A Huge Fish and an Angry Prophet!

There’s a fascinating story in the Hebrew (Old Testament) Bible that really intrigues me. It’s always been one of my favorites.

This ancient story contains a compelling message for us personally and for our nation as well.

I am referring to the story of Jonah. 

Now you will notice that I didn't say “Jonah and the whale” which is how my Sunday school teachers referred to it.

Yes there is a great big fish in the story. Not a whale but an enormous fish large enough to swallow whole a full grown man. Even if Jonah was a small man the fish had to have been enormous.

But it wasn’t a whale since the word whale is not the word used in the original Hebrew and I find it a waste of time to try to prove a human can survive three days in the belly of such a great fish (literally).

Okay it’s not a whale but the fish part of the story seems to get all the attention; it’s as if the point of the story involves Jonah being swallowed by this great big fish.

Breaking News!

Jonah getting swallowed by a great big fish and being spewed out on dry land is just good story telling—but it isn’t the main point of the story.

How many times have you heard preachers tell their congregations that if they don’t believe in this part of the story literally then they can’t believe anything else about the story of Jonah.

Hogwash!

The fish is not the point of the story. The fish is not the main feature. The big fish is not the main character of the story. As author Rob Bell points out in this latest book, What is the Bible, we spend so much time on the fish-swallows-Jonah part of this story that we simply miss the main point of the story altogether.

So what is the main point of this story?

God called Jonah to go directly to Nineveh to deliver an unbelievable message. It’s really good news if one understands the context in which Jonah lived. Also tact on the story of Abraham's call and mission (Genesis 12) and the story of Jonah really begins to make sense.

Assyria was a really large and violent nation that had a habit of conquering neighboring nations and inflicting unspeakable horrors on them (raping, pillaging, killing, and occupying).

War is indeed hell!

If you lived in Jonah’s time and place you would have hated the Assyrians and for good reason.

Guess where Nineveh is located? You guessed it: Assyria! So no wonder Jonah flees from God. No wonder he refuses to deliver God’s message to Nineveh. But even this isn’t the main point of the story (as it is often thought to be).

I know, we’ve been taught most of our Sunday school lives that the story of Jonah is all about what happens when one disobeys God: He or she gets swallowed by a whale! Okay, a great big fish.

If you were an ancient Israelite and heard this story you would have probably reacted as Jonah did. He would have been a hero perhaps. You may have even voted for Jonah to be selected for the Prophet’s Hall of Fame.

In fact I would suggest that the story of Jonah would not have been a part of the Jewish Sunday school curriculum had there been such a thing back in the day.

Yet this story made it into the Hebrew Bible. It passed the litmus test for being considered sacred Scripture. There’s a reason for this you know.

Here's the point:

Forgive your enemies. Learn to move beyond the indignity and pain of having been attacked and humiliated. Learn to embrace forgiveness. It will set you free. It will release all that anger and resentment that comes from being treated in such horrible ways by such horrible people such as the Assyrians.

The message infuriated Jonah. It insulted his Israelite sensitivities. He just couldn’t move on. Maybe he just wasn't ready to forgive. It happens.

The book ends with a question from God, intended I believe to give Jonah something really profound to think about:

“And should I not be concerned about Nineveh . . . ?”

We don't know what happened to Jonah after this story, but we do know he had a lot of spiritual work to do.

Just as we do. Just as our nation does. 



What do you think?