 |
Jonah: |
|
| Title: Jonah: Hands Across Time | Type: Oil Dimensions: Width/Height (in inches) 60/48 Year: 2010 | |
This painting attempts to visually capture the inner turbulence of the Prophet Jonah’s soul alongside the outer turbulence of his oppressed life. Jonah son of Amittai was a Prophet in the Northern Kingdom of Israel most active during the reign of Jereboam II in 786-746 BC, roughly twenty five years prior to the fall of Israel to the Assyrians in 722-721 BCE.
It is generally assumed that Jonah’s name is derived from the very commonly employed Hebrew definition of “Jonah” which means “dove” as first mentioned in the tale of Noah. The characterization of being dove-like implies a sense of freedom of flight, an inability to be contained, restrained, or controlled. It implies a creature of peace at peace. The Prophet Jonah not only has none of these personality traits, he is in fact the polar opposite.
The alternative and far less known, and employed, definition of the word “Jonah” is “oppression”. This is the real etymological root of the Prophet Jonah’s name. He is indeed oppressed and hence quite depressed, for very good reason, as will be described in detail below.
The definition of the word “Jonah” (in Hebrew “Yonah”) meaning “oppression” is employed on multiple occasions in Tanach. e.g:
1) “because of the fierceness of the yonah (oppressing sword), and because of his fierce anger (Jeremiah 25:38),
2) “For fear of the yonah (oppressing) sword” (Jeremiah 50:16, and 46; 16), and
3) “Woe to her that is filthy and polluted, the city ha- yonah (of oppression)”; Zephaniah 3:1.
In order to fully comprehend Jonah’s motivations and thought processes throughout this book, which superficially appear somewhat incomprehensible, it is important to know where he comes from, and the historical political context of his day.
There is a medrash which identifies Jonah as the son of the widow (almana) who was revived after his death by Elijah the Prophet. This child, in the text, is never referred to by name (Kings I 17:17-19). He is merely called the son of the widow or of the woman. Neither his father’s nor his family’s name is mentioned. There are multiple textual parallels between this child’s experiences and that of Jonah’s, as well as linguistic corollaries which strongly buttress this hypothetical medrashic identification.
To understand the basis of Jonah’s presumed identification with the son of the widow it is first important to briefly summarize the well known plain story of the Book of Jonah.
Jonah is told by God to go to the city of Nineveh in order to induce its inhabitants to repent their sins. Jonah doesn’t like this idea, so he boards a ship en route to Tarshish, far away from Nineveh, escaping God, and his mission. God creates a great tempest threatening the lives of all the sailors on board including Jonah, who decides to go below deck so that he can sleep through the event, and hopefully never wake up. The sailors awaken him, and after casting lots, they squeeze out of Jonah that he is running away from God, the creator of the land and sea, and it is he who is the source of this terrifying meteorological turbulence. Therefore, if they throw him overboard, the sea will be stilled, and their lives will be saved. The sailors pick him up and throw him overboard, the sea relaxes, and consequently, the vessel and crew are saved.
God prepares a big fish that swallows Jonah whole. While inside the big fish for three days and three nights, Jonah repents his sins, prays, and when he concludes with the words “God is the salvation”, the equivalent of “open sesame” he is vomited out of the fish onto dry land upon God’s command. Now, when asked by God to go to Nineveh, he does not tarry, and goes without complaints. He tells them that in forty days they will be destroyed unless they repent, and they do, much to Jonah‘s consternation. They are saved from God’s wrath.
