The Book of Jonah

Opening address of the 19th Annual Conference of the Israel Society for Biblical Research, Jerusalem, Passover, 5731, translated from President Shazar’s Hebrew article in Beth Mikra, Vol. 47 (4), September, 1971. I chose for this address a very modest book from among the prophetic books, one of the Minor Prophets, a book consisting of only four chapters, but containing much of interest to the world. A commentator once pointed out that the number of books and commentaries written about this small book, Jonah, surpassed the total number of verses contained therein. I shall address myself to these four chapters which introduced a new idea into our culture and into Jewish as well as universal consciousness.

The Problem: Is Jonah A Prophetic Book

At first glance, it is difficult to understand why the book of Jonah was placed among the prophetic books. It is a book that contains no prophetic writings. There is no prophetic vision, no word of God, nor anything about prophecy, neither for Israel nor for the peoples of the world, except for one verse of five words, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown” (Jonah 3:4). These are the only words of prophecy. The rest is narrative, a psalm, but not prophecy. Furthermore, there is nothing in Jonah about the Jews, nothing about Israel, nor Jerusalem, nor Zion, nor about the redemption of Israel, none of the great thoughts that we regularly find in prophetic books. My question is not how it came about that Jonah is included in ’scripture, but rather why is it not included among the books of the Hagiographa (“the Writings”) since it is an account of a prophet’s life. That it has found its way among the prophetic books, specifically among the minor prophets, is difficult to understand. What are the books of the minor prophets? They are an anthology of prophetic statements that were preserved. The prophets might have spoken more than what has come down to us, or they might have uttered only those words that were preserved. However, if you will compare Jonah to Obadiah, Zephaniah or Zechariah, you will find it totally different in style, in content and theme. It seems to me that the uniqueness and purpose of the hook of Jonah, set within the prophetic books, are not accidental but fundamental. I would call it

an introduction to prophecy. It unravels for us the essential puzzle as to the function of the prophet in Israel, why prophecy was necessary in Israel, and what was its role in the development of civilization. It is written in Amos 2:10-11, “Also I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and led you forty years in the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite; and I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazarites.” This was the great gift God bestowed upon the people of Israel, that He took us forth from bondage in Egypt and He gave us prophets. The problem before us is: What is the task of the prophet, and what is his mission? Where is the essence of the prophet’s mission stated? This question is bound up with another, which pervades the whole of the Bible. In our Bible circle, we are presently studying the book of Jeremiah, a book permeated by a problem: There are true prophets and false prophets, and it is for us to distinguish between the two. What is the difference between one and the other? The book of Jeremiah abounds in comparisons of this sort, so that a man can know who is a true prophet and who is not, what his function is and what responsibility is placed upon him as a prophet in Israel. Perhaps we can find the key to the answer in the short book called Jonah.

The “Seer”

In the Pentateuch we find the distinction between a true and a false prophet. “And if thou shalt say in thy heart, ‘How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken?’ When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken; the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously, thou shalt not be afraid of him” (Deuteronomy 18:21-22). This is the rule set down for us by the book of Deuteronomy. But this rule can he applied only after the fact. At the time of the event, it is impossible to know whether the matter will come to pass or not. Translating this concept into prosaic language, I would say that this criterion is not the test of a prophet; it is rather a test of one who foretells the future. He predicts what will be, and we want to know whether in truth he knows that it will happen, and how he knows it will happen, and how we can know whether to heed his voice or not. This passage, therefore, applies only to a fortuneteller or to someone who foretells something for a future time, a talent not given to ordinary mortals but to one graced with a special sense, a special endowment of the divine spirit. The matter is simply and beautifully expressed in the first hook of Samuel 9 :9, “Beforetime in Israel, when a man ~ent to inquire of God, thus he said, ‘Come, and let us go to the seer’; for he that is now called a prophet was beforetime

