Chapter 4.6
Jonah and the
Whale
What’s up with Jonah running from God?
Did Jonah Die and was resurrected by God?
First Word
Question: Why was Jonah, the prophet of God, so
reluctant to do what God said? The assemblers of the Bible refer to Jonah as a “minor prophet”,
not because of his importance, but because of the size of his writings. His name means “Dove” (harmless). His father’s name was Amittai which means “My Truth”;
So Jonah was the son of “truth”. He was from a small village of Gath Hepher a
region with a large non-Hebrew population which might be the reason God called
him specifically to Nineveh. His prophetic messages were not for the Jews, but
for the Non-Jews of the time. Since the
word “Jew”
stems from the tribe of Judah only, it would be more correct to say his
messages were for non-Israelites.
His
writing has only one prophetic word mentioned; “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be over thrown.”
[1] That’s it; that’s the whole prophecy in the
whole book.
So the
inclusion of this book in our Bible must have a deeper meaning than this single
prophecy itself. While there are
several spin off studies, we will look at just two; Jonah’s
reluctance and what occurred inside that big fish.
Here’s
the story;
God tells Jonah to get up and go to Nineveh and preach to them about their
wickedness,[2]
but Jonah had a lot of emotions about this. He had a number of reasons that seem honorable
and valid to him that makes him reluctant to do what God had said.
Nineveh was synonymous with the word EVIL. They worshipped Ishtar, the goddess of love
and war. They were ruthless and cruel
with war crimes; impaling survivors on stakes; erecting pillars of skulls;
wearing decapitated heads around their necks, not to mention that they were
also the enemy of Israel.
Jonah was jealous for his country, in that
he wanted only Israel to be blessed of God, not other nations, particularly
those that lived in sin, idolatry and rebellion against God. For Heathen Nineveh to be taken into God’s
favor, it would be a slur; a dishonor to Israel; who were a peculiar people to
God. Although Jonah was a prophet, he
was also a patriot
of Israel and would surely prefer
that Nineveh get smushed like a cockroach under God’s foot. Jonah also knew that if Nineveh repented,
God would have mercy on them and would relent.
Consider
this:
A true prophet, the oracle of God is never wrong, and an unfulfilled prophecy
would in fact make him look like a false prophet. Think about that.
Jonah doesn’t see it God’s way and figures
that if he “sort of” disappears,
Nineveh will get what they deserve and Israel will be set apart as God’s only
blessed people. So he goes in the
opposite direction to Joppa and hops on a slow boat to Tarshish to avoid a
confrontation with God.
God knows where Jonah is and sends a great
wind to trouble the boat. The crew
figures out Jonah is the cause of their trouble and throws him overboard and a
giant fish swallows him and Jonah is inside this “sea monster” [3]
for three days.
As a
side note: The crew gives up calling out to their pagan
gods to save them and become true worshipers of the Living God of Jonah because
of what they witnessed with the calming of the winds after chunking Jonah
overboard. Their salvation is a word study into itself.
This brings us up to the most controversial
part of the story; Jonah inside the Whale.
Jonah 1:17 – A
great fish swallowed Jonah
4 Then the LORD sent a great wind
on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to
break up.
7 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.
12 "Pick me
up and throw me into the sea," he replied, "and it will become calm. I know that it
is my fault that this great storm has come upon you."
17 BUT THE LORD PROVIDED A GREAT FISH TO SWALLOW JONAH, and Jonah was
inside the fish three days and three nights. NIV
Belief System
overload
So here’s where we are; Jonah is in
this big fish and enzymes and acids are released to digest him, not to mention
that there is probably very little air to breath. The stomach also contains bones and shells
that crush the body of the prey. He is in the belly of hell.
Jonah 2:1-6 – In deep waters; Sea weed wrapped
around my head
1 From inside
the fish Jonah
prayed to the LORD his God. He
said:
5 The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me;
sea weed was wrapped around my head.
