JonahVoorbeeld

Prophet on the run

God orders his prophet Jonah: ‘Get up and go to Nineveh, that big city, and cry out against it, for their evil has come to my attention.’ Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire, was the personification for the heathen, the ungodly. 

What do you do when God calls you? Well, Jonah just went the opposite way. Even, as far away as possible. Away from the Lord, away from the voice, away from the assignment. Jonah, going to Nineveh? No way, to him it’s not a good idea at all.

That he has to cross the sea, means a lot. The sea is often seen as a symbol of the realm of darkness and death in the Bible. It is a symbol of the unpredictable. At sea, powers are at work of which you are unaware. There are monsters and if you die you will never be found. Jonah flees onto the sea when he succeeds to get a place on board of a ship in the harbor town of Joppa. He wants to get away from God. Have you ever tried to flee from God?

Psalm 139:8-10
If I ascend to heaven, you are there

If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

If I take the wings of the morning

and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

even there your hand shall lead me

and your right hand shall lead me.

In stories, like this one, you have to look for the strange, the remarkable. Look for the contrast that has been put in intentionally. The storyteller wants to make something clear. The story tells us that the Prophet Jonah is snoring (!) in the belly of the ship while the sailors are praying to every god they can think of. The prophet is asleep, the heathen are praying. Really, that is the world upside-down?! Exactly, that is what the story wants to make clear about Jonah. While Jonah finally accepts his destiny, that he cannot escape from God and prepares himself to be swallowed down by the wild sea, the sailors try to save Jonah at all costs.

Jonah 1:14
Therefor they called out to the Lord, “O Lord, let us not perish for this man’s life and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O Lord have done as it pleased you.”

Jonah disappears in the waves and the storm dies down. The sailors, who first abided all kinds of gods, got to know the Lord in this way. Terrified and full of respect. 

By the way, another story is told through the story of Jonah. Something that still has to come; people of all nations all over the world will get to know and worship their Creator.