Jonah, Nahum, Habukkuk, Zephaniah

John H. Walton, Carl E. Armerding, Larry L. Walker, Tremper Longman III, David E. Garland

• Publisher: Zondervan Academic
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9780310531968
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

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Text and Exposition

I. JONAH’S FLIGHT (1:1–17)

A. Jonah’s Call (1:1–3)

1The 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.”

3But 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.

COMMENTARY

1 The first phrase of the book could be rendered “the instructions of the LORD” rather than the more common “the word of the LORD” to differentiate between the phrase used here (cf. also Jer 1:4 and Hos 1:2) and the phrase that is similar and used to introduce the majority of the prophetic books (Hos 1:1; Joel 1:1; Mic 1:1; Zep 1:1; Hag 1:1; Zec 1:1; Mal 1:1). In the latter, the “word of the LORD” refers to the message the prophet was presenting to his audience in the name of the Lord. Jonah 1:1 and the rest of this type, however, present instructions given by the Lord to his prophet (cf. also 1Sa 15:10; 2Sa 7:4; 1Ki 6:11; 16:1; 17:2, 8; 21:17, 28; Isa 38:4; and many instances in Jeremiah and Ezekiel).

2–3 Jonah is commissioned because the wickedness of Nineveh has come to the Lord’s attention. This development does not imply that the Lord was previously unaware of that great city’s depravity; rather, the situation there so degenerated that his patience has become overshadowed by the mandate of justice. In this way, the case of Nineveh is similar to that of Sodom and Gomorrah (Ge 18–19).

Jonah does not want to obey the instructions given to him, so he takes steps to avoid another audience. Someone given instructions in an official audience had a task to perform and would do so as the personal representative of the royal individual giving the commission (cf. Ge 41:46; 2Ki 6:32). Thus, it is such a commission (which was given in divine audience) from which Jonah is fleeing. Jonah does not necessarily think that distance will put him out of range of the Lord’s reach (if he accepted the theology of Ps 139:7–12); he may have thought his flight will simply result in the Lord’s finding someone else for the job. The Lord’s tenacity, however, is soon to be demonstrated.

Jonah proceeds to Joppa and boards a ship bound for Tarshish, whose location is unknown. The most common identification has been Tartessus, on the southern coast of Spain. There is little evidence, however, to support this conclusion. The phrase “ships of Tarshish” (1Ki 10:22; Isa 23:1; etc.) refers to merchant ships, so it must have been a trading port. Tarshish could just be the farthest port imaginable. In English we might say that he headed for Timbuktu.

The Phoenicians were responsible for most of the sea traffic in the Mediterranean during the first half of the first millennium BC. It was they who pioneered exploration and trade by sea. It is therefore altogether likely that Jonah finds himself on board a Phoenician vessel. Commentators continue to debate whether Jonah pays the fare for himself only or hires the entire vessel. (Sasson, 83–84, favors the former, while U. Simon (Jonah [Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1999], 6, opts for the latter.) In either case, this is an expensive undertaking.

B. The Ship, the Storm, and the Sailors (1:4–16)

4Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. 5All 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. 6The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us, and we will not perish.”

7Then 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.

8So they asked him, “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?”

9He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.”

10This 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.)

11The 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.”

13Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. 14Then they cried to the LORD, “O LORD, please do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, O LORD, have done as you pleased.” 15Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. 16At this the men greatly feared the LORD, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows to him.

COMMENTARY

4–5 Once out to sea, the vessel encounters such a ferocious storm that even the seasoned seamen quail with fear. The initial response of every man is to cry out to his god. Each individual on board would have had his own family and city gods. In addition there was an entire hierarchy of protecting spirits, patron deities, lower echelon gods and goddesses, and senior members of the pantheon. An individual worshiper would not necessarily feel confident in approaching main or cosmic deities directly; he would go through divine channels. The statement, then, that each call on his own god may not only refer to the fact that those present worshiped various gods, but may also suggest that they are to invoke their patron or family-level deities, who will in turn petition their divine superiors and eventually influence the god responsible for the storm or who has been offended. Finally, we are informed that Jonah has gone below deck and has fallen asleep, apparently before the storm began.

6 Jonah is roused out by one technically designated “captain of the linesmen” (“linesmen” probably designating the entire crew). The ironic twist of this pagan seaman’s telling an Israelite prophet that he ought to be praying has not escaped the notice of commentators. Furthermore, the exhortation that Jonah should “call on” his God repeats the verb found in his original commission from God (though using the preposition that occurs in 3:1).

