JONAH RUNS AWAY FROM GOD

People in the Assyrian city of Nineveh were wicked. God sent his prophet Jonah to Nineveh to warn them that they needed to change their ways. However, Jonah fled in the opposite direction. He boarded a ship bound for Tarshish and set sail.

A violent storm blew up while the ship was at sea, terrifying the sailors. ‘Why is this happening?’ they prayed to their gods. Finally, Jonah admitted, ‘I am to blame. I’m fleeing from what God told me to do. If you throw me into the sea, the storm will stop.’ The sailors were reluctant to toss Jonah overboard, but he insisted. The storm stopped when they threw him into the sea.

Jonah believed he was going to die. He prayed to God as he sank deeper and deeper into the sea. Then God sent a massive fish. It swallowed Jonah, but he was not killed. Jonah prayed from within the fish, ‘I promise to obey you always.’ God kept Jonah safe inside the fish for three days before forcing the fish to spit him out onto dry land.

Did the fact that God had saved Jonah mean that he didn’t have to go to Nineveh after all? No. God told Jonah to go there once more. Jonah complied this time. He went there and told those wicked people, ‘Nineveh will be destroyed in 40 days.’ Then, unexpectedly, the Ninevites listened and changed their ways. ‘Call out to God and repent,’ said the king of Nineveh. Maybe he won’t destroy us.’ God did not destroy Nineveh after seeing that the people repented.

Jonah was enraged that the city had not been destroyed. Think about it: God was patient and merciful to Jonah, but Jonah was not merciful to the people of Nineveh. Instead, he sat in the shade of a bottle-gourd plant outside the city and pouted. The plant then died, and Jonah became enraged. ‘You care more about this plant than you do about the Ninevites,’ God said. They survived because I showed them mercy.’ What was the purpose? Nineveh’s people were more important than any plant.