Jonah & Nahum

How To Read the Book 

Jonah

The book of Jonah is classified as a prophetic narrative. It has been described as a parable or an allegory because it teaches a moral or a lesson, but it reports actual historical events, so it is a historical narrative.

Jesus uses the narrative of Jonah as an analogy of his resurrection when he mentions it in Matthew 12:40-41. In these verses he references the three days Jonah was in the big fish as a similarity to His three days in the grave, and he admonishes His audience that the Ninevites will condemn them because they repented with Jonah’s message, yet Christ’s audience would not repent even hearing His message from the mouth of the living God.

There is also an analogy being made between the Ninevites and the Gentiles in the New Testament. God is not the sole property of the Jews. This was part of the reason for Jonah’s reluctance to take the message of repentance to the Assyrians.

The book of Jonah also fits the category of satire. A satire exposes human vice or folly, and Jonah makes the perfect example. He represents bigotry and ethnocentrism. He is a laughable character because he is childish, pouting when God relents in spite of the fact that he is a prophet.

Some of the literary devices used in the book of Jonah include:

• Giantesque motive: Jonah’s task, the giant fish, the repentance of the people due to an 8-word sermon
• Irony: Jonah’s vocation vs. his behavior, the impossibility of fleeing from God.
• Humor: Jonah’s behavior

The book is set up in a way to compare and contrast different scenes and/or reactions.

You can also watch a teaching about prophecy in the portal which has different content from the blog post (in the video I misspoke and said “Abraham” when I meant “Moses”).

Nahum

The name “Nahum” means comfort, and the book is intended as a comfort for God’s people with the message that God had not forgotten them. It is considered war poetry in which God is portrayed as a divine warrior. There are oracles, taunts, narratives, pronouncements, and imagery throughout the book.

The button below is for a teaching on reading wisdom literature, which focuses on poetry in Scripture.

Historical Context

Nineveh

Let’s begin this study with a little background on the Ninevites to put both of these books in context. Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria. If you spend much time in the Old Testament, Assyria should be a familiar name to you. All throughout their history, Israel had conflict with Assyria. There were many times the Assyrians were stronger and used that strength to oppress Israel.

The Assyrians were famous (or infamous) for their mastery of torture. While I don’t want to be overly explanatory, I do think it is important to paint a picture so we can understand Jonah’s response to his call. Some of their torture tactics were:

• impalement
• crucifixion
• skinning their victim’s alive
• psychological torture by forcing their victims to grind the bones of their ancestors to dust and therefore erase any trace of their existence or claim to the land or throne
• beheading
• cutting off parts of their face or body, including gouging out their eyes, and leaving them alive as a warning to others
• burning alive, especially children

How do we know they did these terrible things? They bragged about it! They depicted many of these tortures on the walls of their palaces, left detailed descriptions on tablets, covered the walls of the city with the skin of their victims, and made pyramids out of severed heads or used them to decorate trees. All of this was a form of psychological warfare for the surrounding nations.

This had at least two side-effects that led to the downfall of Assyria. First, many of the Assyrian soldiers were haunted by the torture they inflicted or witnessed and suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in the form of seeing and hearing the ghosts of their victims. Second, Assyria had no allies among the other nations due to their cruelty, so at the first sign of weakness, they were attacked.

With this description, it is easy to understand why Jonah went to great lengths NOT to take the message of repentance to Nineveh and pouted when they accepted the message, repented, and received God’s forgiveness. From a human perspective, that was not justice. But God has compassion on anyone who repents and turns to Him.

Jonah

Jonah prophesied during the reign of King Jeroboam II. To learn more about his reign, go to 2 Kings 14:23-28. Israel had faced many conflicts with the Assyrians, a nation known for its cruelty and idolatry.

At the time of Jonah’s prophecy in Nineveh, Israel was expanding its nation partly due to temporary weakness on the part of Assyria. Assyria was engaged in multiple conflicts, was experiencing famine in many of its territories, and had numerous revolts among its people. Around the same time, there was a solar eclipse, which for a superstitious nation, was a type of sign.

This convergence of events left the Ninevites in a prime position to accept Jonah’s message and repent of their sinful ways. This repentance did not last for even one generation, however, as the nation of Assyria began to restore its power and territory.

Nahum

The events in the book of Nahum took place around 150 years after the events in the book of Jonah. It is a warning to Nineveh that destruction is coming, but it is more so a book meant to comfort Judah, the part of Israel known as the southern kingdom. While the book warns of the impending destruction of Nineveh, it does not include a call to repentance. The time for repentance was over.

Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire, and Assyria had been at odds with Israel for centuries. When Israel was in unrepentant sin, God used Assyria to judge her, and the northern kingdom was destroyed. The Messiah was prophesied to come from Judah, so Judah was not destroyed but was oppressed by Nineveh.

Assyria was destroyed in 612 B.C., never to be restored. God made an example of them for the surrounding nations. He does not tolerate violence and wickedness forever.

Themes

God’s Sovereignty

One of the most important themes in the book of Jonah is God’s sovereignty. Throughout the book, we see God intervene in a way that accomplishes His purposes. Often His intervention makes no sense to the natural order of things. It is important to remember that while this world is subject to the laws of nature, God as their creator, is outside of those laws.

