T. A. Perry - Jonahs Arguments with God: The Honeymoon is Over!

Im not going to stop loving you, Silly! But I am not going to cut myself off from the rest of the world either! Enough of this King Lear we two alone stuff!

Molire, The Misanthrope (free adaptation)

W hat is the book of Jonah about: a whale? Well, at least about a large fish, but also about a kikayon (Heb. qiqayon), or gourd tree, and a Thoreau-like hut on the edge of civilization. Is it history? If so, its literary form comes eerily close to what are known today as tales of the fantastic. Is it about Jews? Well, it is indeed preserved in Hebrew and is included among the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible. Yet, with the sole exception of the hero, no Jews appear, and Gentiles are the focus of at least half of the book. But if Jonah is a prophet, what is his prophetic message? A paltry five words, as against the pages of prophecy in other prophetic books, and these spoken reluctantly, between angry teeth. Of course, other prophets were also disinclined and argued against the Lord, but in the end they all gave in. Jonahs rebellion is more original: instead of the usual arguing and trying to stay his ground, he simply shuts up, makes an about-face, and flees. The main question of the entire book is why, and the writing delights in delaying and even in confusing expectations.

Jonah himself does not say why, at least not right away, and the narrator does not tell either. Only towards the books end does the prophet seem to offer a deferred excuse, one that shocks our sense of religion and, for some readers at least, reduces Jonah to the level of a comic character. His complaint seems to be that God will let the repentant Ninevites off the hook because He But already at the start, Jonahs attitude raises serious questions, for can one hope to escape from God:

Whither shall I flee from Your Presence? (Ps 139:7)

And if Gods prophets can be expected to know this better than anyone, then what on earthor on the seascan Jonah possibly have in mind? The proverbial strangeness of the book of Jonah thus challenges simple solutions. Its close reading may bring us to understand and even approve Jonahs deep religious and existential rebellion. And from the book there is some evidence that God, too, comes around to His prophets point of view. That does not mean, of course, that Jonah is off the hook. It does, however, intimate that standing up to God is necessary both for humans and perhaps for God too.

We might begin by offering that the book of Jonah is existential in a most elementary way, since all the protagonistsGod includedhave to survive a major threat to their very existence: the Ninevites because of their evil deeds, the sailors because they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, Jonah because death is what he wants, and God because He disregards Jonahs threat. In the words of the poet Rilke:

What will You do, God, when I die?

Jonah might thus be considered a salvation narrative. Just as Job is rescued from pain and accusation, Jonah is saved from suicide, the sailors from drowning, the Ninevites from annihilation, and God from the loss of His beloved prophet and possibly His reputation. But what survives for the generations is what was fully sought and only partially obtained by Job, and only partially sought and fully obtained by Jonah: a frank dialogue on the way the universe works and in particular on where humans who try to be good fit into the world order.

My excuse for adding yet another to the several good books about Jonah is to remain faithful to the obligation to recover for our own generation more of the seventy faces of scriptural interpretation. These seem to me at present stalled at two levels: on the one hand, a widespread refusal to loosen the fixities, the ossifications of preconceived readings, and, on the other, a failure of imagination to explore other literary and theological agendas. For example, it is painfully obvious that important ideas in the book of Jonah do not often come up for discussion and yet are of great interest to our contemporaries. I refer to such questions as suicide (and assisted suicide, its Jonah variant), near-death experiences, mere survival and existence conceived as a theological imperative, the moral capacity of animals, erotic theory, the possibility that God can not only change His mind but even be educated, universalism or outreach to Gentiles, and of course more standard issues such as the nature of repentance and prayer.