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From: Jonah 1:1-2:1-2, 11
The prophet is charged with a mission and takes flight
The storm
[7] And they said to one another, “Come let us cast lots, that we may know on
whose account this evil has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell
upon Jonah. [8] Then they said to him, “Tell us, on whose account this evil has
come upon us? What is your occupation? And whence do you come? What is
your country? And to what people are you?” [9] And he said to them, “I am a
Hebrew; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry
land.” [10] Then the men were exceedingly afraid, and said to him, “What is
this that you have done!” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the pres-
ence of the Lord, because he had told them.
[11] Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet
down for us? For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. [12] He said to
them, “Take me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for
you; for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.”
[13] Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring the ship back to land, but they
could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. [14]
Therefore they cried to the Lord, “We beseech thee, O Lord, let us not perish for
this man’s life, and lay not on us innocent blood; for thou, O Lord, hast done as
it pleased thee.” [15] So they took up Jonah and threw him into the sea; and the
sea ceased from its raging. [16] Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and
they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.
[17a] And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in
the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Jonah in the belly of the fish
Jonah’s psalm of thanksgiving
[10] And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.
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Commentary:
1:1-2:10. The first part of the book acts as an introduction to the second, which
is where the main message is developed. The first two chapters contain the main
storyline and introduce the main characters. As regards the story, they show that
when God proposes to do something it will inevitably be done: Jonah does not
want to carry out God’s command, but he does so despite himself (he is as stub-
born and awkward at the end — cf. 3:1-2 — as he was at the start — cf. 1:1-2); in
addition, some sailors learn to invoke the Lord, the only God.
But the main function of these chapters is to introduce the characters of the story
— God, the pagans and Jonah. The Lord God of Israel, as Jonah well knows, is
“the god of heaven, who made the sea and dry land” (1:9) and he is also the Just
One who never accuses an innocent person, and who acts as he pleases (1:14).
His dominion over the animal (1:17; 2:10) and inanimate (1:4, 15) world and over
the destinies of men (1:7) goes to show that he has this power.
The sailors, who are pagans, are religious men and well-disposed towards others
(cf. the note on 1:4-16).
Jonah is the character around whom the story is built. At first he does not make
a very good impression — certainly not, if you focus on his disobedience to the
Lord (1:3). However, the text does have positive things to say about the prophet:
Jonah does not hesitate to say that he worships the Lord, the God of heaven and
earth, and he is ready to prove his faith by deeds (1:9, 12). He is also a devout
person: when he is in the belly of the fish, he prays to the Lord (2:1) in the style
of a grateful Israelite (2:1-9). Even so, the sacred writer regards Jonah as an in-
consistent man: one moment (1:9) he is saying that God is the Lord of sea and
earth, and yet he tries to hide from him; and later on, he will acknowledge God
to be merciful (4:2), and yet ask him to punish the Ninevites rather than have
mercy on them.
There is also another feature that defines Jonah. Despite his disobedience to
God’s command, Jonah has something that the pagan sailors to not have: he
knows the true God and therefore only he knows how to resolve the situation
when they are plunged into danger (1:12, 15). If we bear in mind that the name
Jonah means “dove” (a name given elsewhere in the Bible to Israel: cf. Hos 7:11;
11:11; etc.), we could say that, if the sailors symbolize pagans in general, Jonah
in some way represents Israel. In the sense the book of Jonah is about the role
of Israel in the world. In this connexion St Jerome says: “The twelve minor pro-
phets, gathered together in a single volume, foretell more and greater ideas and
events that can be gleaned from a literal interpretation […]. Jonah, the most beau-
tiful dove, prefigures the passion of the Lord; he calls the world to conversion and,
in his mission to Nineveh, proclaims salvation to the Gentiles” (”Epistulae”, 53).
1:1-3. The book begins with the failed attempt to send Jonah on a mission. The
place-names and the whole scene are less real than symbolic: Jonah is sent to
Nineveh (a most wicked city: cf. v. 2 — its reputation in biblical tradition: cf. Nah
3:1-4), but he goes off in the very opposite direction, to Tarshish. This could
mean Tartessos, a Phoenician colony in southern Spain, but it could also mean
some distant place in the west (cf. the note on Is 23:1-18). If Nineveh is to the
east of Jerusalem, Tarshish is to the west, but the main thing about it is that it
is “[away] from the presence of the Lord” (v. 3).
Jonah disobeys the Lord and he does so blatantly. However, the sacred writer is
more subtle: he describes Jonah’s actions in such a way that they come across
as the very opposite of those of Jeremiah, the prophet of the nations (cf. Jer 1:4ff);
indeed, Jonah acts more in the style of Cain: like Cain, Jonah flees “from the pre-
sence of the Lord” (v. 3; cf. Gen 4:13, 16) and like him he gets very annoyed with
God (cf. 4:1-4; Gen 4:4-7), although in the end God protects them both (cf. 2:1-2;
Gen 4:15): “The flight of the prophet can be read as a general metaphor for the
way that man runs away from the presence of God and immerses himself in the
things of this world when he has broken His commandments; but the storms of
misfortune and the doom of shipwreck prompt him to remember God’s presence
and to journey back to the One from which he sought to flee (St Jerome, “Com-
mentarii in Ionam”, 1, 4).