Let us now return to the details of Jonah’s childhood origins i.e. his childhood premature death and miraculous resuscitation:
“And it came to pass after these things that the son of the woman (previously referred to as the widow), the head of the household fell sick; and his sickness was so sore, that there was no breath left in him. And she said to Elijah: what do I have to do with you, man of God? Did you come here to remind me of my sins, and to kill my son? And Elijah said: give me your son. He took her from her bosom, and he took him up to the upper chamber where he was staying, and laid him on his bed” (Kings I 17:17-19). “And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and he called onto God and said: God return this child’s life back into him. God listened to the voice of Elijah, and the life of the child came back to him, and he lived. And Elijah took the child and delivered him onto his mother, and said: see your son lives. And the woman said to Elijah: Now I know that you are a man of God, and the words of God in your mouth are true (Emet)”; Kings I: 17:21-24.
Jonah’s three days and nights in the big fish are equivalent to the three times that Elijah stretches himself upon the child, both of which are also equivalent to his mother’s ( the widow’s) three trimesters of pregnancy i.e. these three day/nights are a symbolic recapitulation of the original gestation process . Three days is also equivalent to the three lives that Jonah experiences; 1) his natural birth, 2) his first rebirth with Elijah’s assistance, and 3) his second and last re-rebirth in the big fish.
Just like God answered the Prophet Elijah for a renewal of Jonah’s childhood life, he answered the Prophet Jonah’s prayers for a renewal of his own life while he was re-gestating in the belly (uterus) of the “daga” (female fish), who herself swims in the great sea, the briny birthing amniotic fluid of all life on earth.
The text implies that Jonah had momentarily expired in the big fish: “From the stomach of sheol (death) I cried and you answered me” (2:3). “I went down to the bottom of the mountains, the earth with her bars closed upon me forever, and you brought up my life from the pit” (2:7). “When my life fainted from with in me (left), I remembered God.” (2:8).
At the end of Jonah’s three days and nights prayer session, he concludes with the words “Salvation is of God” (2:10). At this point God commands the fish to vomit Jonah out.
The words “salvation is of God” is reminiscent of, and recapitulates, Jonah’s mother’s words to Elijah the Prophet “the words in your mouth are true (emet)”. Thus when Jonah utters the absolute truth (emet) i.e. that salvation stems from God, it is at this point that God agrees to save him yet again.
This is the meaning of the remainder of Jonah’s name “Ben-Amittai” which in Hebrew means “son of my (God’s) truth”. In the Elijah-Jonah story, the child is merely referred to as the son of the widow or of the woman. Jonah is the son of God’s truth (“Ben-Amittai”) i.e. of the true words of God that emanated from Elijah’s lips, which resuscitated his life, the first time. The first two Hebrew letters of the word “AMt” (Emet/truth) are also incorporated into his mother’s Hebrew appellation “AlMana”.
It is also interesting to note that the name “Jonah” is subliminally incorporated into three crucial Hebrew words in the Book of Jonah that propel the arc of the story:
1) The first word, repeated four times in the text, is “VYMN”, pronounced “Vayaman” which means in Hebrew “and he prepared”. It is used to refer to the preparation by God of four of nature’s elements to manipulate Jonah to perform God’s will. The four elements include a big fish (2:1), a kikayon (a Gourd; 4:2), a worm (4:7) and an east wind (4:8). The text specifically states in all cases that God prepared pre-existing natural elements (non-sentient plant and sentient animal water and land-based life, and inanimate meteorological physical forces) in contradistinction to his de-novo creation of new elements. God specifically manipulated pre-existing animate and inanimate forces in order to bend Jonah to his will. This fulfills the text book definition of the word “oppression” or in Hebrew “Jonah” i.e. “a condition marked by unjust severity or arbitrary behavior”. Whether or not God’s behavior towards Jonah was unjust or arbitrary is arguable and controversial and will be elaborated upon below.
If we jumble around the letters of the Hebrew word “VYMN” we get “YVNM” which in Hebrew spells “YVN (Jonah) M”. The Hebrew letter “mem” (M) pictographically represents “mayim” meaning “water”. Hence the word “VYMN” when read as “YVNM” translates into “Jonah –water” which in one word encapsulates the essence of the Book of Jonah. The Hebrew letter mem (M) also numerically translates into forty. Thus “YVNM” can also be read as “Jonah- forty”. Forty is the number of days that Nineveh has to repent. These equations are written in Hebrew on Jonah’s tallit (prayer shawl) to the far right of this painting underneath the third black stripe from the top.
