JONAH, BOOK OF (Heb.
Yonah), the fifth in the collection of the 12
short prophetic books (Minor Prophets). Unlike the other books of this
collection the Book of Jonah contains a prophecy of only five words (3:4); the
rest of the book is a story about Jonah son of Amittai. The book was
nevertheless added to the prophetic books, probably because a prophet of this
name was known from the time of Jeroboam II (II Kings 14:25) and because the
book deals with the problem of a man whose task it was to bring the word of
God to Nineveh.
Outline of Contents
Jonah son of Amittai is ordered by YHWH to go to
Nineveh and proclaim judgment upon its people for their wickedness. Jonah
refuses to fulfill the mission and tries to escape. At Jaffa he boards a ship
bound for Tarshish, a direction opposite to Nineveh. YHWH brings on a great
storm. The sailors try to avert the danger by praying to their gods and
jettisoning the cargo. Jonah, who has gone to sleep, is awakened by the
captain who asks him to pray to his God, in the hope that He may prove
responsive. The sailors then decide to find out by casting lots on whose
account the misfortune has come upon them. The lot falls on Jonah, and they
try to find out what wrong he has done. Jonah discloses that he is fleeing
from a mission of his god, YHWH, and that the only way they can make the storm
abate is by heaving him overboard. The sailors first try to row back to land,
but this proves futile, so they throw Jonah overboard and pray to the Lord not
to hold them guilty for his murder, since it was He who has left them no other
way of saving themselves. The storm subsides at once and the sailors, who now
fear YHWH, offer sacrifices and make vows (Jonah 1). Jonah himself is
swallowed by a great fish, from inside of which he prays to YHWH, and after
three days and nights in the fish's belly he is spewed out on dry land (Jonah
2).
Jonah is called by YHWH a second time to bring His
message to Nineveh. This time Jonah does go to Nineveh, a big city, "three
days' journey in breadth." He proclaims that in 40 days Nineveh will be
overthrown. The people of Nineveh believe God, proclaim a fast, and put on
sackcloth. The king of Nineveh too takes part in the acts of repentance and
orders all the inhabitants to pray to God and to repent of their evil ways:
"God may turn and relent" (3:9). As a result of Nineveh's repentance, God
renounces the punishment He had planned to bring upon it (Jonah 3). Jonah is
greatly displeased by this mercy and complains of it to YHWH: he had tried to
escape his mission in the final place for fear that YHWH would be moved to
renounce His punishment out of mercy. In his vexation Jonah asks YHWH to take
his life. At this time Jonah is outside Nineveh sitting in the shade of a
booth waiting to see what will happen to the city. The Lord causes a ricinus
plant (see castor oil plant) to grow unexpectedly over Jonah to provide shade
over his head, to his great relief. On the following day, however, the Lord
provides a worm which attacks the plant causing it to wither. When the sun
rises, the Lord causes a sultry east wind to beat down on Jonah's head. Jonah
becomes faint and asks for death. Then the Lord says: "You cared about the
plant, which you did not work for and which you did not grow, which appeared
overnight and perished overnight. And should I not care about Nineveh, that
great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons
who do not yet know their right hand from their left, and many beasts as
well?" (4:10–11).
The Unity of the Book
The Book of Jonah raises certain exegetical problems,
such as the question why the king had to order the people (and the cattle
too!) to wear sackcloth and to fast, after they had already done so on their
own initiative (3:5–8), or why Jonah needed the ricinus plant while he sat in
the shade of the booth (4:5–6). Some scholars have tried to solve these
problems by the application of the source-theory. However, since the beginning
of the 20th century it has been accepted almost unanimously that the book is
one entity, with perhaps some later additions. Some scholars regard verse 4:5,
which seems out of place, as one of these additions. Others place this verse
after 3:4. But a study of the literary techniques employed in the book
discloses that the author always describes the religious reactions to events
before continuing the story (cf. 1:5; with 1:10; 1:16 with 2:1). It is
therefore possible that here too Jonah's leaving Nineveh is mentioned only
after the description of the religious reaction of Nineveh to Jonah's mission.
