Introduction to the Book
We know this story so well but we need to know it afresh. We must pray that the Lord will bring it to us with real freshness and power and deliver us from thinking it's a good children's story.
We must also try to release ourselves from simply seeing it as a battleground in terms of whether such things could happen. We have no problem with the supernatural but many battles have been fought over the details of this story. As one man has said, "'Men have been looking so hard at the great fish that they have failed to see the great God'. It is the greatness of Israel's God that is the burden of the book" (Allen, p.192, quoting GC Morgan).
The book is history (the way Jesus speaks of it shows that) but it is also carefully constructed as a story. Consider this structure for it (show chart from Allen p.200). This is history told in such a way as to get our attention and teach us lessons!
As we go through the book, we will aim to keep an eye on the NT because this is a book that is important in the unfolding of the purposes of God for his world and also in terms of the ministry of the Lord Jesus.
We won't stop here to take it all in but one summary of the book's main lesson may be helpful to us and serve to wet our appetites as we begin our studies of it: "Look at the world, pleads the author, at God's world. See it through God's eyes. And let your new vision overcome your natural bitterness, your hardness of soul. Let the divine compassion flood your own hearts." (Allen, p.194).
Verse 1
The word of the LORD came - Here is a phrase that appears over 100 times in the OT to introduce a divine communication to a prophet. The Lion is going to roar! It is time for man to listen!
to Jonah, son of Amittai - Jonah has cropped up before in the scriptures, in 2 Kings 14:24,25 where his ministry was to prophecy the extension of the borders of the northern kingdom under an evil king! That helps us to date Jonah's ministry to sometime in the 8th century bc.
God is here speaking again to a prophet he has used before, a man used to receiving and passing on the message of God. He would know what to do with the Lord's word!
Verse 2
Go - the LORD's commands Jonah to go at once about his task; the phrase is the equivalent of 'action stations!' We're to expect something to happen and soon!
to the great city of Ninevah - the phrase possibly means not just the actual city but the whole region of Ninevah that took in other towns too; Ninevah was on the east bank of the Tigris (in northern Iraq).
Ninevah was the capital city of Assyria. Once it had been an empire and a force on the world stage but by Jonah's day it was in steep decline (although it would later be responsible for the destruction of Israel). Foreign expansion had ceased, there domestic rebellions in the land and there was a very severe famine in the land, as well as a solar eclipse on June 15th 763 bc! They were known as a very cruel people.
and preach against it - the phrase implies a message of judgement against Ninevah.
because its wickedness has come up before me - the words are reminiscent of the situation with Sodom and Gomorrah. Ninevah's sin is great. And it is the sin of the nation, not just certain individuals. They are all embroiled in it.
God is concerned about the sins of nations. Amos ch's 1&2 show that to us and this verse confirms it to us.
Verse 3
Then we're hit with a real surprise. Indeed, the book is full of surprises: "it is crammed with an accumulation of hair-raising and eye-popping phenomena, one after the other" (Allen, p.176). You get the idea that God is trying to get our attention as well as Jonah's!
And verse 3 surprises & shocks because Jonah the prophet does in one sense what a prophet should do - he responds straight away - yet his response is one of rebellion against the Lord's word. We've been led to expect action but not this sort!
Verse 3 is full of hustle and bustle as Jonah gets ready to leave and flee from God. There are 2 points that emphasise to us his determination not to do as God has commanded him to do.
First, his chosen destination: Tarshish is thought to be in Spain (see map), about as far away as you could get! Second, the Hebrew people were not sea people; as one commentator has said, this is "proof positive of his mad determination" to escape God.
Why was he running? Clearly it is to do with the task he has been assigned but we're not told yet and shall await the book's timing. But for now we need to just notice how even a believer can be overcome by the madness of sin, all logic and reason flying out of the window (he knew Psalm 139!).
We need to pray for ourselves that the Lord will keep us steady in our walk with him. It's easy to look at Jonah and sneer but in a sense he is Everyman. This is a story for you and I, for the church at large. We're equally as capable of mad rebellion against the Lord.