The text does not explicitly state “VYMN Jonah” i.e. that “Jonah was prepared” by God. In fact it is really Jonah who God prepares above and beyond all the other four elements of nature. He is but the fifth, and most important element of nature; the animate, sentient human element, prepared to save the Assyrian people, God’s ultimate goal in this book, which is but the first step towards achieving the real ,yet as far as this book is concerned, covert plan, which both Jonah and God are very well aware (discussed below). Jonah has a very long history of being divinely prepared. He was initially prepared in his mother’s, the widow’s, womb. After he was born, and died prematurely, he was prepared again with the help of Elijah at his mother’s request, on Elijah’s bed. After he was swallowed by the big fish, and died again, for the second time, he was prepared yet again, this time, directly by God.
2) The second word in the Book that incorporates Jonah’s name is “ANYH”, pronounced “ahneyah”, which in Hebrew means “Boat”. If we jumble around the letters of “ANYH” we get “A YNH”, or “A Yonah”. “A” is the first letter of “AMT” (Emet/truth). Thus “A- YNH” can be read as “AMT (True) - Jonah” in other words “Jonah son of Amittai” (my truth). These equations are written in Hebrew on Jonah’s tallit to the far right of this painting underneath the first black stripe from the top.
3) The third word in the Book which incorporates Jonah’s name is “NYNVH”, pronounced in Hebrew “Nineveh”. If we jumble around these letters we get “N YVNH” pronounced “N Yonah”. The letter nun (N) numerically translates into the number 50. Thus N YVNH can be read as “50 Jonah”. Using old fashioned gematria (Aramaic for geometry, but really arithmetic), the letter nun (N) is arithmetically equal to the letter Yud (“Y”=10) plus the letter Mem (“M”=40) which adds up to 50 i.e. nun (N). The Hebrew letters “YM” are pronounced “Yam “and means “sea”. Thus ‘NYNVH” when jumbled and read as “N YVNH” reads “Jonah at sea”. The word Nineveh which is mentioned seven times in the Book, also quite remarkably encapsulates the essence of the story i.e. Jonah at sea. These equations are written in Hebrew on Jonah’s tallit to the far right of this painting underneath the second stripe from the top.
Let us now focus on the visual aspects of this painting. The story of Jonah chronologically unfolds upon viewing it from left to right.
Illustrated on the upper left hand corner of the painting is the boat that Jonah boards en route to Tarshish represented by the green land mass behind the vessel. The sailors on board the boat are portrayed in the process of throwing Jonah overboard into the turbulent sea. Written in Hebrew at the upper center of the boat’s sail are the words “God cast (hatil) a great wind”. This great turbulent wind which created the turbulence within the sea is illustrated and symbolized in the upper purplish sky background.
Written in Hebrew on the lower center of the boat’s sail are Jonah’s words spoken to the sailors which incorporate the same verb (hatil/cast) which was mentioned above; “Cast me (hatiluni) ‘into the sea’ (‘AL HYM’)” which are the instructions Jonah gives the sailors so that they may save their lives. The Hebrew words “el Hayam” which is spelled AL HYM means “into the sea”.
However, there are multiple other pronunciations (and hence interpretations) of the Hebrew letters “ALHYM”.
AL HYM can be read as two separate words with a slightly different pronunciation. When AL HYM is pronounced “el hayam” it means “God of the seas”. Thus Jonah’s statement “Hateluni ALHYM” can also be read and translated as “cast me out, oh God of the seas!”
