The Meaning of the Story of Jonah is explored in this series.
Review of Previous Posts
The posts in this Jonah Series of the Prophets Section explore meanings for the story of Jonah. The previous post, Number 8 of 14, discussed what the story of Jonah teaches those who should know better, i.e., those who “know their right hand from their left.”
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This is post, Number 9 of 14, discusses the concept of repentance in the context of the story of Jonah.
VII. Repentance[1]
The story clearly implies that repentance is so powerful that even pagans and non-believers can benefit from repentance and God will recognize repentance no matter who is repenting. Thus, anyone, even a serial transgressor, can get back into God’s good grace if he properly repents. This is a very powerful message for believers who might feel that they have transgressed so badly or so often that God will not take them back. The story of Jonah clearly shows this is not the case and God will welcome them back with a clean slate. The story of Jonah clearly shows that repentance is available to all.
The story also shows that this God will warn before He executes punishment and if the warning is heeded through repentance, God’s punishment will be withheld[2]. Initially, Jonah refused God’s call to warn Nineveh and sought to flee from God’s reach. Both of these acts were transgressions[3]. God warned Jonah to repent through the storm and causing Jonah to be cast into the sea. God then gave Jonah an opportunity to repent by saving him via the whale. Jonah did repent, and was given a clean slate. The story of Jonah clearly shows that repentance is available to all. The power of repentance is clearly demonstrated by the story of Jonah in yet another way. The genesis of this story has been identified as occurring in post-exilic times. The destruction of the actual city of Nineveh has been archaeologically identified as having occurred long before, in 612 B.C.E. Therefore, the authors of this story were aware that the destination city at the heart of this story had been destroyed. These authors also knew that the city would be the capitol of the country that overran Jerusalem and thus was an enemy of Israel. They therefore chose the city for a particular purpose. It seems that by not destroying Nineveh, God allowed it to develop into a city that would lead the destruction of His own city, Jerusalem. Thus, the message seems to be that repentance is even stronger than God’s love for His own, including His love for Jerusalem. God is willing to allow destruction of His chosen people in the name of repentance.. Combine this with the outcome of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah which seemed to say that repentance is stronger than even God’s word, and a stronger statement of the power of repentance does not seem possible.
On the other hand, if being cast into the sea and swallowed by a whale is considered punishment for Jonah’s transgression of refusing God’s order to prophesy Nineveh’s demise, then Jonah was punished and then given a clean slate. Jonah was punished by being captive and imprisoned in a fish for days, and apparently, God considered this sufficient and God did not punish Jonah further, see Jonah 2:11.
This episode is another instance of the transgression-warning-repent/ignore-spare/punish cycle that occurs many times throughout the Bible (see, for example, the story of The Tower of Babel and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah) and presages the sparing of the city of Nineveh after the citizens repented after they were warned by Jonah. Thus, the theme of transgression/ warning/repentance/sparing is shown in the whale episode as well as in the action in the city of Nineveh itself. This pattern is emphasized by the selection of the Assyrian city of Nineveh as the locale of the action. Assyria, after all, is the despised country which conquered the Northern Kingdom, dispersed the Jews who lived there into oblivion and then effectively destroyed the Southern kingdom (with the exception of Jerusalem and its immediate vicinity). If the inhabitants of this terrible city could repent and be taken back into God’s good will, surely any Jew, no matter what he had done, could regain a clean slate from God through repentance.
The stories of the judges are also instructive. The people erred, and were punished. After punishment, they were given additional chances, but the fact remains that they were punished.
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The next post, Number 10 of 14, discusses how the story of Jonah can be interpreted as a form of monomyth.
[1] There are some scholars who argue that the story of Jonah is not the story of repentance but is the story of a conflict between God and Jonah regarding the concept of mercy: Jonah believes that God should punish rather than show mercy and God believes in repentance. See: Yehoshua Bachrach, Yonah ben Amittai ve-Eliyyahu: le-Hora’at Sefer Yonah al pi ha-Mekorot (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: The Religious Department of the Youth and Pioneering Division of the Zionist Organization, 1967), p. 51; Elyakim, Ben-Menahem, Da’at: Jonah, in Twelve Prophets vol. 1 (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Mosad HaRav Kook, 1973), introduction pp. 7-9; Simon, JPS Bible Commentary: Jonah, introduction pp. 12-13.
[2] This is further illustrated by the rapid repentance of the people of Nineveh: Jonah spoke only eight words: “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown” (Jonah 3:4) and does not need to fulminate, charge, predict, instruct, counsel, recount sins, or demonstrate as all other prophets do in order to persuade the people to repent. His words and warning are immediately and without question accepted and followed, by pagans no less. In this, Jonah is a totally unique prophet.
[3] It is interesting to compare Jonah’s refusal to the immediate acceptance of the citizens of Nineveh. While Jonah initially refused to listen, the citizens of Nineveh immediately repented, see Jonah 3:3-9. Maybe that is why God seemed so quick in His actions with respect to both Jonah and the citizens of Nineveh: Jonah 3:10: “God saw what they did, how they were turning back from their evil ways. And God renounced the punishment He had planned to bring upon them, and did not carry it out.” The people had self-punished, and hence God had no reason to administer His punishment.