More than a Fish Story


Jonah 1:1
1 Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.”

One of the most fascinating and famous stories in all of the Bible is that of the prophet Jonah. Even those who do not know much about the Bible will be able to tell you that Jonah “got swallowed by a whale.” While the text never calls it a whale but a “great fish”, I suppose that a whale is how people see the story because that’s how our imaginations can grapple with it best. We’ll handle that in more detail later.

While this book only four short chapters, it is a literary masterpiece of history, satire, irony and structure. It ends not with a satisfying summation of the story or a happy ending, but instead with a question that leaves the reader truly wanting more. That’s probably one of my favorite aspects of the story. As I was doing some of the background work for this post, I found this schematic in Jonah: The Concordia Commentary by Dr. R. Reed Lessing. (You will find numerous quotes from Dr. Lessing throughout my posts about Jonah, as his commentary is pure gold.) As a person with a background in literature, I’m fascinated by things like this. I share this with you just so that you can get a small feel for the brilliance that is this piece of work.

Chapters 1–2                                       Chapters 3–4
Word of Yahweh comes to Jonah (1:1)             Word of Yahweh comes to Jonah (3:1)
Content of the Word (1:2)                                  Content of the Word (3:2)
Response of Jonah (1:3)                                   Response of Jonah (3:3–4)
Gentile response (1:5)                                      Gentile response (3:5)
Action of the captain (1:6)                                 Action of the king (3:6–9)
Sailors and Jonah (1:7–15b)                            Ninevites and God (3:10b)
Disaster averted (1:15c)                                   Disaster averted (3:10c)
Response of sailors (1:16)                               Response of Jonah (4:1)
Yahweh and Jonah (2:1–10)                            Yahweh and Jonah (4:2–3)
Yahweh’s response (2:11)                                Yahweh’s response (4:6–11)
Lessing, R. R. ©2007. Jonah (p. 34). St. Louis, MO: CPH.

Jonah's story is met with an incredible amount of skepticism in 2017. Most people would call it a cute story and nothing more than myth or fable. I do not stand on that ground. This is an historical narrative. Jonah was a real person who spent real time in the belly of a great fish so that God could garner his attention and his obedience. But this is not a story about Jonah. It is instead a story of God’s tenacious love for everyone. While Jonah really has very few lines in the book, God speaks many times and His name is mentioned 10 times more than Jonah’s.

. . . prophetic stories in the OT often glorify the prophet in the sense that he is revealed as a faithful mediator of Yahweh’s Word. But Jonah is no hero; he is portrayed throughout most of the book in a very poor light. Gerhard von Rad puts it this way: “God is here glorified not through his ambassador, but in spite of his ambassador’s complete refusal.” Jonah is a highly sophisticated literary masterpiece that fits the genre of historical narrative. The structure and use of key words convey numerous ironies that are intended to satirize Jonah, and those like him, who seek to limit the grace of God to themselves and who resent the God of Israel extending salvation to all—even Gentiles—through faith.
Lessing, R. R. ©2007. Jonah (p. 2, 38). St. Louis, MO: CPH.

And so, we begin with God’s message to Jonah. Go to Nineveh and give them my warning. With those words, God sets Jonah upon a path which he immediately jumps off of and heads in his own direction. But God’s plan will not be thwarted and thus the stage is set for this incredible story not of a man swallowed by a fish, but instead of a God who will go to extremes to see that His love is fulfilled. It's a good day because I'm always excited to start something new!

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