Alternatively ALHYM can also be read and pronounced as one word, “elohim” or simply “God”. Thus if we read and pronounce ALHYM as “elohim” there are yet two additional alternative interpretations of Jonah’s statement “Hateluni ALHYM”:
1) “Oh God, Cast me out!”, or 2) “Cast me towards (or into) Elohim (God)!”
Illustrated in this painting beneath the boat is Jonah in the process of being swallowed by the big fish. The big fish is illustrated as a huge mermaid feminine creature. This is because the creature is referred to both as both “dag” (2:1) defined as a generic fish and “daga” (2:2), the feminine grammatical form for fish.
Furthermore, it is stated that Jonah prayed to God from “within the female fish’s insides” (“mimay hadaga”); 2:2. The Hebrew word “mimay” although generically means “the insides of a hollow organ”, it is often used to describe the insides of a pregnant woman i.e. the insides of a woman’s womb, as was used to describe Rachel’s womb in Genesis 25:23; ‘Two nations are in your “belly” (“betenaich”), and two nations from your “insides” (“mimayiech”) shall be separated…’. In this sentence the word “mimay” (“the insides”) and “beten” (“stomach”) within the context of a pregnant woman are used interchangeably referring to Rachel’s uterus. Likewise, in the book of Jonah the interchangeable terminology used to refer to the insides of the big fish is “mimay” (2:1) and “beten” (2:3) which implies womb. These words were the inspiration for the essential concept of portraying a big female pregnant fish in this painting. This concept was also visually incorporated into the painting “Yom Kippur” (www.nahumhalevi.com, 2003) which fuses Jonah and the Yom Kippur he-goat sacrifice.
Illustrated in this painting, on the left, is the initial phase of Jonah being swallowed by the fish. His upside down legs which are not yet fully inside the fish’s body are kicking and struggling. His torso, the portion already swallowed by the fish, is being elongated as it descends down the fish’s esophagus. This portion of Jonah’s body is illustrated in black and white. His skeletal bones appear transparent and one gets the impression of viewing him as an x-ray image. His pupils are dilated symbolizing that during the initial moments of his ingestion by the fish, he dies, his flesh instantaneously decomposes, and then he is no more.
Subsequently, almost as soon as he dies, he begins to re-germinate in an amniotic sac within the depths of the piscatorial uterus. Illustrated within the fish, from left to right are three captured chronological static images of amniotic sacs inhabited by Jonah embryos during each of his three chronological trimesters of re-birth. Each trimester embryo is attached to a placenta which grows in size alongside Jonah with each subsequent trimester. Time elapses when viewing these embryos from left to right. Each trimester’s amniotic sac chronologically parallels Jonahs directional trajectory as outlined in the story.
After Jonah dies, the first and earliest embryo (as well as the second trimester embryo) descends deeper into the fish uterus paralleling Jonah’s descending trajectory early in the story. He descends into the ship (1:3). He then descends to the bottom of the ship below deck (1:5), and he then descends to the bottom of the mountains underneath the sea (2:6).
In this painting the first trimester Jonah embryo is illustrated at a very early stage of gestation. Transparent brain arterioles are actively sprouting. His embryonic fingers and toes are still webbed in their early development. This is similar to the pregnant fish’s webbed hands which are illustrated above and below this embryo, hugging and soothing her actively erupting abdomen. This contrast between the webbed fish hands/fins and the early webbed human hands emphasize the unity of nature, and the biological principle of ontology recapitulating phylogeny. This first trimester amniotic inhabitation represents day and night one (I) of Jonah’s journey /time in the fish.
The second trimester Jonah embryo portrayed beneath, and to the right of the first trimester embryo, is more fully developed. His limbs and appendages now appear fully human with developed and separated digits. He is busily engaged in prayer wearing phylacteries (Tefillin) calling out to God from the depths (2:1-3). This embryo represents day and night two (II).
The dark blue star-studded background of the inner recesses of the fish surrounding the embryonic sacs emulates the night time sky giving the impression that the embryos are floating in space-time within the bosom of God.