1 l called a seer.“ Before prophets came upon the scene of history, there were “seers” in Israel, dreamers who saw in their visions what would come about in the future or in distant places, an extra-sensory insight that ordinary persons did not possess. For example, when the donkeys of Saul’s father were lost and Saul needed to know their whereabouts, he went to the seer to tell him. This the seer could envision. The Bible wanted to distinguish clearly between the seer and the prophet. The Bible did not wish to blur the fields of endeavor of the two; it wanted to establish a clear difference between seer and prophet. The seers could see visions, foretell the future and they were identified with a sacred site, not necessarily Israelite. In every sancturary there were men who could see and know what an ordinary person could not. They were called “seers”. Samuel was a seer. He represented the period before that of the literary prophets. We now call prophets like Amos, Isaiah, and their like, literary prophets in order to distinguish them from seers, prognosticators and diviners who were identified with particular sanctuaries. There is an event in the book of Samuel of frightening harshness which I would almost say is contrary to the prophetic concepts of the great prophets. Samuel tells Saul: “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass” (I Samuel 15 :3). Saul heeded the voice of Samuel and destroyed Amalek, but he had compassion for Agag and for the best of his sheep, and spared them. Whereupon Samuel rebuked him thus: “ … for thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord hath rejected thee from being king over Israel“ (ibid, v.26). Saul, the first king in Israel, who only recently had been “head and shoulders” above the rest, beloved by his people, suddenly finds himself abhorred by the Lord and cast out of his kingdom because he did not obey this one command. When the king begs for forgiveness and pleads before Samuel, “I have sinned; yet honor me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people and before Israel” (ibid, v.30), he is answered by this “seer”, the elder Samuel, with directness and coldly, “the Glory ofisrael will not lie nor repent, for He is not a man, that He should repent” (ibid, v.29). Thus said the Lord, and so it shall be! Neither he, the seer, nor the first king can change the oracle. The sentence is passed, and there is no way out. The king must vacate his throne and leave it to “a neighbor of thine that is better than thou” (ibid, v.28). Samuel cannot help him at all. The concepts of the oracle, of fatefulness, these are pre-prophetic notions, prior to the appearance of the literary prophets. Isaiah and Jeremiah could never be imagined to speak in this vein.

Let us look into the words of another pre-prophetic personality, prior to Samuel, Balaam, who declares categorically, “God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should repent: when He hath said, will He not do it? Or when He hath spoken, will He not make it good?” (Numbers 23: 19). The verdict is cast, and nothing can be done by man to alter it. This is reminiscent of the Greek world view wherein fate is determined and man powerless to transcend it. Man is at the mercy of fate and is subjected to its decree with no escape possibile.

The Prophet

The literary prophets start from a different frame of reference. They think the matter does not hinge upon a verdict, but rather upon man’s deeds. “If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land; but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken” (Isaiah I :19-20). Your destiny is in your hands, and whether it will be good or bad depends upon you. The tiny book of Jonah is a great satire on the “seer” Jonah. This is a satire written by one who lived in the transitional period between the seer and the prophet. The book was written to show that prophecy has a mission in the world. What is that mission? To change fate, to alter the decree. Were I not fearful of paradox and were I not concerned about being quoted incorrectly, T would say that if the function of the seer as described in the book of Deuteronomy is authenticated by the fulfilment of his prediction, and his repudiation is fixed by stoning if his words do not come to pass, then the function of the true prophet is realized when his prediction does not come to pass. The prophet is sent to stir, awaken and to reprove, to tell his people “the future is before you, upon you depends the outcome, tear out the evil decree and make it nought, for which purpose you were redeemed from Egypt”. That “I raised up of your sons for prophets” (Amos 2:11), is an indication that this is vital to the nation if it is to be able to live properly and to be rescued from danger. Not only was the people redeemed from Egypt by a prophet, but it was likewise guarded from dangers, for it possessed a prophet to warn it. In other words, one can say that the concept of God not repenting is nullified, and a new idea is born. “And God repented of the evil, which He said He would do unto them; and He did it not” (Jonah 3:10). In the book of Jeremiah we find an arraignment of the “seer’s” concept of the unalterability of a decree. Jeremiah argues against the thought that the Holy One, Blessed be He, cannot harbor regret. On the contrary, the purpose of His word is to make it possible for Him to regret the thing He spoke of doing.