The first instance of God’s intervention happens when Jonah boards the ship headed to Tarshish. The Scripture says, “But the LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea…” (1:4). This storm wasn’t an accident. God sent the storm to get Jonah’s attention, to remind him that he can’t run from God. As the sailors employ all of their training to try and save themselves and the ship, the situation just gets worse until they submit to what God has planned. As soon as Jonah was thrown overboard, “…the sea ceased from its raging” (1:15). It is interesting that God used this situation to draw those sailors to Himself. Maybe we will meet them in heaven one day!

The next place we witness God’s intervention is in the very next section (1:17) when, “the LORD appointed a great fish.” We don’t know what kind of fish it was, it’s possible that it was one created specifically for this situation since Jonah was able to survive for three days in its belly and even had the presence of mind to pray and cry out to God at the end of those three days. It brings to mind the scene in the old Disney Pinnochio movie where Geppetto is sitting at a table and even has a fire going inside the belly of the whale, but I digress. It is surprising to me that it took Jonah three days to finally come around to submitting to God’s will. Perhaps he thought he was a lost cause until he realized God was allowing him to live.

We see God working again after Jonah preaches to the Ninevites and then pouts because he didn’t want God to forgive them. Jonah goes outside of the city to sit and wait and watch. Scripture tells us that, “the LORD God appointed a plant” (4:6) to give Jonah shade while he pouted. This made Jonah happy until the very next day when, “God appointed a worm” (4:7) to attack the plant and kill it, destroying Jonah’s comfortable shade and leaving him exposed to the wind and heat. This was meant to teach Jonah a lesson, which we don’t know he took to heart. The book ends with a reprimand from God, and we are left wondering what Jonah did next.

As a side note: One of the things that lends credibility to Scripture is that the authors of the books do not set out to make themselves look good. It is for the most part accepted that Jonah is the author of the book of Jonah, yet at no point in the book is he someone we look to as a role model. We don’t admire his disobedience, his begrudging preaching, or his poor attitude. If this were a fairytale, Jonah would be the villain. This makes the Bible more believable as an inspired Word from God because the authors don’t sugar coat their lives or the events they witnessed or experienced.

When we begin to fret about the course our lives are taking, we can remember that God is sovereign. And He is able to go outside the natural order of things to accomplish His purposes. Of course, this isn’t the only book we’ve studied that has presented this theme. The book of Daniel will always be a favorite of mine for proving that God is in control of even the smallest details!

God’s Compassion

Another important theme in the book of Jonah is God’s compassion. Above we discussed the evil of the Ninevites and Assyrians as a whole. It is no wonder to me that Jonah didn’t particularly relish the idea of spending eternity with the people who were known for their brutality. However, he demonstrated a level of ethnocentrism that displeased God.

Jonah had the idea that God belonged to the Jews and only the Jews. The Israelites had been oppressed by the Assyrians for so long, you might even say Assyria was Israel’s nemesis. But God had a plan to bring these brutal people into His family alongside the Jews, proving that He didn’t belong to Israel, but Israel belonged to Him.

But forgiving the Ninevites isn’t the only picture of compassion we see in the book of Jonah. God also had compassion on the sailors who did everything they could to save their ship before they finally relented and tossed Jonah overboard. I’ve always wondered if they knew he survived. Scripture tells us that, after the sea calmed down, the sailors, “feared the LORD exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows” (1:16). God used this opportunity not only to get Jonah’s attention so he would go preach to the Ninevites, but also to show Himself to the sailors and lead them to repentance and forgiveness.

And there is another way we see God’s compassion in the book of Jonah: through Jonah himself. God used Jonah’s disobedience and terrible attitude as a teachable moment rather than simply striking him dead. Jonah’s disobedience wasn’t accidental. He intentionally went the opposite direction than where God told him to go. He intentionally went down into the bottom of the boat to put as much distance between him and God as possible (do you see the irony?). Jonah pouted when he discovered that God was going to forgive his enemies. Frankly, he reminds me of a tantrum-throwing toddler. Yet, just as we do as parents with our own toddlers, God turned this situation into a teachable moment to draw Jonah’s focus back to where it needed to be. Unfortunately, we don’t know how Jonah responded to the lesson, though considering he is believed to be the author of the book, perhaps we can infer that he changed his ways?

While it is true that no one is ever too far gone for God’s compassion to reach him, the book of Nahum teaches us that there comes a time when God’s compassion and patience run out. If God is working on you or trying to get your focus back on Him, don’t push Him away. Learn the lesson and lean into Him.

Metanarrative

To watch a lesson on the metanarrative of Scripture (the big picture of the Bible), click the button below.

Scripture Memory

This month we will be memorizing Nahum 1:2-8. I created a PDF so you can print out the verses to use as a reference. They are in the ESV, but I am happy to create one in whatever version you would like to memorize. Just let me know, and I’ll get it right to you. You can click here or scroll to the bottom of the page to access the PDF.

I’ve written this blog post to help you understand why it is important to commit Scripture to memory and give you some tips for how to do it.

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