Jonah (Bible Study)
THE WORD OF THE LORD CAME TO JONAH: – ‘You go to that Great City of Nineveh and tell them what they are doing is wrong.’
Jonah was one of the minor prophets and he was given a certain job to do. Many critics have said that the book of Jonah is a myth, an allegory and so forth. But this prophecy of Jonah is actually a literal history.
Why then did YAHWEH send Jonah to Nineveh? Well, in that great city of Nineveh lived Adamic people. And they, after building a great civilization, had allowed the children of ‘Darkness’ to come into their midst and now they were ‘Backsliding’ in their original faith. But besides that, it was into this area that YAHWEH WAS SENDING THE TEN TRIBES IN THEIR CAPTIVITY, before they would go west in their migrations.
Jonah knew that the people of Nineveh were of his race. And now although they had built a great civilization, were now about to lose it. Which always happened when they stopped following the laws of YAHWEH. Jonah knew that Assyria at that time, was in great difficulties as the nations around about were gaining power. He must have suspected that this city of Nineveh was to be YAHWEH’S rod of judgment. But he did not seem to understand YAHWEH’S full purpose in this situation. And he tried to follow his own way of thinking instead of doing obediently, what YAHWEH told him to do as Prophet of His people. The great lesson of this book of Jonah then, is that the devices of man shall not frustrate HIS purpose and what HE hath said shall surely come to pass. This is the lesson of this book and makes it worthy of its place in the WORD of GOD.
Now, Jonah, thinking that if he did not go to Nineveh, then the city would be overthrown, and then YAHWEH would not send Israel there, thus decided to flee and go the other way. He should have known better. But he tried. For he boarded a ship for Tarshish (Spain). But a great wind came up. And those in the ship became afraid. They wondered why God was angry and made the wind and the waves angry. Finally, Jonah does confess that he was probably the problem for he had thought that he could flee from the ‘Purposes’ of God. So they threw Jonah overboard. And immediately the wind subsided and the waves quieted.