The strategy of the sailors is clear. They figure that the more gods they can make contact with, the better chance they have of getting through to one who can do something about their plight. After all, they do not know which god is responsible for the storm. They seek a god who will take their case into the court of the gods and present a defense on their behalf—a god who will “take notice of” them.

7 The sailors decide to cast lots to discover “who is responsible” for the storm. What role would lots have in determining who is at fault? The natural inclination and the common suggestion of commentators has been that the lot will fall on the guilty party. The difficulty is that in v.8, after the lot falls on Jonah, the sailors turn to him and ask, “Who is responsible for making all this trouble for us?” Commentators circumvent this problem by suggesting that the sailors want (or need) Jonah to confirm the outcome of the lots. But that suggestion is only one alternative.

8 The repeated question, “Who is responsible?” could indicate that the lots were expected to help them to determine: (1) who should first report the sin he may have committed that would incur the wrath of his god; or (2) which deity is responsible for the storm (George Landes, “Textual ‘Information Gaps’ and ‘Dissonances’ in the Interpretation of the Book of Jonah,” Ki Baruch Hu, ed. R. Chazan, W. W. Hallo, and L. H. Schiffman [Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1999], 279). The fact that lots were not always used to pick one out of a group but were frequently used to determine order within the group could support the first option. When the temple duties were assigned, the lots were cast not to pick who would perform them but to determine which tribes would serve during which months. It established an order (Ne 10:34). Against this option is the fact that in Canaanite and Mesopotamian religions the individual was usually unaware of what his particular offense may have been. That an offense had occurred would be inferred from the circumstances, but a divining priest would generally be needed to isolate the offense.

Supporting the second option is the fact that the first answer Jonah gives identifies his God. Against this option is the wording inquiring about responsibility for the storm. Are they asking about guilt or cause? The language favors the former, thus ruling out the possibility that they expect a god to be identified. Furthermore, though Jonah answers by naming his God, that question is not among those pressed upon him by the sailors. It would have been a simple matter for them to ask which god he served if that were the information they sought. Finally, the identity of the god would do them no good if they had no knowledge of the nature of the offense, because they would not know what to do to appease the deity.

Perhaps the best solution is to understand the nature of the information given by the lots as direct but nonspecific (D. Stuart, Hosea–Jonah [WBC; Dallas: Word, 1987], 460). In this scenario, the casting of the lot tells them that Jonah is to be the source of the answer to their question. It is left to Jonah to clarify, in the best way he knows how, what his involvement might be. That is why the sailors’ questions range far and wide.

Finally, it is worth noting that their first question, “What is your work/mission” (“What do you do?” NIV) is just as striking as the captain’s calling on him to pray. What is his mission? He is a prophet called to go to Nineveh. Their question confronts him with the painful reality of his disobedience and betrayal of his vocation (Sasson, 126).

9 Jonah’s response is short and to the point. He first identifies himself as a Hebrew. This comment answers several of their questions, but for Jonah it serves as an introduction to what follows. “I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.” Now the sailors become fearful. Their method has been more effective than they ever dreamed. Jonah serves a cosmic deity with direct jurisdiction over the sea—precisely the type of god who would be responsible for their plight!

Jonah’s “fear” (“worship,” NIV) of the Lord is in itself ironic, since he obviously did not fear enough to obey, and it stands in stark contrast to the sailors’ fear, which leads them to be sensitive to any possible offense they might commit against this powerful deity (1:13–16).

10 The way the text presents the fact that the sailors know Jonah is fleeing from his God is unusual. When had Jonah told them? If he told them in his speech in v.9, the text could have quoted another line of Jonah’s speech to include that telling. Two alternatives may be considered. (1) The note of their knowing may be the narrator’s way of indicating that Jonah proceeded to tell them the whole, long, sorry story (Sasson, 126). (2) A second possibility is that Jonah mentioned this detail in passing before the storm. The fact that Jonah is fleeing from an audience with his god would generally not have been cause for alarm. But now the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Contributors
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Jonah
• Introduction
• I. JONAH’S FLIGHT (1:1–17)
• Nahum
• Introduction
• I. THE ANGER OF THE LORD (1:1–15[2:1])
• Habakkuk
• Introduction
• I. HABAKKUK’S INITIAL COMPLAINT (1:1–4)
• Zephaniah
• Introduction
• I. INTRODUCTION (1:1)