The Psalm of Jonah (2:3–10) is regarded by many
scholars as an interpolation, particularly because it is neither an expression
of penitence nor a plea for deliverance, but is a thanksgiving psalm. It is
unclear how the special situation of Jonah in the belly of the fish could
evoke such an expression of joyous praise. The conditions referred to in the
psalm also have nothing to do with the distress experienced in a fish's belly.
The psalm could, therefore, have been added to the book later. However, it has
been shown in recent studies that the psalm is most probably an integral part
of the book. Some of the main expressions in the psalm relate directly to the
language used in the previous chapter (cf. 1:2, 6 with 2:3; 1:16 with 2:10)
and apparently came to determine the choice of psalms by narrative authors at
an early date; cf. the choice of "Hannah's psalm" solely on account of I Sam.
2:5b (Y. Kaufmann). Besides, the removal of the psalm from the book would
unbalance the symmetry of the two major parts (G. H. Cohen, G. M. Landes). It
may therefore be assumed that the psalm—though perhaps borrowed or compiled
from another source—was always part of the book.
Special attention should be given to the changes in
the use of God's names. YHWH ("the Lord") is His name as the God of the
"Hebrew" (1:9) Jonah. In connection with the non-Israelite people of Nineveh
He is Elohim, "God." The sin for which Nineveh is judged is not
idolatry but lawlessness (3:8). Jonah objects to God's habit of renouncing a
punishment which was merited and has already been decreed, but God's purpose
in sending prophets to announce His punishments is precisely to make them
unnecessary. For He has precisely the "sentimental" attachment which Job
10:3a, 8ff. accuses Him of lacking; and besides there are always the innocent
children and dumb beasts (Jonah 4:10–11).
The Motifs of the Book
The main motifs of the book are similar to those
found in the literature of other cultures. They are archetypical pictures
which always regain a new image. Many stories tell about a person's being
swallowed by a great fish and rescued thereafter (Heracles the Hesione,
Perseus and Andromeda, etc.). However, only in the Book of Jonah is the man in
the fish rescued not by force (fire from inside or sword from outside) but by
prayer, his salvation thus resulting from the combined action of God and man.
It should also be noted that in the Jonah story the fish and the man remain
unharmed. Thus the story of Jonah—despite its similarities to other
stories—has a unique biblical character. Basically the same situation as in
the Book of Jonah is found in the story of Daniel's rescue from the lion-pit
and the salvation of the three boys from the fiery furnace (Dan. 3 and 6). In
all these stories the motif of swallowing becomes a symbol for the act of
faith between God and man.
The common factor in all parts of the story is the
acceptance of God's commands. Jonah tries to escape God's will but he learns
that this cannot be accomplished. Even the sea and the great fish, which
according to mythology are great independent powers in the universe (cf. Isa.
51:9–10; Ps. 74:13–15; 89:10–11; Job 26:12), have to obey the orders of
God. The sea becomes stormy and calm according to the wish of God (1:3, 15);
the fish swallows and spews out according to God's order (2:1, 11); the
castor-oil plant, the worm, and the east wind are all obedient servants of God
(4:6–8).
The Teaching of the Book
The purpose of the book has been explained in various
ways. According to many scholars the book is to be understood in its
historical context. The best-known opinion connects the book with the times of
Ezra and Nehemiah and assumes that it is the expression of universalistic
opposition to the particularistic ideas of that time. However, it is difficult
to accept that a book which uses Nineveh as the symbol of the repenting city
and which does not mention the name Israel even once has such an historic
tendency.
The book has also been regarded as an essay dealing
with the profession of the prophet. The prophet cannot escape his mission and
he should not regard it as weakness or failure if his prophecy is not
fulfilled. However, since the book does not speak explicitly about prophets
and prophecy (the word is not mentioned even once) and since Jonah's
argumentation contains no aspects of his personal life, this explanation seems
improbable too.
The Book of Jonah has to be understood as a lesson in
divine forgiveness and mercy. Jonah tries to escape his mission because he
knows that God often relents after having decreed punishment. Indeed, God
renounces his punishment after the repentance of the city out of mercy for the
inhabitants.
The book also stresses the need for man's acceptance
of God's word. Jonah does not want to follow God's order but is prevailed upon
to do so after having seen that he cannot escape and that all parts of the
universe are God's servants (Jonah 1–2). Jonah does not want to accept God's
world-order but is persuaded to do so after having seen that human life and
existence are impossible without God's mercy (chapters 3–4). The book begins
and ends with the word of God.
