Jonah is a book that we often reference as an example of what happens when you run away from God and His plan, but, and I speak mostly from anecdotal experience here, we rarely talk about why Jonah ran. And, personally, I find that odd because the reason Jonah ran, and the work God was doing in that time, is probably more important than the lesson to not run.
If you haven’t heard Jonah’s story, the summary is this: Jonah was tasked to go to Nineveh by God to deliver the message of their impending destruction for their evil acts, but he refused to go, instead attempting to run as far in the opposite direction as he could by sea. When a storm arose and threatened to sink the ship he was on, he directed the sailors to throw him overboard to calm the seas so they might live, and when he landed in the waters, he was swallowed by a whale or a giant fish, depending on your translation. After three days and nights, the whale/fish spat him up onto shore and he traveled to Nineveh where he prophesied their destruction, and the entire city repented at once.
Now, typically, we stop there when we tell Jonah’s story, but I believe the rest tells us so much more about God and how He works in our lives.
Jonah’s Hatred of Assyria
Firstly, we need to understand the reason Jonah did not want to travel to Nineveh. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to make the journey, nor was it to avoid his responsibility as a prophet, necessarily. Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh because he hated the Ninevites. The people of Nineveh were diametrically opposed to everything God stands for. God is love; Nineveh was hate. God is peace; Nineveh was war. God is just; Nineveh was cruel.
Assyrians, the people of Nineveh, had a reputation as a warmongering people. They were a cultural and military power in the area because they were ruthless and evil. Everywhere they invaded, they caused widespread destruction, captured, tortured, and raped the people who lived there, and took those who survived as slaves. And as much as Jonah hated the Ninevites, the Ninevites hated Israel; the two nations had mighty conflicts frequently throughout biblical times. And it was for all these reasons Jonah hated them.
If you paid attention while reading through Jonah 1, however, you might still be questioning why Jonah refused to go to Nineveh. After all, God told Jonah to prophesy about their destruction, and surely Jonah would be fine and dandy with that since he hated them so much, right? And that’s the right question to ask. Once you get there, you start to understand just how well Jonah knows God as His prophet and just how deep his hatred for the Ninevites runs. And to see the whole picture, we’ll have to skip around in the book a little bit.
Why Jonah Refused to Prophesy
Jonah 1:1-2 says, “Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because their wickedness has confronted Me.”
Jonah 3:4 tells us that he did just that, eventually, though his sermon was quite lackluster by most accounts. He might’ve even take some form of sadistic glee in delivering his five word message (in Hebrew). “Jonah set out on the first day of his walk in the city and proclaimed, ‘In 40 days, Nineveh will be demolished!’”
And to wrap it up, Jonah himself tells us why he didn’t want to prophesy to the Ninevites in Jonah 4:1-2.
“But Jonah was greatly displeased and became furious. He prayed to the Lord: ‘Please, Lord, isn’t this what I said while I was still in my own country? That’s why I fled toward Tarshish in the first place. I knew that You are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to become angry, rich in faithful love, and One who relents from sending disaster.”
To be very clear, Jonah knew who God is. He knew very well that the reason God sent him to Nineveh was not so Nineveh would be aware of their destruction so they could keep marching toward it, but so that they could repent and be saved from doom. Jonah refused to go because he didn’t want the Ninevites to be saved. He wanted them destroyed, dead, eternally. That was the depth of his hatred.
God Cares for All His People
After Jonah reveals the nature of his thoughts in prayer to God, however, is where the real theme of the book of Jonah reveals itself, and it all comes from a shade tree.
Jonah 4:4-9 says, “The Lord asked, ‘Is it right for you to be angry?’
Jonah left the city and sat down east of it. He made himself a shelter there and sat in its shade to see what would happen to the city. Then the Lord God appointed a plant, and it grew up to provide shade over Jonah’s head to ease his discomfort. Jonah was greatly pleased with the plant. When dawn came the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, and it withered. As the sun was rising, God appointed a scorching east wind. The sun beat down so much on Jonah’s head that he almost fainted, and he wanted to die. He said, ‘It’s better for me to die than to live.’
Then God asked Jonah, ‘Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?’
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘It is right. I’m angry enough to die!’”
There are a few incredibly important things to point out in these verses, the first of which is God’s dual response to Jonah’s anger. He asks the same things both times Jonah admits to being upset with his situation: “Is it right for you to be angry?” At first glance, it seems to be a relatively innocent question with little connection between the two occurrences, but it becomes apparent in Jonah’s response to the plant providing shade for him what the purpose of the question is.
God Cares for All His People
Verse 6 tells us that Jonah was greatly pleased with the plant, which he did not grow, but benefited from greatly, and it is in the understanding of this where God begins to reveal the purpose of having Jonah deliver the prophecy to Nineveh and the purpose of this book for us.
Verses 10-11 say, “So the Lord said, ‘You cared about the plant, which you did not labor over and did not grow. It appeared in a night and perished in a night. Should I not care about the great city of Nineveh, which has more than 120,000 people who cannot distinguish between their right and their left, as well as many animals?”
The Dual Nature of God’s Work
If you paid close attention to this book, you might notice that in God’s actions to move Jonah to Nineveh, He prompts two distinct outcomes in the people who experience them. The first example of this is when He brings about the storm while Jonah is at sea. When Jonah is tossed off the boat as a result of this storm, the sailors who threw him overboard know that they have experienced the one true God, and chapter 1 tells us they turned away from their pagan gods and to Yahweh, sacrificing and making vows to Him. The second result of this is in Jonah, who repents of his actions and chooses to go to Nineveh as he was asked.
This establishes an important standard for how events play out in the book of Jonah. Essentially, the formula is, wherever Jonah goes, God does two things: He impacts the people around Jonah, and He teaches Jonah a lesson about who He is.
Thus, Nineveh, where God impacts all the Ninevites, turning them to Him. But rather than learn his lesson this time, Jonah spits God’s character into His face, angry at God for being who He is. So God uses the plant to knock the lesson into Jonah’s thick skull: all people are His creation, and He is allowed to care for them all equally, to have mercy for them all equally. After all, He made them, labored over them, and knows them all individually.
The Lessons for Us
And that’s two of the three main lessons we’re supposed to learn here, too. Firstly, it is that God cares for all His creation because He is jealous for them, invested in them. He created every single person and loves each one, and because of that, He chooses to save them. Secondly, we didn’t do any of those things, so our feelings shouldn’t negatively impact our mission to point them to God. We don’t get a vote in who God chooses for us to deliver His message because we had no part in making them; we just go deliver the message.
And finally, the third lesson comes in the revealed theme: when God calls us to do something, the benefit isn’t only for the people we’re called to help. Twice, Jonah’s actions helped others, and twice, God revealed more of Himself to Jonah through those actions. Jonah learned about God’s character: how He saves those who turn to Him, and how He cares and has mercy for all of His creation.
So the next time God calls you to do something for someone else, think about why He’s given you that task. Don’t just do it to do it, but truly seek God in the doing of it. You might find that you benefit from your actions just as much as the people you help.