Finally, a prophet we’ve all heard of! It’s time for the famous story of Jonah and the Whale! I probably don’t even have to introduce this, though I have no doubt that we will find that we don’t really remember the story the way it is actually written. A lot of that is because most of us probably got a sanitized kid’s version of it. Once again we have historians arguing over the temporal period – with claims of anywhere from the 8th to 2nd century BCE, depending on who you talk to. Unlike the other prophetic books, this one, apparently, has no prophecies, but is instead a narrative story, with a plot, some plot twists, and a lot of irony, as Jonah attempts to get out of his assigned prophetic role.
- God appears to Jonah and tells him to go to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, located in modern day Iraq, and prophesy its doom. Jonah, not interested, buys passage on a ship bound for Tarshish, believed to be on the southern shores of what is now Spain. God sends a storm, Jonah ignores it and goes to sleep, the sailors determine that Jonah’s the target of the storm, he tells them why, they pray to God to save themselves and try to save Jonah, but in the end, throw him overboard at his request, and the storm stops.
- Jonah’s drowning in the sea, and God sends “a big fish” to swallow him whole. He spends three days and three nights inside the fish, in the depths of the sea, and by the end, he’s had enough. He promises to fulfill his prophetic obligations. The fish swims to the shore and spits him out on the beach.
- God repeats his instructions, and this time, Jonah heads to Nineveh. It’s a big city, and he spends three days walking across it, announcing to all that in forty days, God’s going to destroy them for their wicked ways. Amazingly, for a change, the people believe the prophet, and they rip off their clothes, put on sackcloth, and fast. Even the king of the city! When God sees that they’re truly repentant, he revokes his plan to destroy them.
- Jonah is not pleased. After all, he gave up his life at home, traveled across the sea, partly in the belly of a fish, spent days walking across Nineveh announcing their imminent doom, and here God goes and says, all is forgiven. With all that work he put in, Jonah wants to see destruction. He goes and sits on a hill, God makes a castor bean plant grow and provide shade, which makes Jonah happy. Then God kills it and Jonah is pissed again. God says, look at how pissed you are at the destruction of a plant, and you didn’t even put any effort into growing it, I did. Grow up.