Portrayed on the far right of the painting, above the second trimester Jonah embryo is the third trimester fully matured adult Jonah. This embryo/adult represents day and night three (III). He is illustrated in the process of being birthed (vomited) out of the other end of the fish. His broken off bleeding placenta has separated and is simultaneously sinking downward, as he detaches and ascends. This parallels his rise in the text as stated “You brought my life up from the pit” (2:7). In the painting Jonah’s embryonic journeys follow the natural curvature of the fish i.e. descent followed by elevation.
The deep sea underneath the fish is illustrated as turbulent crimson waters. Crimson symbolizes the blood of both birth and death. The fish is surrounded by two blue octopuses, one to the left, and one to the right, which occupy the ocean floor. Their exquisite beauty and strangeness represent Jonah’s mysterious and mystical transformation within the fish. The Hebrew letters “aleph samech” standing for “ein sof”, the infinite, is written in yellow Hebrew on the head of the octopus on the right.
Jonah emerges from the fish on the far right in this painting wrapped in his prayer shawl (tallit). Written in red Hebrew on the bottom of his tallit underneath the fourth stripe from the top are some of the words Jonah spoke in the fish, “Hisatef aleye nafshi” (2:8) which means “when my life fainted within me” . “Hisatef” has a dual meaning. It also means “wrapped around” and refers to putting on a prayer shawl and wrapping it around one’s body (“Lehisatef batallit”).
Written to the left of Jonah’s mouth in blue Hebrew (emanating from it) is the words “Salvation is God’s”; the words he uttered after which he was spat out of the fish. Written underneath these words in red Hebrew are the words his mother uttered to Elijah after Jonah was revived; “The words of God in your mouth are true”.
In the far right of the painting, after he is expelled from the fish, Jonah is sitting on dry land sitting underneath the gourd tree that God created to protect him from the terrible sun.
Illustrated above Jonah to his left is an Assyrian sphinx representing the Assyrian nation. The sphinx is wrapped in a black sac cloth asking for forgiveness (3:7). He is standing on a red Nineveh land mass. The green land mass, to the far left, represents Tarshish which is in the opposite direction of Nineveh.
Beneath Jonah in the far right of the painting, the roots of the gourd tree can be seen. The worm that God created, illustrated in black, is opening its toothy mouth to bite into the roots and destroy the tree as commanded by God, so as to teach Jonah a moral lesson.
Birds are illustrated flying out of the turbulent windy sky from the epicenter of the painting heading left and right into the turbulent ocean. This represents an evolving unnatural meteorological phenomenon and a distortion of the ordinary course of events which the sentient birds sense and respond to.
The painting is horizontally and chromatographically divided into three sections; the upper purple turbulent sky, the mid blue turbulent sea, and the lower deep crimson turbulent red sea. This three part division symbolizes Jonah’s three days in the fish, his three trimesters of re-birth, and his three lives. It also symbolizes the three times he prays for death, and the three times he ultimately dies (more details below). Turbulence permeates all three layers of this entire painting as it permeates all layers of Jonah’s soul, and every aspect of his life.
If we plainly read the story of Jonah, one gets the impression that not only is he a reluctant prophet, which hardly begins to describe the enormous extent of his resistance, but that he is a mean-spirited prophet with no regard for the lives of others; not for the sailors’ lives who will die unless he is tricked into helping them, not for the lives of the people of Nineveh who will all die including all the innocent humans, children and animals, unless he is divinely and unnaturally coerced to help them.
Furthermore he is quite selfish. He only appreciates things that give him physical pleasure. He loves the gourd for the shade it provides him from the sun. He is also an ingrate who appears incomprehensively and unnecessarily depressed. He’s saved from drowning, but nevertheless is always praying for death (when not praying for life) for no particularly good reason. In essence he is an ungrateful, selfish, merciless, and unhappy, suicidal sour pus. Only after being literally frightened to death by being inside a big fish, and only after he is chased down and literally chewed up and spat out by God will he do the right thing ,and help the poor innocent people of Nineveh avoid pain, sorrow and suffering.