“Micah the Morashtite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah; and he spoke to all the people of Judah, saying: thus saith the Lord of hosts: Zion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest. Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah put him at all to death? Did he not fear the Lord, and entreat the favor of the Lord, and the Lord repented Him of the evil which He had pronounced against them?” (Jeremiah 26:18-19). This is an actual account of Jeremiah’s stand in absolute contradiction to what Samuel had said. King Saul is sorry and pleads for compassion before Samuel, but is told nothing can be done since God is not man who can go back on his word, for as God speaks He makes it come to pass. But now, Jeremiah related what Micah the Morashtite prophesied, and king Hezekiah does not pnt him to death, but repentantly changes his way and becomes a righteous king in the eyes of God.

Jonah: “Do Not Despair”

Even when Jonah cites the thirteen divine attributes, that most sacred prayer recited with soul-stirring feeling at our religious service when the ark is opened, he introduces a change at the end, “Thou art a gracious God, and compassionate, long suffering and abundant in mercy, and repentest Thee of the evil” (Jonah 4:2). In the Torah (portion of Ki Tissa), the ending of this verse goes, “and God will by no means clear the guilty” (Exodus 34:7). In contrast, we find in Jonah, “and repentest thee of the evil.” This is one of the majestic attributes of the Holy One, Blessed Be He. He does not insist on His pronouncement, but can repent and regret what He said; and if He passes an evil decree, the individual, the people or the ruling authority can reverse it. Even if it is not a single individual but an entire people that sinned, like Nineveh - Nineveh is here the prototype of a sinful people, of an iniquitous regime, one that oppresses, dehumanizes, and heaps evil upon evil - even for this people and for this regime one should not despair, for the day can come when this people can turn in repentance and be transformed into a free and righteous people. This is the function of Jonah. He is sent to some land, any land- I doubt if the whereabouts of Nineveh is well known and what its society was like; many have searched but do not know what happened in that period to Nineveh, or whether there is even an historic background to Jonah’s story - but the historic aspect is not important. What is significant is the literary side, the originality of this prophetic personality, and most of all the thought: “Do not despair”. This is the profound message of his prophecy, “Do not despair”. Even if man be very evil, he can repair his ways and thus reach redemption. A people too need not despair. “Let not the eunuch say, ’behold, I am a dry

tree’“ (Isaiah 56:3). The transgressor should not despdir. There is no righteous man who does only good and will not sin; “and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51 :7). Many are the pitfalls and many the temptations; from within and without the danger lurks, and each one can fall victim. However, the man who sins can return in repentance. Greek drama is based on the idea that when an evil is committed it will pursue man generation after generation. The greatness of tile Hebre~ genius inheres in the fact that prophecy rose np and freed man from the shackles of tragic fate which heretofore left him nowhere to turn. The sinner too knows that he is not forlorn, his sentence is not yet sealed, and choice is still his. And so the Hebrew religion affirms that since man has free will, it is in his capacity to correct his deeds, causing every decree to vanish like smoke.

