Welcome! I have been offline due to some vacation and family events. I have been asking for comments and reactions because I will be teaching an introductory course on Wisdom literature in the Old Testament. The three short books we will be looking at are: Ruth, Jonah, and Esther, and then we will look at some passages from Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesisastes, and Song of Soloman. We have finished with Ruth, and we are now moving to Jonah. The introduction I am sharing today comes from the Lutheran Study Bible.
"Jonah is unique among the prophetic books of the Bible. While the others are mostly made up prophetic speeches, Jonah contains only one short prophetic speech. The rest of the book is about Jonah himself. Jonah openly disobeys God's command to go to Nineveh. He tries to run far away from God. God pursues in and causes a great fish to swallow him. Jonah calls out to God and recognizes God as his deliverer. After God has the fish and vomit Jonah out, he then goes to Nineveh as God first asked him to do. But when is prophetic message causes the people to repent, Jonah has becomes so angry that he wishes for death. Why? That's the plot twist that is key to understanding story and why it was written.
The Lord calls Jonah to speak a prophetic word of judgment to the powerful city of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria. Assyria had been a feared enemy of the people of Israel. In 722BCD, it defeated the northern kingdom of Israel and forced to many of its people to leave their homes. So when God called Jonah to deliver his message to the hated Syrians in Nineveh, Jonah wanted no part of it. He runs away, not because he is afraid to do what he is called to do, but because he knows what might really happen. He knew that "the Lord is a gracious God and merciful slow to anger, and ready to relent from punishing." In other words, he knew that if he warned the Ninevites to repent, God was likely to forgive them."
What I have been thinking about his week from Jonah is the effect of having an enemy, and the difficulty of moving on. I remember the Cold War from my childhood, when people saw Russia as our enemy, and then looked everywhere among our own people to find traitors. It was an awful time. Nine Eleven brought a new enemy from insurgents in the Middle East, and we have had real difficulties with identifying who our enemies really are. This is really important for us so that we do not see our neighbors as our enemies. But Jonah pushes us beyond identification to see our enemies as God sees them, and that is disquieting.
What I am requesting is that you read the book of Jonah this week. It is only four chapters long, and is located at the very end of The Old Testament. Only two short books, Micah and Nahum, follow it. We'll talk together more about Jonah next week.
"Jonah is unique among the prophetic books of the Bible. While the others are mostly made up prophetic speeches, Jonah contains only one short prophetic speech. The rest of the book is about Jonah himself. Jonah openly disobeys God's command to go to Nineveh. He tries to run far away from God. God pursues in and causes a great fish to swallow him. Jonah calls out to God and recognizes God as his deliverer. After God has the fish and vomit Jonah out, he then goes to Nineveh as God first asked him to do. But when is prophetic message causes the people to repent, Jonah has becomes so angry that he wishes for death. Why? That's the plot twist that is key to understanding story and why it was written.
The Lord calls Jonah to speak a prophetic word of judgment to the powerful city of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria. Assyria had been a feared enemy of the people of Israel. In 722BCD, it defeated the northern kingdom of Israel and forced to many of its people to leave their homes. So when God called Jonah to deliver his message to the hated Syrians in Nineveh, Jonah wanted no part of it. He runs away, not because he is afraid to do what he is called to do, but because he knows what might really happen. He knew that "the Lord is a gracious God and merciful slow to anger, and ready to relent from punishing." In other words, he knew that if he warned the Ninevites to repent, God was likely to forgive them."
What I have been thinking about his week from Jonah is the effect of having an enemy, and the difficulty of moving on. I remember the Cold War from my childhood, when people saw Russia as our enemy, and then looked everywhere among our own people to find traitors. It was an awful time. Nine Eleven brought a new enemy from insurgents in the Middle East, and we have had real difficulties with identifying who our enemies really are. This is really important for us so that we do not see our neighbors as our enemies. But Jonah pushes us beyond identification to see our enemies as God sees them, and that is disquieting.
What I am requesting is that you read the book of Jonah this week. It is only four chapters long, and is located at the very end of The Old Testament. Only two short books, Micah and Nahum, follow it. We'll talk together more about Jonah next week.
RSS Feed