

flee from the Lord.”

 

Jonah 1:3

 

https://www.bible.com/113/jon.1.3.nivuk

It is shocking.

Just three verses into this book and the audience is completely rocked.

Jonah chooses Tarshish.

          •         Tarshish - Jonah’s choice …

Tarshish is an interesting location.

         •             Far West (not East)

Tarshish seems to have generally been a place associated with the West (Genesis 10:2-5, Psalm 48:7, 72:10, Isaiah 23:6, 10)

It is far out to the West certainly of Nineveh … the place to go to firmly resist Jonah’s Divine commission!

         •             Edge of Israel’s geographical awareness

According to 2 Chronicles 9:21, a round trip to Tarshish in those days was a journey that would take all of three years.

It sounds like a destination of choice for a fugitive.

         •             Not graced by YHWH’s revelation and Glory

Most significantly, perhaps, Tarshish was known as a place where God had NOT revealed His Glory or His Word.

Isaiah 66:19 says: ““I hate their deeds and thoughts! So I am coming to gather all the nations and ethnic groups; they will come and witness my splendour. I will perform a mighty act among them and then send some of those who remain to the nations – to Tarshish, Pul, Lud (known for its archers), Tubal, Javan, and to the distant coastlands that have not heard about me or seen my splendour.”

Isaiah 66:18-19

https://www.bible.com/107/isa.66.18-19.net

Jonah isn’t childishly trying to run away from God, but he is trying to get away from the particular place where God chose for His Name to dwell (Deuteronomy 12:5, 13).

It’s God’s presence (where a prophet was supposed to stand) 

that Jonah is seeking to flee.

And then this word 'down' keeps getting repeated ...

          •         down, down, down …

The author interestingly describes Jonah’s runaway journey as a descent.

• ‘He descended’ to Joppa.
  
  
• He went down into the ship.
  
  
• He went down into the hold.

God had commissioned Jonah to go ‘up’ to Nineveh in the East, but Jonah was wilfully fleeing God’s Word and God’s Glorious presence by going ‘down’ to the ‘West’ to Tarshish by way of Joppa.

If God said East he’d go West.

If God said up he’d go down.

It’s a picture of total rebellion that’s being painted, the rebellion against God of a prophet who should by definition stand in the presence of the Almighty.

And then ... and it's still only v. 4 of chapter 1 ... God delivers Jonah's stunning rebuke.

         •       Jonah’s rebuke, vv 4-7

In His mercy God is going to win His prophet back.

Fascinatingly, the commission Jonah fled is going to be repeated verbatim after God wins Jonah back.

But it’s going to be a really severe mercy that gets him back.

It often is.

There will no doubt be features of our own experience for many of us that chime with that.

Now look, we’ve got to confront this issue.

Sometimes in winning back the wayward from their waywardness, 

the Lord pulls them out of the hedge they’ve jumped into from

 the backward direction.

There will be times when that is painful and times when we might see that this was glorious … but tough times (whether for us ourselves or that we must watch) in the hand of a gracious God always wind up being for God’s greater glory, as long as we’re not just going to run.

Our theology needs room for severe mercies.

And here’s how that started looking for Jonah:

“Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up.

All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god.

And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship.

 

But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep.

The captain went to him and said, ‘How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.’

Then the sailors said to each other, ‘Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.’

They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah.”

Jonah 1:4-7

 

https://www.bible.com/113/jon.1.4-7.nivuk

 

In the famous words of Joe Louis, the boxer who ruled the heavyweight division between 1936 and 1948 before his 1941 title fight with Billy Conn, the world light-heavyweight champion:

  “you can run, but you can’t hide”.

Jonah’s found that out good and proper.

Here’s how it came about.

          •         The environment turns hostile, v. 4-a

First of all, providence turns ugly.

Specifically, the subject of the action in the book shifts suddenly and radically in a way that gets accentuated in the syntax.

We’re told that God hurled a storm onto the sea.

The environment Jonah’s run to turns hostile:

“Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose …”

Jonah 1:4

https://www.bible.com/113/jon.1.4.nivuk

There’s been a marked escalation of tension between the two main characters in the book.

In the normal pattern of a prophets verbal objection to their fitness for their calling, the Lord verbally rejects the excuses that are offered.

Jonah hasn’t verbally rejected his commission and the Lord Who gave it, 

and now the Lord utters not a word to closed ears, 

but closes in on the prophets flight with a storm.

That word there where the Lord flings a storm at Jonah calls to mind the throwing of a spear, so it really looks as if the Lord has stepped into His role as the Divine Warrior, who wages war against the forces of godlessness … but on this occasion is taking that role against this God-rejecting prophet Jonah.

Wind often serves as a Divine weapon either in defence of God’s covenant people or against them as a chastisement (Exodus 15:10, Psalm 48:8, Isaiah27:8, 59:18-19, Jeremiah 4:11, Ezekiel 13:11-13, 27:26, Hosea 13:15)

And it’s a beautiful bit of writing we’re looking at here, because the Lord’s flinging the storm AT the sea ends up with the sailors flinging Jonah IN the sea!

Interestingly it is no ordinary gale that gets deployed.

It was a great gale … the same adjective used to describe the great city of Nineveh in v. 2.

No, it’s not just the usual ‘grit in the mill’ stuff that’s going on with this storm.

This is something that has got the experts worried … more than worried, they are thoroughly terrified.