A superficial reading of the story would also lead one to conclude that Jonah’s relationship to God with respect to Nineveh represents a completely opposite God-man relationship that existed between God and Abraham with respect to another sinning city; Sodom/ Gomorrah.
In the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, God is portrayed as the bad guy harboring absolutely no mercy for the horrible sinners and wanting to destroy them completely. Abraham the first Hebrew Prophet is portrayed with amazing moral strength and compassion pleading with God to have mercy, and entreating God to spare them if he can muster a quorum of good men, which he can’t. Abraham in that story is the moral hero. God is the stern spoiler, the anti-hero.
In the story of Jonah, the God-man relationship appears completely reversed. Here God is pleading with Jonah to show some mercy. There are many innocents who will die in the absence of Jonah’s intervention. Jonah has to be taught a moral lesson via a childish fable; if he feels sorry for a little tree that has been scarcely alive for barely twenty four hours, can’t his heart be moved a silly iota for an entire city of innocent people and animals? Where is his heart? Where is his compassion? Can’t he be a fraction as merciful as the all merciful God? Here God is the moral hero, and Jonah is the anti-hero, the stern spoiler.
What’s up with Jonah, with this Prophet of Mean? And why is a person so thoroughly ethically flawed, a Prophet to begin with? Why bother resuscitating him twice, or even once for that matter? Aren’t there better people to reawaken?
If this is how one reads this story, then Jonah is severely misunderstood. This impression exists only because we have lost the context of the story which most people long ago probably would have recognized when the story was originally recorded.
The first question that must be asked is why was Jonah running away from God in the first place? Why did he not want to go to Nineveh to help the Assyrian people?
As mentioned above, Jonah was a prophet in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. However, when he was asked by the sailors who he was, he answers that he is simply a Hebrew i.e. he considers himself a member of the entire nation of both Israel and Judah (1:10).
Even if he weren’t a prophet who can predict the future, he is still a human being who can read the writing on the wall. A very short time after this story is supposed to have taken place, the Assyrians, as symbolically represented by their capital Nineveh, drove Israel, the Northern Kingdom into exile, and Israel ceased to be. Nineveh (the Assyrians) also threatened Judah, surrounded Jerusalem, and only by a miracle, was Judah saved and not likewise taken into captivity by the Assyrians. The Assyrians deservedly rank high on the arch- enemy list of Israel because they are the Nation who vanquished and exiled them, transforming them into the fabled ten lost vanished tribes.
So who does God so desperately want Jonah to help save? The Assyrians! And what are God’s true motivations for wanting to save the innocent Assyrians? So that within the next twenty five years this saved innocent nation can be nurtured to grow stronger in order to be capable of destroying Israel. God wants to destroy Israel in the near future because they sinned, just like he now wants to destroy the Assyrians because they sinned, unless they repent, which God goes through extreme lengths to virtually guarantee. When their job will be satisfactorily completed in the future, only then will they get their just desserts. Thus this story is also very much about preparing the Assyrians, the sixth element in God’s plans.
Jonah’s purpose in life is to serve as the catalyst for the Assyrian’s presumed free moral choice which paradoxically leads to only one preordained path. God needs to save Assyria now, because shortly they will serve as his rod (Isaiah 10:5) that will successfully wipe Israel off the map. God knows the future he desires, and knows how to get it. God also knows that Jonah the Prophet knows about this divinely ordained future, and that there’s no way that Jonah can prevent it. Jonah will do everything in his measly power to actively prevent that future from occurring, or at the very least, not be an active or passive catalyst for its fruition.
It turns out, Jonah really is very much like Abraham, and that God hasn’t changed much since Abraham’s time. The same God-man relationship exists. Jonah and Abraham are both moral heroes. In the case of Abraham it is obvious. In the case of Jonah it’s not. The text superficially makes Jonah look like the anti-hero, and hence he is both a heroic and a tragic figure.
