Jonah-- the misunderstood prophet

Poor Jonah. No one ever looks at his story in historical context, especially taking into account chapter 4. I was lucky enough to be in a class where we did both and it made me totally understand the poor guy better. I was very excited to share my insight with my Sunday School class yesteday when we were studying his story, but they just didn't get it. Blank stares. Continued blame for being faithless. I was sad. I decided to plead Jonah's case to you, my blogging audience. Thank you for listening.

First, let's point out that Ninevah was in Assyria. We Bible-studiers are familiar with Assyria-- in addition to being total bad a's (that anyone would be afraid to go preach repentance to), they were also enemies and continual threat to the Israelites.

Sec0nd, let's point out the geographic situation:

As you can see from this map that I just found on the internet, Assyria is not at all far from Israel. Yep, it pretty much right up there by the northern 10 tribes.

Third, let's point out that Jonah must have been a pretty awesome, with-it, righteous, inspired man. A) he was a prophet after all, B) the people on the ship recognized him as a man of God, C) once he decided to do what God wanted, he did manage to convert an entire city of unbelievably wicked people. These things are not accomplished by faint-hearted, faith-lacking, pansy, lily-livered girly-men like we normally paint him to be.

Fourth, let's examine chapter four. This is after everyone in Ninevah repents. Jonah's mission has been totally successful-- not only had he not gotten killed, he managed to save all these souls. But he goes up on a mountain looking over the city and talks to God. He says that before he even left home he knew that the people would repent, which was exactly why he tried to run away. Then, he says that he wishes he were dead and asks the Lord to kill him.

What? With the way this has been taught to us since Primary, chapter four just makes no sense.

Now, consider this: Jonah understood the idea that the Lord blesses the righteous. Repentance shifts the balance of power. If one nation is more righteous than another, God favors that nation more. He understood that a big part of the reason Assyrian had not yet conquered Israel is because Israel was more righteous. So, if he knew before he even left that the people of Ninevah would repent and become more righteous than the Israelites, and thereby gain God's favor and upset the balance of power, enabling them to defeat Israel in war. In other words, his mission would bring about the downfall of his own nation. That is WAY scarier than the idea of being killed for Christ's sake. And that is something that even a strong, faithful man like Jonah might try to avoid.

And that is exactly how it turned out-- Jonah's mission to Ninevah was sometimes between 793 and 753 BC and the Assyrians conquered the 10 Tribes in 722 BC.


In sharing this information, I'm not trying to say that Jonah was a perfect person or that it was right for him to run away from what God wanted him to do. Of course, Jonah needed to do what he was called to do, even if it was hard and would cause the eventual downfall of his own people. I just think we need to give him credit for the fact that what he was asked to do was way harder than just risking his life to preach the gospel.


To summarize: of course Jonah should have done what God wanted and not try to run away. But, let's give him credit for the fact that he wasn't just afraid of being killed, he didn't want the destruction of his entire country on his head. Which seems reasonable. Not a good excuse for disobeying God, but you can kind of see where he's coming from.