Playing God
Jonah, the son of Amittai, was a prophet raised up during the Northern Kingdom reign of Jeroboam II of Israel (BC 782-753). And Jonah being a native of Gath Hepher (2 Kings 14:25), a town three miles north of Nazareth in lower Galilee, proves a bit of historical negligence and Scriptural illiteracy on the part of the Pharisees in Jesus’ day when they stated, “Search and look, for no prophet has arisen out of Galilee” (John 7:52).
The book of Jonah is unusual in that it is the only Old Testament book to focus exclusively on a Gentile nation; however, the book’s message reveals the merciful and loving heart of Almighty God more than seven centuries before Christ! Like the nation from which he hailed, Jonah is called to proclaim a holy message to the Gentiles. The great thematic element that presents itself is divine sovereignty, evidenced by the repeated expressions, “the LORD prepared” and “God prepared”. Despite this, as we shall see, Jewish nationalism and spiritual pride routinely blinded God’s covenant people–even prophets–to His worldwide plan for salvation. Presumptive pride and a haughty spirit were the seedbed of Jonah’s willful waywardness and unforgiveness. He knew God was patient and merciful, surely recalling Jehovah’s willingness to spare the cities of the plain if even ten righteous souls had been found among them (Genesis 18:20-19:29). Yet, Jonah was so full of himself and his nationalistic hubris that he refused to consider, or even desire, God’s grace being revealed to a Gentile (enemy) nation.
Here we have a lesson in the duplicitous and contentious nature of the human heart (Proverbs 26:21; 27:15; 1 Corinthians 11:16). Jonah placed his identity in his prophetic calling, inviting the illusion of sanctioned adjudication and preference. We may boast of godly discernment and favor, but when self is served above Christ–even unintentionally–we mistake personal feeling and preferred outcome for divine discernment. When emotions overrule our spirit, objectivity and clarity become impossible as our subjective self becomes our god. We know better but fail to do better.
How easy it is to dismiss, deny, defame, destroy, and condemn those who have hurt or offended us, particularly when God’s forgiveness and mercy (even in His judgment) have been enacted toward those individuals. How often, even as we proclaim our forgiveness of others, do we act and pray out of a vengeful spirit for God to set straight or level retribution against those we would see judged, fixating on the speck of sawdust in a fellow’s eye while ignoring the forest in our own? Vengeance is the LORD’s, but when we determine in our heart to act as if vengeance is ours, we forestall an eventual reckoning of our own conceit (Nahum 1:2; Romans 12:19-21; Hebrews 10:30).
Jonah’s identity should have been rooted in God Himself. His story reveals that we too are tempted to play with divine fire, carelessly assuming it is ours to command.
(Jonah 1:1)
Located in modern Iraq, the Nineveh of Jonah’s generation boasted a populace of hundreds of thousands (Jonah 4:11) and was the long-time capital of the Assyrian Empire, which was not exactly friendly to Israel in light of the occasional invasion, pillaging, and overlordship. This loathsome reality is undoubtedly what flourished in Jonah’s mind upon receiving his divine directive to go to Nineveh, whereupon the reluctant prophet, rather than traveling the five hundred miles northeast to Assyria, chose “to flee to Tarshish [Spain] from the presence of the LORD,” two thousand miles to the west!
After Jonah took ship westward, God sent a violent storm that threatened the vessel gravely enough that all were terrified and appealed to their gods while tossing cargo into the sea to salvage any chance of staying afloat. Amidst the tumult the captain discovered Jonah sleeping belowdecks and hastened him to rise and plead with his God for mercy! It was then revealed to the others (by Divine sovereignty employed within the human practice of casting lots; Jonah 1:7) that Jonah was the cause of the tempest and the ship’s ill fortune, to which they bid him disclose his identity and design.