The Date of Origin
Opinions vary greatly concerning the date of the
book's composition. Some date it as early as the eighth century B.C.E. and
accept it as a story told about Jonah the prophet who lived in the time of
Jeroboam II similar to stories about Elijah and Elisha (cf. II Kings 8:4).
Others date it as late as the third century B.C.E. As the book is mentioned by
Ben Sira (49:10) it cannot have been written later than his time.
The main points for fixing the date are the
following:
(1)
The language: Some words seem to be late like the
relative pronoun she and the Aramaisms mallah (1:5); yitashet
(1:6); taam (3:7); and ribbo (4:11). However, she is
attested very early in northern Israel (Jud. 5:7; 6:17) and, for geographical
reasons, Aramaisms may likewise have penetrated there at an early date.
(2) Reference to Nineveh: It is said about
Nineveh that it "was an enormously large city" (3:3) and it seems
therefore that the book was written after the destruction of this famous
city (612 B.C.E.). On the other hand, it has been pointed out that the
past tense can also be used to describe a continuous existing situation
(cf. Jer. 1:18). This, however, does not account for the unhistorical
title "king of Nineveh" and the legendary size of the city.
(3) The identity of the prophet: The question of
the date of the book is related to the time of the prophet, if he indeed
was an historical figure (II Kings 14:25). However, if the prophet's name
is symbolic or was chosen only to give a later book more authority, the
prophet's identity cannot be helpful in fixing the date of the book's
composition, especially since it is also possible that the story is
connected with an historical prophet, but the book itself was written much
later.
(4) Parallels to other books: The Book of Jonah
contains parallels to the stories about Elijah (cf. Jonah 4:3 with I Kings
19:4); to the prophecies of Jeremiah (cf. Jonah 3:8–10 with Jer. 18:7–8);
and particularly to the Book of Joel (cf. Jonah 3:9 with Joel 2:14; Jonah
4:2 with Joel 2:13). It is, however, impossible to prove if and in which
way these sources influenced the Book of Jonah or were influenced by it.
It is quite probable that the book recounts an early
story, since the people of Nineveh are worshiping idols, but the prophet only
speaks, as in early times, against their moral sins. The lack of any national
aspect has also been cited in favor of an early date of the story, which was
perhaps first told orally and written down only at a later date.
The Book of Jonah aroused special interest throughout
the ages not only because of its dramatic content and literary devices but
also because of its important role in the religious world. The book is read at
the Day of Atonement afternoon service (Meg. 31a).
[Gabriel H. Cohn]
In the Aggadah
When sent to prophesy against Nineveh, Jonah
suppressed his prophecy, although liable to suffer death at the hands of
Heaven for doing so (Sanh. 11:5), and did not go, preferring rather to honor
the son (the people of Israel) than the Father (the Almighty). For were he to
go to Nineveh, Jonah argued, its people would immediately repent, with the
result that the Almighty would have mercy on them and hold Israel blameworthy,
declaring that, unlike the gentiles, they became stubborn whenever He sent His
prophets to them (cf. Matt. 12:41). Jonah tried to flee abroad to a gentile
country "where the Divine Presence neither dwells nor appears." First the
sailors plunged him in the sea up to his knees and then up to his neck, each
time the sea became calm but grew stormy again when they lifted him back on
deck. Thereupon they hurled Jonah into the sea, which immediately stopped its
raging (Mekh., Bo, Introduction: Tanh., Lev., 8; Pd-RE 10).
[Elimelech Epstein Halevy]
In Christianity
Jonah is regarded in Christianity as the proof of the
capacity of the gentiles for salvation and the design of God to make them
partake of it. This is the "sign of Jonas" referred to in Luke 11: 29–30. In
the same passage he is referred to, as are many of the prophets, as a
forerunner of Jesus. "The men of Nineveh... repented at the preaching of
Jonas; and behold, one greater than Jonas is here" (ibid., v. 32).
Similarly the three days and three nights which he spent in the whale's belly
are seen as a prefiguration of the three days and three nights he would be "in
the heart of the earth" (Matt. 12:40).