6 To the roots
of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. BUT YOU BROUGHT MY LIFE UP FROM THE PIT,
O LORD my God.
What I about to say next is going to mess with your BS, your Belief System. It was reported that in 1891 a sailor from a
capsized whaling ship was ingested by a sperm whale. This whale was subsequently caught and the
sailor was found alive with no injuries except his skin was permanently and
totally white from the gastric juices. So
we can now see how IT IS POSSIBLE that Jonah
lived for THREE DAYS inside the big
fish.
But I don’t buy it; I believe scripture implies that after three days
and three nights JONAH HAD
DIED and
was RESURRECTED
from the dead by the Living God. Let’s look at what Jesus said about
himself. He said that He would be DEAD IN THE
GRAVE for
three days and then come forth again JUST
LIKE JONAH as
a “Sign”
to the nations.
Luke 11:30 – Jonah is a Sign just like Jesus was (HE DIED)
30 For as Jonah was a SIGN to the
Ninevites,
so also will the Son of Man be to this
generation.
NIV
Matthew 12:40 – Jesus will be like Jonah was three
days & nights
40 For AS JONAH WAS THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS in the belly of
a huge fish, SO THE SON OF
MAN WILL BE three
days and three nights IN THE
HEART OF THE EARTH.
NIV
Let’s see what happened next. The
meal of Jonah
alamode sea
weed did not go down well without some tartar sauce and it made the big fish pretty sick and it
beached itself on the sand coughing and threw up; there laying in the sand, sea
weed and vomit was Jonah, bleached white and smelling pretty bad, but giving
thanks and praising God.
Interestingly, the winds and the great
fish obeyed the commands of God, but Jonah did not.
Then God said (paraphrased), “Look Jonah, I need
you to go over to Nineveh and take my message of repentance. Israel is not my only people; I want a
peculiar people in all nations”.
The trip to Nineveh was about five hundred miles and walking would have
taken Jonah about five weeks to accomplish, but maybe only a month by donkey or
God could have zapped him there.[4] Anyway, once he got there he preached throughout
the city for three days. Other writings
indicate God had already prepared Nineveh’s minds with two plagues and a total eclipse of the sun (darkness) which
was symbolic of the coming JUDGMENT of God.
Jonah 2: 10 – The big fish got sick; puked up
Jonah on dry land
10 And the LORD
commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
NIV
Jonah 3:1-2 – Second request; Go to Nineveh preach
judgment
1 Then the word
of the LORD came to Jonah a SECOND TIME:
2 "GO TO THE GREAT CITY OF NINEVEH and proclaim to
it the message I give you."
NIV
Jonah 3:3 – Jonah
gets with the program
3 JONAH OBEYED THE WORD OF THE LORD and went to
5 The Ninevites
believed God.
6 When the news
reached the king of
9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish."
10 When God saw
what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, HE HAD COMPASSION and did not
bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.
NIV
So here is where we are; on top of the
plagues Nineveh has just experienced; the Ninevites, have been hearing for
weeks that the prophet of God was on his way, and now they see this totally
white, stinking, previously dead man walking into town with sea weed wrapped
around him crying out to them to repent or God is “goin’ to get’em”.
He immediately drew a crowd in the streets and the town’s people
repented, put on sack cloth, sat down in ashes and declared a fast for
themselves as well as for their animals.
When the word reached the King, terror gripped him and he said, “Hey,
let’s all repent and change our ways, WHO
KNOWS, GOD MIGHT JUST CHANGE HIS
MIND and have mercy on our city”.
They
all did, and God did.
This REVIVAL ticks off Jonah
and he wants to die. In his own mind he
looks like a fool because he knew that God would have mercy on the REPENTING Ninevites.[5] To make things even worse, here heathen
Nineveh had repented; but God’s chosen people of Israel had not. He was pretty bummed out. Jonah has lots of emotions concerning anger,
justice, the full measure of punishment due, and the
mystery of the compassion of God.