The prophet expounded his case and asserted that because he had fled from the LORD, he was indeed the reason for the gale and high seas. Calm waters would return only if they threw him into the deep–effectively sparing Jonah from forbidden suicide. Reluctantly, and pleading with Jonah’s God for clemency, the ship’s crew cast the defiantly unrepentant Hebrew into the depths…
(1:15-16)
Almighty God will not be denied. He will even exhibit His glory and mercy in the wake of a defector prophet! But why did Jonah attempt to run from his God? The answer rests upon a foundation of pride, for Jonah (as with each of us) battled the all-too-familiar foe of individualism while at the same time resisting practical and spiritual discipline, humility, temperance, compassion, relational amity, and the list goes ever on. God’s prophet was constructing a life narrative wholly defined by his emotional turmoil, avoidance coping, and denial. He was so spoiled with self-love that he was unable to love or to see beyond his own needs. Endeavoring to withhold even an offer of God’s loving mercy to the Ninevites (preferring instant judgment), Jonah’s perception of divine grace became distorted. Knowing he could not manipulate God directly, he sought to do so indirectly by taking control of his circumstances in opposition to Jehovah’s desire. Jonah’s true life story had become defiled as his arrogance, anger, and irrationality contaminated the narrative not only of his life, but also of others.
The tragedy of the circumstance, however, is that Jonah sought to use the LORD God as a means to promote his human agenda rather than be utilized by God toward a divine purpose founded on love. Thus, knowing the merciful nature of God, he refused to preach repentance to an archenemy. Jonah would see Nineveh destroyed; God would have mercy. Jonah would rather have God on his side than be on the side of God.
Consequently, Jonah fled his prophetic office due to a conflict of wills, not due to fear. Thus Jonah had determined to become the god of his own life. He had become a coward.
But escape was not so easy, particularly when considering that Jonah may have believed being thrown into the sea and drowned was plausibly the ultimate evasion of the Divine call.
(1:17)
This act of God surely secured Jonah’s attention, for “he prayed to the LORD his God from the fish’s belly” (Jonah 2:1). His petition to God consisted of numerous Psalms and heartfelt imagery depicting personal lament juxtaposed with God’s saving grace, concluding with a curious statement from Ecclesiastes 5:4-5: “I will pay what I have vowed.”
Although only implicit, the context of Jonah’s pleading and psalms of thanksgiving make clear the fact that the paying of vows, and personal sacrifice, would include declaring God’s power and mercy to the world should he survive: “But I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay what I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD” (Jonah 2:9). Of course, this is what Jonah was to have done in the first place! Still, we will see that the prophet’s prayers were merely the product of emotional trauma and fear of death with death being so near. He knew well the truth of God’s salvation and proclaimed it from the watery depths, yet he did not claim it for himself in humility. Rather, he was attempting to appease God by agreeing to dutiful obedience in exchange for his life. He would deliver the divine message but he would not like it, and he yet hoped for Nineveh’s doom. I imagine all of us can empathize with Jonah’s obstinacy in that one time or another we, too, have been in the same boat.
(2:10 – 3:4)
Verse 3:3 is quite an understatement. It would seem that the drama of running from God and surviving the twin calamities of a terrible storm and being eaten by a giant fish had finally transformed Jonah’s recalcitrant heart into that of an obedient and humble servant, for straightaway after being vomited back onto the Israeli shore he treks five hundred miles east to Nineveh (indeed a long time to reflect, pray, or fret) and upon entering the city he declares God’s impending judgment: Nineveh shall be destroyed in forty days! Add to this the fact that Jonah was a walking object lesson[1] from God with his skin undoubtedly bleached from the fish’s gut and then burnt and withered from the arid journey across northern Mesopotamia! It is doubtful that Jonah testified of his disobedience and ventures to the populace in that such would have emphasized God’s mercy, and his disdain for Gentile enemies would have discouraged personal discourse. Even so, the LORD had the Ninevites’ attention.
Primed from recent years’ plagues in BC 765 and 759 and a solar eclipse in BC 763, and upon seeing Jonah’s ghastly aspect and hearing his avowal of woe (ca. BC 757), the people of Nineveh, including their king[2], “believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth,” to which the LORD God responded by “relenting from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it” (Jonah 3:4-10).
But…
(4:1)
Self-exalted in his own importance and reputation, Jonah became “exceedingly displeased and angry” because a vast multitude of sinners repented! Reflect on that statement for a moment. Though the prophet was communicating with God, he was not in communion with God. His capacity to discern the LORD’s righteousness from his own self-righteousness had disintegrated due to his callous heart. Like Jonah, we may know God and we may also know His glory; but when we refuse to look at that glory and be overcome by it, we starve our souls of self-forgiveness, repentance, honest forgiveness of others, and newfound freedom.