[Editorial Staff Encyclopaedia Judaica]
In Islam
Yunus (Jonah) the prophet, "the man of the fish," was
one of the most prominent descendants of Abraham. He was one of the apostles
of Allah, even though he fled from his mission because he thought that Allah
did not control him (Sura 6:86; 22:87). Sura 10 of the Koran is named after
him. In Sura 37:139–49, Muhammad relates how Jonah hid in a ship loaded with
freight. His fate, however, designated him for destruction. Had he not praised
Allah, he would have remained in the belly of the fish until the day of the
resurrection of the dead. The myriads who were warned by Jonah believed in
Allah and continued to enjoy His mercies for a time (Sura 10:96–98). Umayya
ibn Abi al-Salt (Schulthess, 32:21) knew that Jonah had stayed only a few days
in the belly of the fish. The story of Jonah was a favorite subject in Islamic
legend; several motifs worthy of adaptation are found in it: the repentance of
the inhabitants of Nineveh on the day of ashura: the sojourn of Jonah
in the belly of the fish; his prayer, etc.
[Haim Z'ew Hirschberg]
In the Arts
The allegorical nature of the Book of Jonah and the
colorful episodes which it contains have inspired writers, artists and
musicians throughout the ages. One of the earliest literary works based on
Jonah was Patience, an anonymous English adaptation in verse probably
dating from the mid-14th century. The theme of the punishment awaiting the
"sinful city" was exploited by English puritanical writers of the 16th and
17th centuries. Thus, A Looking Glasse for London and England (London,
1594), a play by Robert Greene and Thomas Lodge, weaves the story of Jonah
into a dramatic account of the kingdom of Israel after the overthrow of
Jeroboam. In their comparison of Nineveh with vice-ridden London, the
playwrights mingled Elizabethan satire with biblical and moralistic elements
in the spirit of the Reformation. The subject also inspired A Feaste for
Wormes (1620), a paraphrase of Jonah by the English royalist writer
Francis Quarles, in whose Divine Poems (1630) the story later
reappeared. Two other works of the 17th century were the anonymous English
tragicomedy Nineveh's Repentance (c. 1656) and Jonas by the
German Protestant poet Martin Opitz. The subject fell into comparative neglect
until the second half of the 19th century, when the Historie of Jonah,
a dramatic poem, appeared in Zachary Boyd's Four Poems from "Zion's
Flowers" (1855). This was followed by John Ritchie's dramatic poem The
Prophet Jonah (1860), John T. Beer's play The Prophet of Nineveh
(1877), and Profeta-lomb ("The Prophet Bough," 1877), a work by the
Hungarian writer JFnos Arany.
There was a revival of interest in the theme among
writers of the 20th century. A. P. Herbert's The Book of Jonah (As almost
any modern Irishman would have written it) (1921) was a novel, comic
dramatization of the biblical story written in a broad Irish brogue. Behind
the superficial frivolity of the Scots playwright James Bridie's Jonah and
the Whale (1932; revised as Jonah 3 in Plays for Plain People,
1944) lies a more serious and sympathetic approach to the central issue. This
contrasts with Laurence Housman's playlet The Burden of Nineveh (in
Old Testament Plays, 1950), an attempt to debunk the Bible. Two other
works in English were A Masque of Mercy (1947), a play in blank verse
by the U.S. poet Robert Frost presenting the theme of man's relationship with
God in Christian terms; and the English novelist and critic Aldous Huxley's
poem "Jonah" (in The Cherry Tree, 1959). Der Mann in Fisch
(1963) was a novel about Jonah by the German religious writer Stefan Andres.
Perhaps because of its nautical interest, the subject has also inspired works
by several Scandinavian authors, notably Haakon B. Mahrt's Norwegian novel
Jonas (1935), Harald Tandrup's Danish novel Profeten Jonas privat
(1937; Jonah and the Voice, 1937), and Olov Hartman's modern Swedish
miracle play Profet och timmerman (1954). Works about Jonah by
20th-century Jewish writers include the U.S. novelist Robert Nathan's
Jonah; or the Withering Vine (1925; published in Britain as Son of
Amittai, 1925); M. C. Lichtenstein's Yiddish novel Yonah ben Amittai
(1929); a Hebrew play of the same title by Meir Foner (1930); and It Should
Happen to a Dog (1956), a one-act play by Wolf Mankowitz utilizing the
humor and idiom of London's Jewish East End.