Jonah is a deeply empathetic Prophet who loves God, and also mightily loves his people. As Jonah stated, if God wants to help the Assyrians, he can do that on his own (4:2). He is fully capable. Jonah refuses to be used as an instrument for the destruction of his very own people. He runs away, he runs for the hills of Tarshish. He will under no circumstances betray his own people. He will not assist in sharpening the sword that the Assyrians will wield against Israel in the future. He will take no responsibility in their pushing Israel off the cliff into oblivion. No, not Jonah! Do it yourself God! Use another instrument of nature, use someone or some thing else, just please leave me alone!
He’s got to run away. He boards the first ship he sees that is going in the opposite direction of Nineveh. God sees him. He creates a tempest, and shakes the ship. What does Jonah do? He goes below deck and falls asleep. With any luck by the time he wakes up, it’ll all be over. The ship will capsize, he’ll die, and never wake up; a small sacrifice to pay for the preservation of the people of Israel. Even if all the sailors go down with him, at least Israel, his entire nation will be spared. Without Jonah’s help maybe Assyria won’t repent, just maybe God will destroy them, and hence God won’t have the tools and the means to destroy Israel. Assyria will go down in the future anyhow; hopefully they’ll go down before destroying Israel. Jonah goes to sleep, but he is awakened by the sailors.
The sailors are scared for their lives. Jonah tells them how to save themselves. Throw him overboard. They will live, and he will die, and that’s just fine, because death is what he craves, anything but being a sell-out to his people. Jonah indeed does die inside the fish. But God will have none of that. He’s not letting Jonah off that easy. Jonah can’t cowardly escape into death. He needs Jonah for his future ultimate plans.
God planned to use Jonah from the moment he was germinated in his mother’s belly. When he died as a lad, he got Elijah to resuscitate him. Why? So he could use him to prepare Nineveh to be used as the rod against Israel. Now when Jonah is thrown into the sea, God gets a fish to swallow him whole and literally drag him back to his task. In the fish after Jonah dies and is resuscitated, his human nature takes over. His fear of staying there forever overtakes him, he prays, he makes nice to God. God knows what drives man: fear; fear of death, fear of darkness, of loneliness, of pain and suffering. Jonah thanks God, and prays long enough that God now knows Jonah is ready. His rebelliousness is thoroughly broken, he has kneeled before God, and he now knows the pecking order. It is now time to get thee to Nineveh.
Out of Gratitude to God, Jonah is now compelled to go to Nineveh. He goes, and he perfunctorily performs his task. He speaks five Hebrew words “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown” (3:4).
Why would anyone suspect that with such a short discourse the Assyrians would take him to heart? But they do. And God knows they will. They repent and God forgives them. Everything is going according to God’s plan including the correct trajectory of Nineveh’s freedom of moral choice.
Jonah camps outside of Nineveh watching, realizing and mourning that God has forgiven them. He hoped it couldn’t and wouldn’t be. Say it aint so. Too late, Jonah has now officially collaborated with God sowing the seeds for his people’s ultimate destruction.
Jonah now pleads for death. He cries out that death is far more preferable to life (4:3). He is essentially the seal used to stamp Israel’s death warrant. He is incapable of going on, he can’t bear to live. He visualizes the deaths of millions before his eyes; he sees Samaria burn, he sees the near destruction of Jerusalem. With deep and prophetic empathy he feels the great inhumane suffering of his people. Woe is onto him! Woe is onto them!
What does God say to him? “Are you angry? (Small understatement) ;( 4:4).
Exasperated, Jonah then sits under a sukkah to see what happens to Nineveh. God prepares a gourd tree to protect him. This momentarily comforts Jonah, and delights him no end allowing him some respite.