You can tell from the sailors’ reaction that this is unusual, and whilst you’d expect the prophet to be spiritually alert to this, it’s the sailors who fulfil the prophet’s expected role while the prophet’s 

• asleep
  
  
• insensitive and 
  
  
• shutting himself away from the blandishments of the Lord

The Lord does seem to use this sort of thing as a line of pretty early resort to get people to question whether something’s up.

It’s a wise person who’s learned early to pray: ‘Lord a lot’s going wrong … is something up?’

And it’s a wise reader who considers the contrasts we’re presented with next:

   •             The escape method gets compromised, v. 4b

   •             Pagan sailors sensitised, v. 5a

   •             Prophet Jonah deaf to God, v. 5b
Tim Keller yesterday tweeted: “The irreligious person knows she is far from God, but the religious person often does not.”

   •             Pagan Captain calls the prayer meeting, v. 6

   •             Pagan sailors seek God’s wisdom, v. 7

              •             Concealed sin of the prophet gets revealed, when a big part of the role of a prophet was … oh! … to reveal sin! (vv. 8-10)

The choice of language here is really important, and it is revealing of what’s going on.

Whilst Jonah’s sin here does clearly get revealed, 

it’s more uncovered than repented of at all.

At the start of v. 8 the sensitised sailors specifically ask

‘“They said to him,

“Tell us, whose fault is it that this disaster has overtaken us?

What’s your occupation?

Where do you come from?

What’s your country? And

who are your people?””

Jonah 1:8

https://www.bible.com/107/jon.1.8.net

 

Jonah answers one class of question there.

Look at what happens:

… the theological question (whose FAULT is this?) - ignored

… the Mastermind question (occupation) - ignored

… the ‘Who do you Think You Are?’ kind of questions (hometown, nationality, ethnicity) - answered

What does that tell you?

He has turned his back on his role as a prophet and is in denial about it … unwilling to speak out about God or acknowledge God’s call on his life to be a prophet.

He walks around the specific questions that might relate to that issue.

         •       Conclusion

There’s a really important principle being taught for us here about keeping the presence and the calling of God.

We work with the fundamental understanding that to live by virtue of Christ’s atoning death in the presence of God by the Spirit is for His people a vast, enormous blessing.

And so it is.

But in a world organised without reference to God, living HERE in His presence can be inhabiting a tough place to be.

It is sometimes uncomfortable to live with the consequences of God’s presence, because living in His presence comes with errands to run!

In Jonah’s case this ran directly counter to humanity’s pharisaic and unforgiving nature.

It’s not just Jonah … for any if us the Lord’s uncompromising challenge to show mercy to our enemies and put ourselves at risk for their blessing can sometimes be not just scary but utterly devastating.

The bottom line in this chapter is that, however natural it may be, Jonah ups and runs to a distant and exotic place, when God’s call had been to stand in the Heavenly throne room listening to proceedings and to run wherever he was sent with news for the people of what was happening there and what they needed to DO about it …

Elijah’s description of his prophetic calling in 1 Kings 17:1 serves as a good piece of context for Jonah’s flight:

“Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord the God of Israel lives,

before whom I stand,

there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.””

1 Kings 17:1 NRSV

https://www.bible.com/2016/1ki.17.1.nrsv

The scenario envisaged is that of the prophet standing in the court of the King in Heaven.

That is the prophet’s role, which Jonah flees.

The situation could be a very serious one.

As God revealed to Ezekiel in Ezekiel 33:6-8, a prophet who neglects his calling and fails to warn those on the verge of Divine judgement is held responsible for their blood and therefore incurs death himself.

And as he lay in the belly of the fish (spoiler alert … too late, there!) Jonah saw the very presence of God that he’d fled was what he deeply and desperately needed.

But look, fleeing God’s commission either to us, whether that’s or personal commission from God or the Great Commission to carry His Word to the lost, comes to people in two separate formats.

Take Elijah.

Elijah also fled when Jezebel threatened his life after his great victory over the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel (1 Kings 19:2).

But Elijah fled to the mountain of God … to Mount Sinai … where God revealed His truth to Moses.

Elijah was seeking refuge IN God’s presence and not FROM it (1 Kings 19:8-9)!

Yes Elijah fled the fray but he didn’t flee from God.

Jonah is a different case altogether, and there’s the point.

Jonah fled in a very different direction and he did it for the opposite purpose: he was bent on escaping from both God’s revelation and God's purpose.

Ministry … and all believers have one, this isn’t just a book for the dog-collared division in God’s armies … is difficult and for two distinct reasons:

Most obviously it is difficult because of the opposition God’s servants face … both inside and outside the community of faith.

It’s enough to make you want to walk away and hide some days.

It’s not what we’re called to, and we’ll be better off if we avoid doing that.

Secondly (and this one’s much less obvious and can be far more insidious), it is difficult because God’s mercy is very demanding.

God’s servants are required to proclaim His grace to some very unsavoury and undeserving people … made more difficult as we lose track of how unsavoury and undeserving we also are.

Doing that brings us into a situation with the Lord where we run not toward but from His presence and commission for false comfort elsewhere.

As we’re going to see NEXT in this book of Jonah, the Lord’s response in both cases … scandalously gracious … is loving correction (though it seems severe mercy), reassurance and redirection BACK into the thick of His battle.

How have YOU been doing with his commission through COVID ... and which direction are we running into now?