The Great Book of Jonah-Part 1
Few books come under attack in the bible as much as the Book of Jonah. The world loves to attack the account of creation in Genesis but after that the story of Jonah is high on their list. We have looked at how nonsensical evolution is already, so today we are going to have a closer look at the Book of Jonah. And as usual, as I studied it I found the book gets more and more challenging as you get into it, and so as a result, the learning points get deeper and deeper so by the last chapter, chapter 4, I was left with the feeling of what aa awesome book this is and what a great God we have.
Now people reject this book as fiction because of the story of Jonah being swallowed by a fish, and I’m going to look at that in more detail. But it’s not only people out on the street that see this book as fiction and as simply a fable, but some ministers do as well. How very very sad and disappointing. People reject this book of Jonah and others either because they do not understand it or because there are a number of miracles in this book. If you reject anything you don’t fully understand because you cannot work it out, you will reject Jesus walking on water, turning water into wine etc etc. You will reject most of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and much of the Old Testament. So by taking this Book of Jonah and saying it’s just a story, you’re one step away from rejecting the Bible altogether. This is a factual book. Right in vs1 we read
Jonah 1:1 The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”
We know this same Jonah was mentioned in 2 Kings 14, which is a historical book, in the time of Jeroboam. We know he came from Gath Hepher. So Jonah was a known prophet in history.
Also the Jews accepted this Book of Jonah as factual, but more importantly Jesus saw this as a factual account
Matthew 12:38-42 The Sign of Jonah
38 Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.”
39 He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here.
So Jesus accepted it as fact and that’s enough for me. Lets get into the book.
Jonah 1:1-7 Jonah Flees From the Lord
1 The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”
[Nineveh was a very impressive city at the time, 780BC, about 1800 acres, big massive walls around it more than 100ft high, 50ft thick. 18 canals bringing water into the city of over 600,000 people- some say many more than this. The Assyrians would soon be (next 2-3 generations) a huge power in the region.]
3 But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.
4 Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. 5 All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship.
But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. 6 The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.”
7 Then the sailors said to each other, “Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.” They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah.
As we go through this you will see how often that word ‘great’ is used and very often with a corresponding word ’but’. Preach against that great city… but Jonah headed for Tarshish, sent a great wind …but Jonah was below deck asleep, there was a great storm…. but the men could not row to land. Life is always giving us options and circumstances. Those choices will define our life.
We can follow the word of God… but we can also go the opposite way to Tarshish
We can face great headwinds …. but we can also go below deck and sleep
We can cry out to the Lord in the storms of life…. but we can also try and row ourselves to shore. Do it ourselves
One thing we cannot do is allow circumstance to solely govern our decision making. Once Jonah had decided to go in the opposite direction to Tarshish he conveniently found a ship bound for that port. Prayer first and then the doors of circumstance, not the other way round. The fact that the door opens to go to Tarshish, does not mean God wants you to go there.
Back to Chapter 1
Then the sailors said to each other, “Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.” They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 So they asked him, “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What kind of work do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?”
9 He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”
10 This terrified them and they asked, “What have you done?” (They knew he was running away from the Lord, because he had already told them so.)
11 The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?”
12 “Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.”
13 Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. 14 Then they cried out to the Lord, “Please, Lord, do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, Lord, have done as you pleased.” 15 Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. 16 At this the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him.17 But the Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Two quick points on this chapter.
Isn’t it interesting that everyone is praying except Jonah the man of God! And then they all cast lots to find out who is responsible. Strange thing about life, is that we always think someone else is at fault, never us! I think we have turned this into a national pastime to find someone to blame. Gives a different perspective to John F Kennedys “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country,” Sometime’s we need to search our own hearts.
Maybe ask not who is at fault here; ask how can we fix this??
I have a feeling that much of the turmoil, the stormy seas and the head winds we face are a direct result of us rejecting the authority of God’s word and not fearing God. We try and off load baggage and row against it to no avail. This is happening at a personal level, a family level and a national level. We will look at this another time, but once we stop fighting it, those raging seas will become calm.