1:4-16. The story of Jonah’s adventure at sea is designed to show two things —
that the Lord can also be the God of the pagans; and that even people who do
not know God can have many virtues. The episode depicts the sailors as reli-
gious men: when shipwreck threatens, they do not just lighten the boat’s load,
but they pray to their gods. This natural religious feeling of theirs is full of imper-
fections; however, it is the route they take to discover the true God: each in-
vokes his own god (vv. 5, 6) and they cast lots to find out who is the guilty one,
the cause of their misfortune (v. 7). In the writings of some pagan authors (Ho-
race and Cicero, for example), we find evidence of this belief that if someone guil-
ty of sin was on a boat he was a risk to the rest of those on board (cf. v. 10). But
the sailors were not only men of faith: they were also kind people: when Jonah
suggests that they throw him overboard to quell the storm (cf. v. 12), they don’t
take him up on it; they try to reach the shore by rowing (v. 13). Only as a last re-
sort do they throw Jonah overboard (v. 15), and not before calling on the Lord not
to hold it against them (v. 14): “How great is the faith of these sailors! They find
themselves in terrible danger, and plead for the life of another: they know that
the spiritual death of sin is more than physical death” (St Jerome, “Commenta-
rii in Ionam”, 1, 14).
The result of these adventures is that the sailors are converted to the God of
Israel, so, instead of each calling on “his god” (vv. 5, 6), they call on the Lord (vv.
14-16). Also, they end up making vows to the Lord and offering sacrifice to him
(v. 16); that is, they do exactly what Jonah promises to do once he is saved (cf.
2:9). It is easy to see where all this is leading to — to a situation where salvation,
quite plainly, is open to everyone: all who are upright can attain God’s salvation;
not only in the temple but even on a ship it is possible to offer sacrifice to the
Lord.
1:17-2:10. Chapter 1 has shown God’s providence at work in all sorts of ways.
Now that providence focuses on Jonah, saving him from the sea and bringing
him onto dry land. Being swallowed by the big fish (1:17) is not a punishment
for Jonah, but a salvation (2:2, 6, 9). In biblical tradition, the sea is depicted as
a place of elements hostile to man — things that only God can control (cf. Job 7:
12; Ps 104:9; etc.), which is why, on occasions, it is likened to Sheol (v. 2; cf.
Job 7:9), the domain of death from which none can return (v. 6). If one bears in
mind that sense of the word, Jesus’ use of the sign of Jonah (Mt. 12:40) to ex-
plain his own death and resurrection is much less artificial than might appear at
first sight: Sheol, the kingdom of death, cannot hold Christ in its grip for more
than three days. Also, the role of water in the Jonah story may explain why the
text is used in baptismal liturgy. The Christian is immersed, buried, in the water
of Baptism and reborn to a new form of life in Christ: “To enter into perfect life, we
must imitate the example of Christ, and not only the examples of meekness, pa-
tience and humility that he gave us in life, but also the example of his death […].
We relive his death in our lives by being buried with him in baptism. What type
of tomb is this, and what good does it do us to enter into death of Christ? A
clean break with everything in our past lives is necessary, and this is possible
only through the new birth of which the Lord spoke: re-birth, as the word itself sug-
gests, marks the beginning of new life […]. How can we follow Christ when he de-
scends among the dead? We follow him into the tomb by our baptism. The bodies
of those who are baptized are, in a certain sense, buried in the waters of baptism.
In a mysterious way, baptism strips the body of its past sins” (St Basil, “De
Spiritu Sancto”, 15, 35).
Jonah’s prayer in the belly of the fish (vv. 2-9) is a mosaic of passages borrowed
(not exactly verbatim) from the Psalms. What we have here is a typical thanksgi-
ving psalm — past afflictions recalled, an account of how the person was rescued
from them, a promise to offer sacrifices and to keep one’s vows. It may seem a
little strange that this prayer is proclaimed here: it would, one might think, fit bet-
ter after v. 10, when Jonah has been saved. Still, the thrust of the prayer is perfec-
tly compatible with the context. Therefore, Origen comments, “Who can tell what
evil in our day is represented by the great beast that swallowed Jonah? […]. Be-
cause he was unfaithful, Jonah woke in the body of the whale; when he repented,
he was spat out again. Back on dry land, he obeyed the commandments of the
Lord and became […] the herald of salvation to all Ninevites, including those of to-
day, who live under the threat of death. Rejoicing in the mercy of God, Jonah did
not want to see God’s justice and punishment carried out on the sinful” (”De ora-
tione”, 13, 4).
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.