Jonah and the Character of God
Jonah is a well known story for many Christians. Jonah is famous for being swallowed by a big fish and living in its belly for three days and three nights after requesting a captain and mariners throw him into the Mediterranean Sea. What’s often overlooked in this famous story is that Jonah was brought to the point of being swallowed by a fish because of disobedience in fleeing God’s calling. Jonah is not a man to be admired. Even though Jonah deliberately disobeyed God, I believe that Christians today can learn from his story in several ways. God is the sovereign, providential, loving, gracious, miraculous, and saving hero in the book of Jonah, and I want to point out areas where we specifically see God’s character working through Jonah, despite his sin.
Jonah was a prophet, the son of Amittai, and from a place called Gath-hepher in Galilee (2 Kings 14:25). He prophesied at a time when Assyria was threatening the northern kingdom of Israel. As one of Israel’s worst enemies, Assyria was a very wicked nation believed by many historians to practice cruel and unusual things, even burning their enemies alive. Nineveh (modern day Iraq), was the capital of Assyria and the largest city in the ancient world. From its founding by Noah’s great grandson Nimrod (Genesis 10:6-12), Nineveh represented a major enemy of God’s people. Like Assyria, Nineveh had a reputation of both cruel and wicked acts and had significant influence over the ancient Middle East. Despite their wickedness, God commissioned Jonah to prophesy to the Ninevites at the beginning of the book of Jonah. At the time that Jonah was called, he was well into his ministry. Also the only prophet who was called to preach to Gentiles, let alone a Gentile nation.
Jonah’s mission was clear, he was to go preach judgement and repentance to the great city of Nineveh. God told Jonah “their evil has come up before me” (Jonah 1:2) and in commissiong Jonah, He intended to do something about it. Nineveh was the center of idolatrous worship and God threatened to judge them if they didn’t repent and turn from their sin.
Jonah understood his calling as a prophet of God and also understood his identity before God, which brings me to the first way we see in the story of Jonah the character of God.
Jonah reveals God’s identity and who he is in response
After God called Jonah to go preach to the Ninevites, Jonah fled from the presence of God by getting on a ship sailing to Tarshish (known as Tartessus, a merchant city in southern Spain identified by the Greek historian Herodotus), far west and in the opposite direction of Nineveh, showing his reluctance to bring salvation to the Gentiles. While on the ship, the LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea, and the mariners were afraid. After the mariners each cried out to their gods, and the captain found Jonah asleep, they cast lots to see who was at fault causing God to create the storm. The lot then providentially fell on Jonah and the mariners asked Jonah to identify himself. Jonah then answered profoundly by first identifying himself as a “Hebrew who fears the LORD, the God of Heaven; who made the sea and dry land” (Jonah 1:9). He was knowledgeable and confident in the God he served. Even in his disobedience, he expressed a number of times his understanding of who God is. Jonah knew when he made those statements that he was speaking to pagan sailors who worshiped multiple gods, possibly the sky god Baal. Yet, Jonah showed faithfulness in properly identifying not only what nation he was from, but the God of that nation, the God who created all things and who governs all things. Through the folly of Jonah’s attempt to escape Him, God used Jonah to preach the one and only true God that ultimately changed the mariners beliefs in their false gods.
Jonah reveals God’s Fatherly care
The second way God used Jonah was showing that Jonah was faithful to worship God during his darkest time, a near-death experience. After Jonah told the captain and mariners who he was and that he had fled from God, he then told them to throw him into the sea to spare them from the storm. As the storm became more tempestuous against them, they picked Jonah up and threw him into the sea, and the sea ceased from it's raging. The men on the ship then made vows and offered sacrifices to the LORD, fearing Him. Scholars believe that the storm, Jonah's words, and the lots indicated to the sailors that God was involved, leading the sailors to worship God. The response from the sailors also indicates that Jonah told them more than what's recorded.