It is a dangerous endeavor to assume we are right with God; we must know with conviction whether we are or not (1 John 4:12-16). This is only accomplished through prayerful proximity with Him, for He would have us admittedly be either hot or cold (Revelation 3:15-16). It may surprise some that “being cold” in our relationship with Jesus Christ does not always imply unbelief and relational distance, but rather an unwillingness to obey in complete humility. Truly, no one is perfect in their discipleship, but if the sin of reluctance is not remedied it may become revolt, inviting God’s rebuke (Hebrews 12:5-11).
Often following a spiritual awakening, a personal revival/revelation, a moral crisis or failure, or divine conviction and chastisement, we determine to adopt a more serious demeanor and fervency in both our discipleship and godly works. Some indeed succeed. But generally, despite sincere intent, this is practiced solely in the flesh devoid of the Holy Spirit’s empowerment; and so, the hidden roots of unresolved matters and snares remain. We pray indeed, but not wholly in humility of heart and mind, which inhibits our worship in spirit and truth (John 4:24). Accordingly, we soon grow weary of doing good and allow the bitterness of our hearts to flourish, suddenly judging others more severely than ourselves (Proverbs 14:10; Galatians 6:9-10; Hebrews 12:14-15). We may even be aware of this, and though we may dutifully (half-heartedly) self-examine, we refuse to permit a total cross-examination by the Spirit of truth. In so doing, the state of the soul wallows in the mire of sinful self-regard, unchanged.
Jonah had labored hard to achieve moral failure, even offering a prayer of vexation: “Ah, LORD, was this not what I said when I was still in my country?” The embittered prophet tritely acknowledges God’s gracious, merciful, patient, loving nature and then selfishly implores Almighty God to take his life (4:2-3)–he would rather die than witness God’s salvation! Note that Jonah’s problem with God is that he sees God as the problem. Consequently, the LORD calls into question Jonah’s “right” to be angry. Jonah reacts by leaving the city and seeking a private shelter so that he might brood and observe the city’s fate once the forty-day “grace-term” was up (3:4).
Per the sweltering climate, God supernaturally caused a plant to grow[3] to give Jonah respite from the sun, a divinely gracious gesture Jonah is genuinely grateful for. But the dawning of the next day brought another test for the dissenting seer as the LORD ruins the plant and sends a harsh wind that amplifies the desert heat. Exposed to the elements and both physically and emotionally raw, Jonah curses himself to death yet again, proving that the sun had indeed gone down on his indignation.
God then questioned Jonah’s right to be angry about the plant! Jonah replied that he absolutely had a right to be angry about the plant, “even unto death!” (4:9) It is here that the LORD calls out Jonah’s lunacy and wounded vanity:
(4:10-11)
The book of Jonah ends here with God Himself having the last word, effectively revealing the wretchedness and futility of Jonah’s state of being. The prideful prophet considered himself and some vegetation more important than a multitude of lost human souls whom God loved and desired to save (Philippians 2:3-4). How often do we hear and obediently respond when the LORD God inquires of our self-willed thoughts and feelings, our nurtured hurts, our unsought-for deep wounds, our selfish excuses, and our pretentious paths?
The Creator of all people establishes His love for His creation and proves His love by offering wayward souls the choice between truth and folly. It is notable that the Ninevites, who did not know the God of the Hebrews, responded wisely to His call for repentance while God’s own prophet rebelliously stiff-armed Him. Indeed, proper fear of the LORD reveals His judgment as righteous, and that same fear is the beginning of wisdom (Psalm 19:9; 111:10). Yet an infuriated Jonah was inclined to die rather than allow God to change his unforgiving spirit. Thereby, when the child of God no longer fears their Maker and disregards the necessary accountability to Him, such a one’s heart has begun wearing the path worn long ago by fallen Lucifer who declared, “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High…” (Isaiah 14:14)
This is severe enmity against God, an insurrection of the flesh against the Spirit that Jesus Christ has died and risen from the dead to set us free from (Romans 8:6-14).