The Book of Jonah faces the most ridicule for the account of Jonah been swallowed by a great fish. No one knows what type of fish it was except that it was great fish. We live in an age of great cynicism, but the fact is, that it has happened at least twice in recent times that we know about, once in the 1700’s which was not well recorded and again in 1891. There was much cynicism about this as well
The records of the British Admiralty testify that James Bartley, an apprentice seaman on a whaler, was swallowed by a whale in February, 1891,
It was his first whaling voyage and he was aboard the whaling ship Star of the East.
The lookout spotted a huge sperm whale half a mile off the port bow and gave the cry 'There she blows!' Young James BartIey was in the first longboat to reach the side of the prey. They crept up from the rear, so near that the harpooner leaned over and rammed his weapon deep into the whale's vitals. As the stricken beast sought to free itself of the harpoon, Bartley and the other oarsmen rowed frantically to get out of reach of the massive flukes, the two-pronged tail which threshed the water to foam in the whale's agony. The whale sounded and eight hundred feet of heavy line streaked out of the line tub before he ended his dive. Then an ominous slacking in the line signaled the monster was going to surface. But where?
The oarsmen readied themselves to pull for their lives. Without warning there was a splintering crash which sent the longboat spinning into the air. The whale thrashed about wildly, snapping at the men and the wreckage with its huge jaws as the water turned to a bloody froth before he sounded again. Another longboat picked up the survivors of this encounter, but two men were missing - one of them the young apprentice, James Bartley. The wind now deserted the Star of the East and for hours she lay becalmed, wallowing in a light swell. Shortly before sunset, the now dead whale floated to the surface a few hundred yards from the ship. In a longboat, the crew hastily fastened a line to the whale and the winch brought it to the ship's side. The hot weather climate made it imperative that the whale be cut up at once. Having no means of raising it to the deck, the men took their flensing spades and peeled off the blubber as they slipped and slid along the immense back of this giant mammal.
Late that night, working by lantern-light, the tired crewmen removed the stomach of the whale and slowly winched it to the deck for flensing. They were startled to notice movement inside the large sack, movement that looked like something living and breathing. The captain called the ship's doctor who made an incision in the tough flesh. And out slid the doubled up missing sailor, James Bartley, as if he were suffering from severe stomach cramps. He was alive, but unconscious.
The doctor ordered Bartley drenched with sea water, a treatment which restored his consciousness but not his reason, for he babbled incoherently.
Confined to a cabin for several weeks and bound so he could not injure himself in his wild flounderings, Bartley gradually regained his senses. Within a month he was able to relate what had happened to him in his terrifying experience. Bartley said that as he was cast into the water from the long boat he saw a tremendous mouth open over him and he screamed as he was engulfed by it. He then felt sharp stabbing pains as he was swept across the teeth and then slid feet first down a slimy tube that carried him to the whale's stomach. He could breath, but the hot, fetid odor soon rendered him unconscious and the last thing he remembers was kicking as hard as he could at the soft, yielding stomach. Finally, he lapsed into unconsciousness until he again came to his senses almost a month later.
His skin was bleached to an unnatural whiteness that gave the appearance of being bloodless, although he was healthy.
James Bartley never made another trip to the sea and settled down to shore life as a cobbler in his native city of Gloucester, England. He died eighteen years after his remarkable survival and terrifying adventure. On his tombstone in the churchyard at Gloucester is a brief account of his experience at sea and a footnote, which says: James Bartley -1870-1909 - A Modem Jonah.
A cynical world rejected this account as well.