Jonah apparently sank to the depth of the sea and God sovereignly appointed a great fish to keep him from dying. When God appointed the fish to swallow Jonah, “he prayed to God from the belly of the fish” (Jonah 2:1). Verse 2 expresses his distress by saying “I called out to the Lord, out of my distress and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice”. Jonah spoke to the Fatherly care and deliverance of God. Jonah here also acknowledged the sovereignty of God and God’s mercy on him. God is love and He expresses His Fatherly love to His children by not leaving them or forsaking them (Deuteronomy 31:6). This is something that all Christians need to be reminded of. God is our Heavenly Father who sees all things, is in control of all things, and hears our cries. Through our darkest time (even if we bring it upon ourselves, as Jonah did), God promises to not neglect us. This should encourage us as shepherds and elders of a congregation, as fathers and mothers of children, and as brothers and sisters in Christ. Whatever position we hold on this earth, God will lead us to live with an understanding that He will never leave nor forsake us.
Jonah reveals God’s saving mercy
After Jonah was spit up on Gentile land, God called him again to prophesy to Nineveh and he obeyed and then waited to see how Nineveh would respond. Once God saw that Nineveh listened and turned away from their evil ways, it says God relented of the disaster. God relented because He’s a God of salvation who keeps His promises. This made Jonah angry! Then, in his anger with God, it says he prayed to the LORD saying “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was still in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster” (Jonah 4:1-3). Jonah’s prayer reveals he was a rotten prophet with deep hatred in his heart for the Gentiles who oppressed his people. He was so filled with hatred that in the very next sentence he asked God to take his life, saying it would be better for him to die than to see Nineveh repent. In the midst of these thoughts and prayer, do you notice his clear understanding of the character of God? He not only understood God to be the creator of all things and governor of all things, but also to be a caregiver and a deliverer.
This was a very disorderly prayer, made in the heat of passion, and very different from what we see when Jonah prayed in the belly of the fish. I want to make one thing clear, in no way am I saying this is a good example of how we should approach God through prayer. We should not come to Him in the heat of passion and rage, but with affection, gentleness and fervency. Jonah’s tone fueled by his hatred of Nineveh also shows that he looked at God’s grace, mercy, slowness to anger, and abounding, steadfast love as a flaw. He wanted these qualities of God to be only for Israel, not for all the nations. I believe Christians can learn from this, mainly by celebrating rather than condemning God’s gracious character. God’s character is flawless. He is a perfect God with our best interest at heart. Christians often live life forgetting or even not acknowledging that God has foundational, unchanging attributes that we should rest on. Our salvation testifies to the loving, merciful, and gracious character of God. It’s also through the mercy and grace of God that we have forgiveness of our sins and a Helper sent to teach us all truths. God’s steadfast love is what gives us hope that many more evildoers will be saved from their sin and brought to repentance. It’s the pure grace of God that Jesus came to die and offer eternal life for those that will believe. The unchanging goodness of the character of God gives us hope and security. Acknowledging the character of God should comfort us and give us a foundation to rest on.
“Christians can learn from this, mainly by celebrating rather than condemning God’s gracious character.”
Although Jonah approached this wrong, my goal is to point out that he knew God to have these characteristics so much that he fled to Tarshish, believing he could prevent God from displaying these attributes to people he hated. In His sinful attempt to escape, God still used Jonah to reveal who He is in profound ways and still brought Jonah to obey His command. The main thing I want us to learn from Jonah is God’s revelation of His character. It’s the foundation of our relationship with Him. The more we know about God, the better we are in our prayer life, in our worship to Him and the better we are equipped to defend the character of God against a hostile world that distorts who He is. We should have comfort in the person of God. In the story of Jonah, we learn that God is our heavenly Father that hears our prayers in our darkest moments. He will never forsake His people. He is also a deliverer that is merciful to evildoers, slow to anger, giving all people on this earth hope of salvation. As the prophet Jonah unwillingly submitted to these truths about God, my hope is that we will do the same, willingly submitting ourselves daily to the unchanging attributes of the Creator of the universe.