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Alex Dooley
BITH 211 Cultural/Ideological Perspectives Project
Dr. Hill
29 November 2012

The book of Jonah is a riveting, thought-provoking narrative of an episode in the life of

the prophet for which it was named. Jonah, son of Amittai, was instructed by Yahweh in Jonah
1:2 to Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up
before me. This is the only instance in the Old Testament when God commands a prophet to go
to a foreign city for the purpose of giving such a message. Jonah, knowing that Nineveh was a
city of Gentiles, clearly had a strong desire to not go to Nineveh, and chose to disobey the Lord
by boarding a ship setting off for Tarshish, which was located on the opposite side of the
Mediterranean Sea. The remainder of the book details the results of his action, the events that
followed, and gives its readers a powerful story of God's love, justice, and mercy.
According to the biblical account of Jonah in its first chapter, the prophet was thrown into
the sea in order to appease the wrath of God being poured out on his disobedience. Upon this
unceremonious ejection from the sailing vessel, a great fish came and swallowed Jonah, where
he miraculously survived in its gullet for three days, then ejected him onto the shore of the
Mediterranean. Due to the sensational nature of these claims, some scholars have been inclined
to question the factual nature of the book, thus labeling it as an allegory, parable, or midrash
(Hill, Walton 495), and commentators take different approaches to the summarization of its
literary genre.

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In his commentary on the book of Jonah found within the Asbury Bible Commentary, G.
Herbert Livingston spends several paragraphs hashing out the differences of the multiple
interpretations made by various scholars. Although Livingston does not make any particularly
normative statements regarding the historicity of the book and leaves room for interpretation on
either side of the argument, he seems to write with a leaning toward a literal interpretation of the
book, although he never explicitly states his personal view.
In his article on Jonah in the Africa Bible Commentary, Beninese scholar Augustin Cossi
Ahoga chooses to approach the matter of the importance of Jonah's literary genre in a completely
different way than Livingston. Rather than giving credence to either side of the proverbial coin
and participating in the argument, he explains that taking time to consider whether or not the
events explained in the book of Jonah actually took place goes against the grain of the African
oral tradition and stems from a different mindset of interpreting literature, thus being fruitless for
the African people, and perhaps for anyone studying the book. This approach to evaluating the
words of this particular passage of scripture lends itself very well to fully drawing out the
richness of the text without distraction, and is a strength of the article.
After the Lord responded to his prayer from the interior of the fish and spared him from
certain expulsion into the sea, causing the fish to spit him onto dry land, Jonah decided to obey
the Lord and continue on to Nineveh to preach the message the Lord had given to him. Jonah's
actions indicated that he was ready to surrender his will to God and obediently serve Him, but
there seemed to be mixed emotions stirring themselves up in Jonah (Livingston 759).
Jonah went to Nineveh as the Lord commanded, and preached the prophetic message of
condemnation given to him by God, but left no room in his heart for the Ninevites to repent and

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turn to Yahweh. He was so disgusted by the sins of Nineveh that he may have even smugly
desired the justice and wrath of God to smite the city. Given his reaction as detailed in the fourth
chapter of the book, it is easy to imagine the surprise Jonah must have felt at the repentant spirit
of the Ninevites, especially when the king of Nineveh responded so intensely to the message of
the Lord.
Dr. John Walton raises question to the nature of the conversion of the Ninevites in his
book coauthored with Dr. Andrew Hill, A Survey of the Old Testament, noting that the
repentance exhibited by the Ninevites is not the same as a conversion experience itself. Both
Ahoga and Livingston, on the other hand, suggest that the repentance of Nineveh denotes a true
change of heart and turning to the worship of Yahweh alone. While the biblical text itself does
not outrightly state either one of these opinions, the overall message of God's mercy is not lost in
either interpretation of the passage.
Following his assignment in Nineveh, Jonah took a detour on his way out of Assyria.
Rather than taking a direct route home, he sat down at a high place to the east with a full view of
the city, almost daring God to take action against the Ninevites in judgement (Ahoga 1048). In
an object lesson of His grace and compassion, the Lord caused a plant to grow up over Jonah,
providing him with shade and comfort in the heat of the day. This runs parallel to the mercy that
God showed to Nineveh, sparing them the consequences of their sin upon their repentance from
their evil-doing.
However, at dawn the next day, God caused a hot wind to blow in from the east and
commanded a worm to eat away the roots of the plant, leaving Jonah to simmer in the intense
heat of the day. The irony of this lies in that Jonah, the prophet of the Lord, was left to

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experience the judgement of the Lord as a result of his uncompassionate, selfish attitude the
same judgement that was originally intended for the Ninevites. Jonah responded to this quite
immaturely, stating that he would rather die than live as a result of the events that had unfolded
over the preceding days.
The way that the New International Version words the seventh verse of chapter four of
Jonah is interesting, stating that the Lord provided a worm to chew, and thus wither, the plant.
God clearly intended for Jonah to learn something from this experience, especially given the
stated provision of the worm. We do not know if Jonah learned the lesson God was attempting
to teach him the book of Jonah actually ends with a question, seemingly directly in the middle
of a dialogue between Jonah and the Lord. We can learn the lesson regardless of whether or not
Jonah walked away from the episode a wiser man; God loves all people, and desires to exhibit
His compassion to all humans. That being said, God also has the right to be angry, and has the
authority to judge who and when He sees fit. Just as the Lord showed His mercy and compassion
to the Ninevites, so does He show His love to us, and in the same way that He disciplined Jonah,
He has all rights and power to discipline those who He calls His own.

Bibliography
Ahoga, Augustin Cossi, ed. Africa Bible Commentary. Nairobi, Kenya: WordAlive, 2006. Print.
Carpenter, Eugene E., Wayne McCown, and G. Herbert Livingston. Asbury Bible Commentary.
Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Pub. House, 1992. Print.
Hill, Andrew E., and John H. Walton. A Survey of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan Pub. House, 1991. Print.