Large fish do swallow their prey live and I’ve seen live fish come out from the stomach of a fish. Baleen whales or filter feeders cannot swallow large creatures, but Sperm whales can and they are found in the Mediterranean. The Sperm whale has 4 stomach’s, and studies have shown that they to have a Pharyngeal pouch/sac that can expand considerably. Its function may be to stop all the sea water going into the stomach with the prey, or to hold air for deeper dives or maybe even for sound purposes. Robert Clark did a study of “Sperm Whales of the Azores” in 1956 and I have photos here of intact giant squid of over 100Kg and larger than a man, taken intact from the stomach of the whale. And also an intact Basking Shark over 2m long! So size is not an issue and with a Pharyngeal sac neither is air. A scientific study wrote this in a paper
“Some authors have suggested that the sac can be filled with air when the whale surfaces, and that the sac can then be used as an oxygen store during diving (Negus 1962). The idea here is that the whales are able to push this stored gas from the laryngeal sac into the lungs and thereby 'take a breath' while submerged.” “.. laryngeal sacs are not unique to mysticetes: they're also present in such odontocetes as the Sperm whale”
But again if you can’t believe Jesus walked on water, you won’t believe the story of Jonah, no matter how feasible it is. People want more proof, more evidence, more signs…
And Jesus says
Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.”
39 He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Let’s look at the parallels with what happened to Jonah and what happened to Jesus
Jonah preached the message of God to Jeroboam and Israel, but he also preached to the city of Nineveh as well , an unbelieving and wicked people. He preached to Jews and gentiles Just as Jesus came to save the Jews and the gentiles from their wickedness. The Jews under Jeroboam rejected God, but the gentiles (Nineveh) accepted Him. The Jews rejected Jesus and the gentiles accepted him.
As Jonah was thrown into the sea to die to save the crew of the sailing vessel in a sacrificial death, so to was Jesus sacrificed to save all mankind and calm the raging sea.
Now the sea to the Jews is a picture of the “abyss”. The “abyss was the underworld, the abode of the dead (Sheol)”. So Jonah has gone into the grave and he returns in fact Jonah prays
Jonah 2:1-2
2 Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the fish’s belly. 2 And he said:
“I cried out to the Lord because of my affliction, And He answered me.
“Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, And You heard my voice.
So to the Jews, Jonah’s coming back after three days is the clearest picture possible of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Then we read this about Jesus in Ephesians
Ephesians 4:8-10
8 This is why it says: “When He ascended on high, He led captives in his train, and gave gifts to men.”9 (What does, “He ascended” mean except that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth? 10 He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)
And as Jesus descended into Sheol so did Jonah.
The fact that Jonah was in the whale for 3 days is significant, Remember Lazarus was brought back from the dead in 4 days, Jesus was in the tomb for three days. Jewish religious teachers of the time, believed that a person’s spirit would linger for 3 days before leaving the body or when decomposition set in- a false teaching. And so they believed that no one could be raised from the dead after that period of time, except through a Messianic miracle and by God. So the fact that Jonah was in the fish for three days, Jesus delayed raising Lazarus for 4 days and Jesus Himself was in the tomb for 3 days, was a sign in itself that God was doing something incredible that the Jewish people could not possibly miss. Every opportunity was given to the Jews to see the Messiah and they rejected Him! But a cynical world rejects Him to this day!
Finally and to summarise. Looking at Jonah 2:1-2 again, Jonah cries out “from the fishes belly” and says “you listened to my cry”. We see that Jonah was saved when he was in the fish, in the belly of the fish, not when he came out the fish! Sometimes we have to be in the belly of the fish to appreciate the grace of God. And this prophet is then brought back from the dead to bring God’s mercy and forgiveness to an undeserving foreign people.
And so the sign that Jesus was talking about in Matthew 12 is not just the three days in the fish, but much much more. It’s the saving grace of the sacrifice that was Jesus’ death, particularly for gentiles. It was His descent into Sheol and the freedom this brought, it was His resurrection to become the Saviour the world, and also sadly a sign for the judgement of Israel (Matt 12:41).
And so John writes in John 11:25 about Jesus , “I [Jesus] am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.
This is all foolishness to those who are lost, but to those saved it is the power of God
This is the miraculous story of Easter