Righteous Jonah, as depicted in the vault of the Pammakaristos Church in Constantinople (Istanbul). In ‘Moby Dick’, Herman Melville draws from Jonah the lesson that Christians must have the courage to speak Truth in the face of Falsehood even if fashion disapproves. ‘Woe to him whom this world charms from Gospel duty! Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appal! Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness!’
Episode 2 of 2 in the Series
The Story of Jonah
Introduction
In the synagogue, the Book of Jonah is read in its entirety on the Day of Atonement. It is a tale about repentance and forgiveness. It is a tale about the intrinsic value of all life, even that which seems worthless. But above all it is a tale about doing the God of Israel’s bidding whatever it may cost, because although he is infinitely merciful his arm is very long.
JONAH’s reputation as a prophet was riding high after he guided King Jereboam II through a successful campaign against the Arameans.* But when he felt a call to go to far-off Nineveh in Assyria,* where they had strange gods, and foretell the city’s destruction within forty days on account of its wickedness, Jonah hesitated.
He was, he said, not prepared to risk his new-found professional reputation by prophesying certain disaster unless God was prepared to go through with it, whether Nineveh repented or not; and he knew God’s kind heart too well to expect that. So instead of going east he boarded a ship at Joppa bound for Tarshish out west, leaving Nineveh to her just deserts.*
The ship had not long been at sea when a great tempest arose. The crew prayed in desperation to their gods, and getting no response cast lots in the hope of fixing the blame. Of course Jonah’s name came up, and they went down into the hold, where he was asleep, to demand an explanation.*
See 2 Kings 14:26-28. Jereboam was King of Israel, the northern kingdom, during the eighth century BC. Amaziah and Uzziah ruled in Judah to the south. Jereboam’s campaign extended his rule into Damascus, and was blessed beforehand by Jonah.
Nineveh lay near what is now Mosul in northern Iraq. Nineveh was a gentile city, so an unusual target for an Israelite prophet and a place where the god of Israel would not be expected to have any powers.
Joppa is modern day Jaffa. No one knows where Tarshish lay. Carthage in Egypt is often suggested; in ‘Moby Dick’, Herman Melville took it to be Cadiz, at the uttermost west of the known world at the time. The first-century Roman-Jewish historian Josephus suggested that it might be Tarsus in Cilicia (now in Turkey), which as it happened was also the birthplace of St Paul and of St Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury in the seventh century.
When a storm rose on the Sea of Galilee, the Apostles found Jesus asleep in the stern of their boat, though he was not labouring under the misapprehension that God could not see him there. See Mark 4:36-41.
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