So Jonah goes on top of a hill, builds himself a little shelter from the
sun and waits forty days to see if God will blow up the city. You can read the rest for yourself; I have
covered my two points: Why Jonah was reluctant to go to Nineveh and that he actually died and
was resurrected.
Believe
it or not, it’s in the Book
The Take Away
Man
cannot hide from God; the Gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.[6] Jonah DID DIE inside the whale and was resurrected
by God as a sign and shadow of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Jonah’s
disobedience cut off the fellowship and grace of God, but his prayers of
repentance reinstated him. Note: It was God that started the reconciliation
process of mercy with Jonah, He pursued him.[7] God hears our prayers in the blackest places on
the bottom of the sea of turmoil.[8]
Our Situation may look hopeless and our condition may seem to exclude us
from God’s mercy and grace, but this is a lie from the pit of hell. Draw near to God and reach out, He is already
there with compassion, mercy and grace.[9] The message here is man can walk, even run in
the opposite direction from God, but God is willing to receive repenting
sinners and repenting saints back.
Once under God’s umbrella we are still wet
bearing the effects of sin and must have time to dry off, but we ARE saved and out of the rain.
The scriptures teach that Jonah felt strong about his people just like
in the time of Jesus; when the believing Jews wanted the Gospel to be exclusive
to them, but God has other plans. We
have denominations today that say that they are God’s only chosen sheep.
God wants a peculiar people that are
devoted to Him and He started with Israel, but He did not want them isolated from the rest of the world.[10] Salvation is not exclusive to a few chosen, but
to all nations that would receive the message of JESUS
CHRIST.[11]
The Essenes who
lived in the Qumran desert community, where the Dead Sea scrolls were
discovered, had separated themselves and were totally devoted to God. Jesus did not rebuke them, nor join them, but
took his message to the streets of the Towns.
The
lesson is;
God will discipline disobedience.
The
lesson is; man’s
ability to repent; God’s willingness to forgive and the changing of fate.
The lesson
is; God’s plan will
be accomplished in spite of human imperfection, weakness, disobedience and
attitude.
The
lesson is;
the most unpromising mission fields are often the most responsive. The Ninevites need was great as they had no
one with a moral compass to lead them.
I HAVE OTHER SHEEP THAT ARE NOT OF THIS SHEEP
PEN.
I MUST BRING THEM ALSO. John 10:14-16
I
seem to find myself with a heart that wants to defend those such as; the
prophet Jonah who knew that Nineveh was God’s and Israel’s enemy, and that God’s
compassion would repent and not blow them up. I seem to understand when the Israelites had a
heart to worship and made the golden calf, and then there’s Judas’ whose desire
was to just force God’s earthly kingdom to come now.
Somehow, I feel they were all just imperfect
and ignorant of God’s Devine plan, thus misguided. I ponder sometimes, why God has remained so
faithful and patient with us. Just
saying
I feel if you belong to an organization,
to really be a member, you should study the “covenants” and restrictions,
rules
and regulations.
You may or may
not really be a member in good standing.
[1] Jonah 3:4 - He
proclaimed: "Forty more days and Nineveh will be
overturned."
[2] Jonah 1:1-2- Go to
Nineveh and Preach against its wickedness
[3] Isaiah 27:1- A coiling, withering SEA MONSTER called
Leviathan
[4] Acts 8:40- Philip was zapped to the city of Azotus
[5] Jonah 4:1-3 – I told you
so; I knew that with your compassion you would relent
[6] Romans 11:29 – God’s call
is irrevocable
[7] Matthew 18:12 – God will
hunt down the one that is His and is lost
[8] Mark 2:17 – It is the
sick that need a doctor
[9] James 4:8 – Draw near to
God and He will draw near to you
[10] Titus 2:14 – God wants a
peculiar people
[11] 2 Peter 3:9 – God is not
willing that any should perish
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