God then creates a worm to destroy the tree. Not only that, but he prepares an east wind so that the sun beats down on Jonah’s head (4:8) physically disturbing him, salting Jonah’s emotional wounds with even more physical pain.
Enough is enough! Jonah then asks God once again to finish him off once and for all: “It is far better to die than to live” (4:8). What really is left for Jonah to live for? He just helped God lay the ground work for his people’s destruction, and God will physically torture him every day for the rest of his life.
What does God answer?
Are you expressing anger about the gourd (4:9) over me destroying it (tiny understatement)? Yes, he answers. I am angry onto death (why don’t you just finish me off already?). Then God says; you have pity on a gourd, so why can’t you have pity on the town of innocent Assyrians?
The text does not record Jonah’s answer to that query.
Jonah does not feel that he needs to be taught any moral lessons. Jonah believes it is God who needs to be taught a moral lesson (Just like Abraham attempted to humanize God with respect to Sodom and Gomorrah). It is God that needed to be told: you don’t need me to save the Assyrians, and you certainly don’t need my help to destroy my own people. You’re fully capable of that on your own. You actually will destroy the Assyrians in the more distant future. You don’t need to use me as a tool to deflect blame.
Jonah couldn’t use Abraham’s line; if you can find a quorum of innocent people amongst the Israelites maybe you won’t destroy them, because God would have used that line back to him about the Assyrians, and would have told him that there is a quorum of innocent Assyrians, and Jonah knew that.
Thus in this story (although it is never mentioned), God intends to treat the Israelites no differently than he treated Sodom and Gomorra, as noted by multiple Prophets throughout Tanach. God does not believe that Israel is worth saving, and he treats them contemptuously. In all fairness, multiple Prophets unsuccessfully urged Israel to repent, but they didn’t. So fair’s fair. Jonah recognized this, but there was absolutely no reason to bring him into the fray.
Thus Jonah truly lives up to his name. He is oppressed severely by God. Thrice he was given life to be oppressed in order to perform the will of God. Thus in the end, although he may have been reluctant, he did as he was told, and as a result fell into a deep depression out of which he most likely never emerged, until God mercifully took his life for the third and last time (never recorded). In the text Jonah requests death three times, equaling the number of lives he lived (1:12, 4:3, and 4:8).
Some might say that although Jonah is labeled as a prophet, based on the text, he barely prophesized, and when he did, he prophesized not to his people but to another nation (in the Book of Jonah). In fact, Jonah prophesized the future, in his heart, and in his mind’s eye, about his people (although not to his people), and unfortunately there was nothing he could do about it other than to proffer his super human passive resistance. His hands were tied just like Isaac’s while he awaited his own sacrifice.
Isaac never recuperated from his near sacrifice, and Jonah never recuperated from his prophetic journey whereby he facilitated his people’s destruction. In this way Jonah was treated very similarly to Job. Job was morally perfect and never sinned, yet he was punished by God for sinning, even though God also knew Job never sinned. Only after Job confessed to sins which he never performed did God reward him. Jonah suffered more mightily then Job ever did. God merely took Job’s wife, wealth and children away from him. God took the entire nation of Israel away from Jonah and left him an orphan of history.
Jonah was no sour pus. He was a tragic national hero; a Prophet of the utmost empathy; one who’s suffering for others is unimaginable. Jonah ranks high amongst the great tragic figures of the Hebrew Bible.
The Book of Jonah is read during Yom Kippur. The object lesson is that God answers man’s prayers based on true repentance as demonstrated by Jonah’s truly repenting prayers in the belly of the fish.
It is quite clear that the story of Jonah is a multilayered tapestry with many different interconnecting moral lessons which can generate a multiplicity of interpretations. This painting attempts to simultaneously visually integrate these multiple interwoven conceptual strands.
<- Back to Main Page
All text is copyrighted, Nathan Moskowitz 2004-2009
. For more information, please e-mail:
.