From Seer To Prophet

The great author of the book of Jonah even mocks the intellectual narrowness of Jonah who fears to forebode evillest God later have compassion as a result of the people’s penitence, and Jonah might therefore turn out to be a liar. In that case were it not better that he bring no message to Nineveh which might bring them to repentance? In that way the prophet will not appear a liar, and he will save his honor and himself. Jonah is shown as acting in a manner inconceivable of the classical prophets, of whom one could not ever believe that “the prophet rose and fled from the presence of God.” In the case of Jonah it is stated that “he rose np to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord”. Who among you knows where Tarshish is, whether it is a legendary land or not? Yet, Jonah boards a ship headed for Tarshish, pays his fare and travels “toward that land escaping from the presence of the Lord” and from the task placed upon him by God. It does not matter if Nineveh is destroyed; - let it be destroyed as long as his honor is preserved and he is not a deceiver. The prophet mocking Jonah sees them as not understanding his function nor perceiving the necessity of his mission since God will anyway permit His compassion to prevail and put to nought all the dire forebodings ofthe destruction of the city. Jonah is not aware that he was created for this very purpose, to warn and to deliver Nineveh from impending danger: if he will not go there, the Holy One, Blessed be He, will not be able to avert His decree since the people will not better their ways. What is essential is that man should better his ways. It is never too late, and the possibility of deliverance is always there. Whether the prophet ends up as a liar or not, is not the focal question. It is his duty to come and speak his word, to tell it so that the people will hear him, be shaken up and

make him a liar. The very task of the prophet is to become a liar- provided that he has made his point. All this is written in the book of Jonah. It is to the credit of the strong and deep religious instinct of our people that they singled out this satiric book about the prophet who does not apprehend his mission and made it “Maftir JonahH on Yom Kippur, crowning expression of repentance. What is it you seek of God? Forgiveness, pardon, and atonement. You relate the tale of Jonah, praise and glory for the special attribute with which God graced man, enabling him to return in penitence and thereby achieve atonement; repentance is mightier than any fateful decree. I therefore think that this small book, Jonah, is the programmatic book for the literary prophets telling us why prophets were sent to Israel and what their function was. The words burn in the prophet’s heart like a fire that he cannot contain. And what is the blessing for the sake of which God sent prophets to Israel, choosing the true ones among them? It is that the prophet warns his people, and changes their fate by altering the people’s ways from evil to good. Among the few Talmudic references to the biography of the prophets, there is a statement that Jonah, the son of Amittai, of the book of Jonah is the same Jonah, son of Amittai, of Second Kings who prophesied in the reign of King Jeroboam, son of Joash: “He restored the border of Israel from the entrance of Hamath unto the sea of Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, God of Israel, which He spoke by the hand of his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet who was of Gath-hepher” (II Kings 14 :25). It could be that the Talmudic identification is based merely on the similarity of the name. It seems to me, however, that the matter goes much deeper. The Jonah of Jeroboam’s period whose prophecy refers to the recovery of the border at the entrance of Hamath, prophesied at the time when “the Lord saw the affliction of Israel, that it was very bitter; for there was none shut up nor left at large, neither was there any helper in Israel”(ibid v.26). That is to say, he appeared precisely in the period between Samuel and Amos, at the conclusion of the era of the “seer” and at the beginning of the era of Amos, the first of the great ideological literary prophets. Jonah is still standing with one foot in the period of the “seer” and with the other stepping into the period of the literary prophets, and not yet grasping what task God was placing upon him, as the author of our book tells us in his clever and satiric manner.

Jonah And Job

I once wrote that I see another work in the Bible, similar in literary style and form to Jonah, and that is the book of Job. The author of the book of Job plays with Job in his introduction and prologue. I am not referring to the basic issue

in the book, which requires deep thought. I am referring to the literary setting of the book which puts Job in the position of a blind man who does not comprehend what is happening to him. He sees all these misfortunes falling upon him, he disputes the reasons, he cries out that he did not sin and does not deserve all this punishment. But he does not know what the reader is aware of, what you and all students of the Bible know, that in the prologue Satan appears with a special game to play, and it is decided to test Job. The reader is more knowledgeable than the hero. The central figure does not know what the reader knows, for already in the prologue the objective of the game is expressed. The same is true of Jonah who does not know why he was sent to Nineveh, and why God had made him a target of mockery. But the reader knows that the prophet was created precisely’for this task, not that God’s warning might come to pass, but that man might repent and be healed.