Sadao Watanabe: "Jonah and the Fish" (1965)
The book of Jonah, one of the most misunderstood books of the Hebrew scriptures, poses two fundamental questions: (1) Who is God? (2) What does it mean to be a kingdom of priests?
Regarding the first question, note how God describes himself to Moses at Sinai:
The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation. (Exodus 34:6-7)
Regarding the second question, note how God describes his relationship with Israel:
Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.” (Exodus 19:6)
The Lord thus describes himself as both just and merciful, and he describes the nation of Israel as his chosen instrument to restore the peoples of the Earth to himself. Why then does Jonah choose to be thrown into the sea (the most terrifying fate imaginable to a Hebrew) rather than prophecy against Nineveh, and why does Jonah resent God’s mercy towards the repentant Ninevites?
Note how the opening and closing verses frame the book:
Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD. (Jonah 1:1-3)
And the LORD said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?” (Jonah 4:10-11)
We know very little about Jonah other than that he was the son of the prophet Amittai from Gath-hepher, that he too was a prophet, and that he prophesied that God would restore the borders of Israel from Hamath (in Syria) to the Dead Sea:
In the fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, began to reign in Samaria, and he reigned forty-one years. And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin. And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin. He restored the border of Israel from Lebo-hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the LORD, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath-hepher. For the LORD saw that the affliction of Israel was very bitter, for there was none left, bond or free, and there was none to help Israel. But the LORD had not said that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, so he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash. (2 Kings 14:23-27)However, God did not relent indefinitely, and both Zachariah (14:5) and Amos (3:14, 6:11, 8:8, 9:1) recall a great earthquake (understood as divine judgment) that occurred late in the reign of Jeroboam II (790-750 BCE), which the geological record indicates was the largest such event ever experienced along the Dead Sea Transform. The Kingdom of Israel was indeed later conquered and sent into exile by Assyria in 740 BCE, never to return despite the Lord’s pledge to restore his people to the land should they repent in exile and remember him (Deuteronomy 30:1-10).
Nineveh meanwhile experienced a period of crisis and decline. The troubled reigns of Shalmaneser IV (783–773 BCE) and his successor Ashur-dan III (772-755 BCE) were marked by an incidence of plague in 765 BCE, followed by famine from 765-758 BCE with a second incidence of plague in 759 BCE. Moreover, there was a total eclipse of the sun (understood as a divine warning) directly over Nineveh in 763 BCE, which is quite possibly around the time Jonah arrived there with his message of judgment.
What then might account for Jonah’s reluctance to preach to a struggling Nineveh? Perhaps Jonah foresaw that Nineveh might repent and be spared destruction only to become an instrument of God’s judgment on Israel. Jonah may have fled to Tarshish to forestall judgment on Israel, thereby becoming sin for the sake of his people.
Tarshish is understood to be the ancient kingdom of Tartessus, which lay beyond the Pillars of Hercules (i.e. the Straits of Gibraltar) that marked the western edge of the world. Tartessus supplied the Phoenicians with copper and tin (to make bronze) as well as gold, commodities in sufficient demand that the Phoenicians built seafaring ships with large hulls to conduct long-distance trade. Jonah seems to have booked passage on such a ship (sep̄înāh = decked) and descended into the hull to avoid participating in the frantic prayers by each to his own god in response to the terrible storm.
Jonah seems completely unconcerned with sacrificing the lives of the pagan sailors and only confesses after God causes the lot to fall to him. This is at odds with the fact that Jonah is a prophet of Israel, which was created to be a nation of priests tasked with proclaiming YWHW to the rest of humanity. The pagan sailors, who would have been devotees of the Sea (Yam/Poseidon) and the Evening Star (Astarte/Venus) who walks on the water, would have been terrified to hear that the god who created the land and the sea was the one angry with them–hence: "What have you done!"
The pagan sailors proclaim their faith in YWHW and pledge (Abrahamic) sacrifices to him after he calms the sea following the odious sacrifice of Jonah. Jonah thereby inadvertently leads the pagan sailors to the one true God despite himself, a mistake that he has no intention of repeating with Nineveh. In this regard, it's important to note that the imagery of Jonah's psalm (which alludes to resurrection from the grave) fits the circumstances of being in the belly of a fish, but the sentiments express faith in God’s mercy to a chosen one rather than any sort of repentance. We should therefore examine the psalm independently before considering its role in the story.
God has the fish spit Jonah up on the eastern shore, effectively as a way of demonstrating to Jonah that resistance is futile. Jonah consequently decides to comply with God's command, but only in the most minimal sense possible. To his profound dismay, the people of Nineveh repent despite not even knowing the identity of the God who threatens them with destruction, and God relents on witnessing their contrition—even their animals are required to fast. Jonah is indignant, prompting God to prod him (by means of a shading plant that springs up quickly and just as quickly withers) to consider what it means to bear witness of a God who is both awesome and merciful.
