The truth according to Jonah: Everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask.
Jonah calls himself, son of Ammitai—from the Hebrew EMET. Ammitai has been rendered as “true” or “my truth.” He is Jonah son of My Truth. Not a modest claim. He is a prophet of defiance–not a model prophet. First a quick time line,
The Book is set sometime before 722 BCE, when the corruption and evil of Nineveh reached the level of S’dom. Nineveh is associated with Assyria, which destroyed the Northern Ten Tribes in 722 BCE. In 612 BCE Babylon destroyed Nineveh. In 586 BCE, Babylon destroyed the First Temple. Jonah’s code of morality and Jonah’s truth conflicts with God’s. Here are six questions about Jonah.
Why did Jonah defy God?
Don Isaac Abarbanel–commentator, financier and advisor to kings— wrote when Jewish civilization in Spain and Portugal was being destroyed. Abarbanel teaches that Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh for he knew of the future destruction of the Ten Northern tribes. Jonah closed his soul to God’s call, so that the “nation of Assyria and Nineveh its capital would be destroyed.”
How is Jonah’s version of Jonah defined?
Jonah believes in retributive justice.
Andre LaCocque, professor emeritus at Chicago Theological Seminary and his son, the blues musician Pierre-Emmanuel Lacocque write that retributive justice is at Jonah’s core.
Not only must Nineveh be destroyed within 40 days, but retribution underpins the narrative. When Jonah advised the sailors to throw him overboard, it was with the conviction that, once the guilty–Jonah– is chastised, God will spare the innocent. If the sailors are unblamable, the Nineveh is not. Jonah’s judgment is narrow- minded. Nineveh is spared, not because of its innocence, but through God’s CHESED. Lacocque–father and son– state that the greatest lesson that Jonah must learn is that compassion does not negate faith and order. Compassion is a positive act of love.
How does Jonah’s characterization of God differ from that of Moses?
Professor Christine Hayes of Yale University explains that the words of Jonah’s complaint are carefully chosen. Compare Jonah’s description of Adonai with the Moses’ description of Adonai at Sinai.
At Exodus 34:6-7 Moses proclaims: Adonai! Adonai! A god [El] compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and truth [emet], extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin; yet he does not remit all punishment, but visits the iniquity of parents upon children and children’s children, upon the third and fourth generations.
Jonah states at 4:2:
For I know You are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in kindness, renouncing punishment.
Jonah omits the word “truth” (emet). According to Hayes, Moses describes God’s mercy as temporary. God does not entirely cancel punishment of the wicked. Jonah describes God as forgiving iniquity and remitting all punishment entirely. These two changes are interrelated. For Jonah, God’s complete forgiveness of iniquity shows a lack of concern for truth. If God were true to the demands of justice and the explicit terms of his covenant, God would NOT forgive all iniquity. God would reward and punish as true justice dictates.
According to Professor Hayes, here is Jonah’s complaint: God’s mercy perverts his truth and justice, because some things should not to be forgiven. People must be held to account for their evil actions. How can God NOT do justice? To Jonah, justice is punishment, This insight into Jonah’s morality leads us to the fourth question.
Why was Jonah disappointed with God?
Abarbanel explains that Jonah was disappointed that God did not hold Nineveh to a sufficiently high standard. God forgave them even though their repentance was incomplete. Nineveh turned from evil ways but still worshipped idols. Abarbanel offers an insight into Jonah’s behavior after God spares Nineveh. He analyzes the final scene in the book as Jonah retreats to the hillside and sits below the qiqayon.
Through the lens of future historical events, the evil that Jonah feels is not from the forgiving of Nineveh, but God’s intention to use Nineveh to destroy Israel. Jonah requests death so that he will not see the destruction of the Ten Northern Tribes. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel attributes Jonah’s disappointment to Jonah’s inability to accept that God can change God’s mind.
God proclaimed the doom of Nineveh with a certainty as to the date of destruction. What transpired only proved that the word of God was neither firm nor reliable. To a prophet who stakes his life on the reliability and infallibility of the word of God, such realization leads to despair. God’s answer to Jonah stresses the supremacy of compassion. For Jonah, if would be easier if God’s word were final, unambiguous and unconditional. For Jonah, it would be easier if God’ s anger became effective automatically.
How does God’s version of Justice differ from Jonah’s version of justice?
Rather than retribution, the Justice of God is based on CHESED, or in the language of attorney and lay scholar Ilana Schwitzer, “empathy.”
God is forgiving, even while knowing that reformation is not permanent, and the repentant sinner may sin again. God will not judge us on future crimes, but God judges us on who we are now and God accepts repentance. Clearly this is where we see God giving a reprieve to Nineveh and also a second chance to Jonah after he repents inside the fish.
God has empathy on humans and God offers metaphors so we can understand divine empathy. Thus God explains to Jonah meaning of the qiqayon—you did nothing for it—you have no reason to appreciate it.
According to Heschel, Jonah failed to understand God’s compassion. Looking at the answers to two preceeding questions, a pattern emerges. Jonah sees the sin. God sees the person. For God, justice takes into consideration (a) the sin, (b) the person, and (c) t’shuvah. Jonah did not understand that beyond justice and anger lies the mystery of compassion.
Why was Jonah in despair?
I take this lesson from the Book of Jonah: God is more than compassion and empathy. God also exercises retribution, but only when repentance fails. Nineveh reverted to its sinful ways. Ultimately, Nineveh is overthrown. As described by the Prophet Nachum:
The LORD is a passionate, avenging God;
The LORD is vengeful and fierce with wrath.
The LORD takes vengeance on His enemies,
He rages against His foe.
The LORD is slow to anger and of great forbearance,
But the LORD does not remit all punishment.
Ah, city of crime,
Utterly treacherous,
Full of violence,
Where killing never stops!
Crack the whip
And rattle of wheel,
Galloping steed
And bounding chariot!
Charging horsemen,
Flashing swords, And glittering spears!
Hosts of slain
And heaps of corpses,
Dead bodies without number-
They stumble over bodies.
Because of the countless harlotries of the harlot,
The winsome mistress of sorcery,
Who ensnared nations with their harlotries
And peoples with her sorcery
I am going to deal with you
–declares the LORD of Hosts.
“Nineveh has been ravaged!”
Epilogue
Let us suppose that after Nineveh is destroyed, Jonah and God meet again beneath the qiqayon. On one hand Jonah could say, “I told you so.” What would God tell Jonah?
Sources
All passages from these authors have been adapted, condensed and paraphrased.
Rabbi Steven Bob, Go to Nineveh, section on Don Isaac Abarbanel, pages 77, 82, 114. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets, Volume II, pages 66-67. Christine Hayes, Introduction to the Bible, pages 397-398. Jewish Publication Society, Tanakh, new translation. Andre LaCocque and Pierre-Emmanuel Lacocque, Jonah: A Psycho-Religious Approach to the Prophet, pages 160-161. —AARON FINESTONE