The Sign of Jonah

I'm just going to say again how much I love the way that God has layered His word.  We are going to look at how an Old Testament story is relayed in the New Testament and see if God hasn't hidden a nugget in there that we may have missed.

Twice in the book of Matthew (Matthew 12:39, 16:4) and once in Luke (Luke 11:29), Jesus refers to the sign of the prophet Jonah.  The context in Matthew is that the Pharisees demanded a sign.  In Luke it was in a more general context, but Jesus tells them that no sign will be given except that of the prophet Jonah.

It is interesting that Jesus had been doing miracles and healing the sick right up to that time.  It's just that the Pharisees were so entrenched in their belief system, they couldn't believe that their Messiah could come in a way they hadn't conceived.  

In other words, He had given them sign after sign.  The blind were given sight (prophesied in Isaiah 29:18, 35:5, 42:7), the deaf were made to hear (prophesied in Isaiah 29:18, 35:5), the lame leapt like deer and the mute were given speech (prophesied in Isaiah 35:6).  He had fed the hungry in the wilderness like Moses.  What more could they ask?  But ask they did.

What was so different about the Pharisees asking for a sign and say, Gideon asking for signs in Judges chapter 6?  Gideon knew he was dealing with God.  That was not in question.  He was showing self doubt.  "God, do you really want me?  I mean ME?  Really?"

The Pharisees wanted proof.  They were quite certain of themselves.  The one they doubted was God.  That is the difference.

So in Matthew 12:39, we get the verse:

But Jesus replied, "Only and evil, adulterous generation would demand a miraculous sign, but the only sign I will give them is the sign of the Prophet Jonah.  For as Jonah was in the belly of the great fish for three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.  The people of Nineveh will stand up against this generation on judgement day and condemn it, for they repented of their sins at the preaching of Jonah.  Now someone greater than Jonah is here—but you refuse to repent."

And now let's look at the actual story of Jonah.  He was a prophet that lived sometime before the time of Jeroboam II in the Northern Kingdom, also known as Israel.  There is no doubt that he was a real person because, not only does Jesus refer to his story as true, he is mentioned in I Kings 14:25 as a prophet.

His book is only four chapters long and is a good read.  In it we find that God called him to go to Nineveh and preach God's judgment.  What we need to remember is that Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria and the Assyrians were among the cruelest most oppressive people before or since that time and had already been a problem for Israel.  

Because of this, Jonah hated the Assyrians and was not happy when he was called to preach to them even if the message was to be one of judgment.  Jonah hopped a ship bound for Tarshish, commonly believed to be modern Spain.  That was about as far from where God wanted him to be as possible and remain in the hemisphere.

On the way, a terrible storm rose and terrified the seasoned sailors who began praying to their gods, hoping that one of them would come to their rescue.  They threw cargo overboard to lighten the ship, but nothing was helping.

All this time, Jonah was sleeping in the hold of the ship.  The captain woke him and asked him how he could be sleeping at a time like this.  The captain asked him to call on his god because obviously he was the one god they hadn't tried. 

There was a lot going on.  The sailors cast lots which showed Jonah as the reason for the storm.  They asked what they were supposed to do and Jonah said, "Throw me into the sea and it will become calm."

Here's the kicker.  The sailors just rowed harder.  It seems that they didn't want to throw someone overboard.  But the storm became more violent.  They actually prayed to Jonah's god:

"O LORD," they pleaded, "don't make us die for this man's sin.  And don't hold us responsible for his death. O LORD, you have sent this storm upon him for your own good reasons." Johah1:14

With that, they picked him up and threw him overboard.  At once the sea stopped raging and the sailors had a salvation experience.  The Bible says they were awestruck and made sacrifices to the LORD and vowed to serve him.

The Bible says that God had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah.  So everyone just relax.  Maybe it was a sperm whale.  Maybe it was a megamouth shark or a giant squid.  All sea creatures in Hebrew are called fish.  But make no mistake,  Jonah was swallowed by some large sea creature that God had prepared for that purpose.

The text also makes it pretty clear that Jonah died.  The Bible says he cried out from the land of the dead, from the depths of the ocean, and that he sank down to the heart of the sea.  It goes on to say he sank to the roots of the mountains and was imprisoned in the earth.  I think the great sea creature swallowed a man that had already drowned.  When Jesus said that Jonah was three days and nights in the great fish, the Pharisees knew what He was talking about.

Jonah's story didn't end there.  After Jonah prayed from the place of the dead, God ordered the fish to spit him out on the beach.  Most people will tell you that Jonah's appearance alone after being in that fish for three days was enough to bring Nineveh to repentance.  However, if you look at a map, Nineveh was very far inland.  I mean, it was on the bank of the Tigris river, but the Bible doesn't say the fish spat Jonah at Nineveh.  God basically told Jonah, now that he had made His point, to get up and go on to Nineveh.

So far we have the obvious reference Jesus made to as the sign of Jonah.  It was the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.  No one argues with that because Jesus said so right in the text of Matthew.  But I think that is only the surface interpretation.  I think Jesus would point to the whole book of Jonah as a sign for the Pharisees.  You see, whereas Jonah represented the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus on one hand, he also represented the hard hearts of the Pharisees on the other.

When Jonah gave his simple message to Nineveh, "Forty days from now, Nineveh will be destroyed!" the people believed.  The Bible said that from the least to the greatest, King to cattle, put on sackcloth and repented before the LORD.  This caused God to change His mind and not carry out His judgment.

Jonah got very angry.  Check out what he said to God:

Didn't I say before I left home that you would do this, LORD?  That is why I ran away to Tarshish!  I knew that you are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.  You are eager to turn back from destroying people. Jonah 4:2

Jonah was furious that God didn't destroy the Ninevites.  It was more than the fact that Jonah hated the Assyrians, God had just made him a false prophet.  

This is where we come into the second sign found in the book of Jonah.  God asked Jonah,

Is it right that you are angry about this? Jonah 4:4  

Jonah went storming off to the east side of the city to see what was going to happen.  God arranged for a large plant with broad leaves to grow quickly and work as a shade plant for Jonah.  The Bible says that Jonah was grateful for the plant.

Then God arranged for a worm to come the next morning and eat through the stem of the plant, killing it.  On top of that, God affected the weather and sent a scorching wind and the sun beat down on Jonah's head.

For the third time, Jonah wished to die.  I forgot to mention that.  Jonah was always saying, "Just kill me now!"  The first time was on the boat, the second time was after he accused God of mercy, and now that his plant was dead.

Let's just see what the Bible says now

Then the LORD said, "You feel sorry about the plant, though you did nothing to put it there.  It came quickly and died quickly.  But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all the animals.  Shouldn't I feel sorry for such a great city?"

The second sign of Jonah was the salvation of a people that were not God's people as predicted by Moses in Deuteronomy 32:21

They have roused my jealousy by worshiping things that are not God; they have provoked my anger with their useless idols.  Now I will rouse their jealousy through people who are not even a people.  I will provoke their anger through the foolish Gentiles. 

 Jesus came to save the world, something that the Pharisees could not get their heads around, even though the Old Testament prophesied it over and over, and gave us a clear picture of how God felt through Jonah and Nineveh.

Thank God for His mercy for us.