Jonah Introduction
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It is significant for the meaning of the story to know that the Assyrians were feared throughout the ancient Near East and threatened the very existence of Israel shortly after the time of Jonah. In their inscriptions the Assyrians boast of their conquests and of their cruel treatment of prisoners of war.
To some extent it is possible to interpret Jonah in more than one way because the meaning derives from narrative rather than from explicit statements. Nevertheless, there are some clues in the story that should help. Here are two.
The first clue involves the intended audience of the book. It would have to have been written to Israel or Judah, not Assyria. So how would an Israelite have reacted to this book? Other prophets complained that Israel failed to respond to their messages, but the Ninevites responded immediately to Jonah’s simple statement, “In forty days Nineveh will be demolished!” (3:4). Jonah’s story would have been a rebuke to the Israelites and an exhortation for them to likewise repent.
A second clue is found in the reason that Jonah gave God for why he fled. He knew that God was merciful and would forgive the Ninevites, not destroy them. Jonah represented Israel’s provincial attitude that the Lord was unconcerned about those outside Israel. The book of Jonah tried to bring a corrective to that.
If we reflect on how we might be like Jonah, some of our incorrect attitudes may come to the surface. Are we concerned only about ourselves in our faith? Is ministry important only if it has some relationship to us personally? To our racial or ethnic group? Are there groups that we would rather hate than love? Have we opened our lives completely to God’s grace, compassion, and love if we are unwilling to love those who have offended us deeply?
Jesus’s parable of the unforgiving servant (Mt 18:23-35) makes a nice parallel to the message of Jonah. Indeed, a theme that runs from Deuteronomy (6:4-5), through all the Prophets, and on into the New Testament is that God wants his people to love him wholly and to love their neighbor as themselves (see Mic 6:8; Lk 10:25-37; Jms 2:8; 1Jn 4:7-21). The book of Jonah conveys this message in a unique way.