[Editorial Staff Encyclopaedia Judaica]
In art, there are no less than 57 examples in
catacombs in Rome and on numerous sarcophagi, from the second to the first
centuries, some of which may possibly be Jewish. The four scenes are: the
storm, the swallowing and spewing forth by the whale, and Jonah chiding God.
In specifically Christian typology, the story has three parts, the parallelism
between Jonah and the whale and the visit to Limbo by Jesus being paramount.
The Jewish tradition appears fully in the four-part Jonah sarcophagus of the
British Museum. The Jonah cycle may well be older than its Christological
interpretation, and the sarcophagus would thus afford an indication of a lost
Jewish pictorial prototype.
[Helen Rosenau]
Individual representations of Jonah are rare. The two
major examples are the figure by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, Rome, and
the marble statue designed by Raphael and executed by his pupil Lorenzetto di
Ludovico Lotto(?) in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome. The prophet,
who is generally represented as bald, is here shown as a nude youth with curly
hair. The story of Jonah and the fish as a prefiguration of the Entombment and
Resurrection and the resurrection of the individual soul and the hope of life
hereafter accounts for its extraordinary popularity in the funerary art of the
early Christians. An interesting fourth-century ivory relief of the subject is
found on the Lipsanoteca in the Museo Civico Cristiano at Brescia.
Jonah was also a popular subject in Byzantine
manuscripts of the 6th–11th centuries, including the sixth-century Rabula
Codex, the Topography of Kosmas IndikopleustIs (Vatican), the ninth-century
Homilies of Gregory of Nazianz, and the 11th-century Khlyudov Psalter
(Moscow). In these, new episodes are illustrated, such as the "calling" of
Jonah (Jonah 1:2), his embarkation at Joppa (Jonah 1:3), and his preaching
before the king of Nineveh (Jonah 3:4ff.). The theme was less popular in the
Middle Ages, but survived as one of the types of the Resurrection. Some
notable medieval examples are the early 13th-century sculpture at Bamburg
showing the bald Jonah engaged in animated conversation with the prophet
Hosea; and the delightful illuminations in the 12th-century Hortus
Deliciarum (University Library, Strasbourg) and Admont Bible (National
Library, Vienna). In both manuscripts, Jonah is shown emerging from a fish, in
the latter case with a rhetorical gesture, as if about to make a speech.
Illuminations of Jonah were also included in medieval Hebrew Manuscripts, such
as the Spanish Cervera Bible (1300; Lisbon National Library) and the Kennicott
Bible (1476; Bodleian Library, Oxford). In an early 15-century German
mahzor (Academy of Sciences, Budapest), there is a casual, but vivid,
sketch of a bald and mustachioed Jonah sitting under the gourd (Jonah 4:6).
After the Middle Ages, the subject was comparatively
rare. Rubens included a painting of Jonah thrown into the sea as the predella
of a triptych of the miraculous draught of fishes ordered by the Malines
Fishmongers Corporation in 1618; and there is a stormy landscape of the same
subject by Gaspard Poussin at Windsor Castle, England. In Italy, Salvator Rosa
painted a picture of Jonah preaching to the Ninevites. The Israel
wood-engraver Jacob Steinhardt illustrated the Book of Jonah in 1953.
[Editorial Staff Encyclopaedia Judaica]
Musical compositions
on the Jonah theme are less abundant. One of the early masters of the
oratorio, Giacomo Carissimi (1605–1674), wrote an oratorio, Jona (of
which a 19th-century revision by Ferdinand Hiller has remained in manuscript);
two notable oratorios dating from 1689 are G. B. Bassani's Giona, which
has an opening instrumental "Sea Symphony," and the Giona of G. B.
Vitali. In the 18th century P. Anfossi (1727–1797) composed Ninive conversa
and, in the 19th century, the subject was represented, like most biblical
stories, in the English festival-oratorio production. Some increase in musical
interest has been noticeable in the 20th century, with Hugo Chaim Adler's
cantata Jonah (1943) and oratorios by Lennox Berkeley (Jonah,
1935), Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (Jonah, 1951), and Vladimir Voegel (Jonah
ging doch nach Ninive, for speaker, baritone solo, speaking-choir, mixed
choir, and orchestra, 1958). [Bathja Bayer]