jonah, the slacker prophet

reflections on the bible's chillest prophet

note: this is my re-telling of the book of jonah based on the scripture. none of the quotes are direct. i have taken creative liberties that i hope emphasize rather than distort the meanings.

out of all the prophets, jonah is the one who truly is “just like me fr”.

now, jonah is an israelite and god tells him to go preach in nineveh. nineveh was a grand city, in what is now modern day iraq, that was the capital of what we now call the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

but, despite their material greatness, nineveh was acting up against god. and cities that acted up against god were getting rattled by god. god didn’t want to rattle nineveh, but he would if he had to. for purposes of justice and discipline. but he preferred that they change their ways on their own. and wanted jonah to be the guy to persuade them.

but my guy jonah had other plans. my guy didn’t want to be preaching in nineveh. he was tryna chill in tarshish, a bougie coastal town in spain. my guy was just tryna chill on the spanish coast and eat tapas and dance salsa-- not walk around nineveh street-preaching gods wrath all day like a crazy person.

so, jonah ignores god and hops onto the first boat to tarshish.

god doesn’t approve. and so god sends great winds and storms rack the boat he’s on. but jonah is the chillest man alive. he stays sleeping below deck while the storm is raging on. how does one man become so chill? we shall find out soon.

eventually, the rest of the boat crew members wake jonah up. they aren’t like jonah the chiller. no, they’re freaking out. they’re like jonah, you’re religious right? do something! pray to your god!

now, the sailors on the boat are gentiles. jonah is an israelite, one of the elect. he is intimate with the true god. when jonah tells them this, they realize that jonah has offended this all powerful god, and that is why the storm has come.

and so they ask him: “what should we do to you to appease god and end this storm?!”

and the chill jonah gives a surprisingly noble response: “my b. throw me into the sea. the storm is my fault.”

and so the sailors throw jonah into the ocean and the storm stops. they sailors are amazed with this and they all become ultra pious.

this is the first mystery of the book of jonah: the lazy one who incurs god’s wrath is offered as sacrifice.

once jonah’s in the ocean, god sends to him a great fish that swallows him. now jonah is in this fish belly and he has not much to do but write prayerful poetry.

out of the belly of sheol i cried...

all of your waves and your billows passed over me... weeds were wrapped around my head

i take jonah as symbolizing the slacker. in the slacker’s life, as i can attest, it feels often that they are in a dark pit, that life, the waves and billows of life, is just happening to them. their mind is wrapped with weeds. they cannot get out. once they hit their limit, once they hit rock bottom, only god can save them, can get them out of the darkness of the belly of that great fish.

so god releases our guy from the big fish. and now, jonah, renouncing his avoidant ways, finally goes to nineveh to preach. he preaches and guess what! it worked. all of nineveh repents, went through penance, and changed their heart! and god didn’t rattle them, and nineveh lived on and prospered!

amazing right!?

jonah doesn’t think so.

jonah is still mad he’s in nineveh and not eating tapas in tarshish with the homies. jonah’s like: “god, this is stupid! you were never even going to destroy nineveh! you’re too compassionate!”

jonah’s like: “my preaching in nineveh was just performative! why make me do that! you were going to save them either way! that’s why i was just going to chill in tarshish instead! because it wouldn’t have mattered! you are gracious and merciful and slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster! you would have never have destroyed nineveh! i’ve wasted my life accomplishing what would have been done without me! i don’t even want to chill in tarshish anymore! just kill me god! i hate my life!”

look! it is here that the secret to jonah’s chillness is revealed!

why is jonah so chill? because he knows god is chill too. he knows god would never actually destroy nineveh. he’s too gentle. and if nineveh is going to be fine either way, why can’t jonah just go chill in tarshish???

but also, we should talk about jonah’s reaction. why does he want to die? it may seem overblown in the little context given to us, but i think jonah’s impulse here is deeply human, and deeply relatable. if we think our actions don’t matter, if we think what we do has little impact on reality, on god’s grand design, will we not feel this way? will we not feel useless? will we not feel that whether we live or die has no bearing? i think jonah feels some of this.

anyway, the bitter jonah leaves nineveh and, not really knowing what to do with himself, posts up outside and just looks on at nineveh to watch how things will go for them.

as he’s chilling, god actually appoints a plant to shade his head. jonah is very happy about this plant. but the next day, god sends a worm to kill the plant. not only is jonah mad that god would kill this wonderful plant, but the lack of shade gives him heat stroke. he cries to god again “i can’t believe you killed that innocent plant! just kill me too! this is all so stupid.”

and god’s like, “are you really that mad that i killed the plant?”

and jonahs’ like, “yes bro i am. just kill me.”

again, jonah wants to die. and again, it can seem over-dramatic, even when you read the original text. but i still find it deeply relatable. when we misunderstand god’s design, the world seems so messed up. when we misunderstand god’s design, we feel that we are completely useless. we feel that our lives are completely unfair and screwed up. this is what jonah is going through.

and jonah’s antidote is in the final verse.

in the final verse of the book of jonah, the lord says: “you pity this plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. so wouldn’t i pity nineveh, that great city, in which there are so many cows and more than 120,000 persons?”

now this this ending is a bit abrupt and confusing so let’s unpack it.

to recap: jonah is chill cause he knows god is chill. he doesn’t want to preach to nineveh cause he knows god is to merciful to destroy them anyway. and he knows they’ll convert whether he preaches or not. when he gets upset about god forcing him to do it anyway, god kills jonah’s favorite plant to teach him a lesson.

this last part is confusing. why does killing the plant teach jonah a lesson?

you pity the plant for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow

there are many valid interpretations of jonah, at varying levels of galaxy brain symbolism. but here’s how i see it: killing the plant is important because god is showing that his love for his own creation is not incompatible with his destruction. god is saying he must have loved that plant even more than jonah did, because god both made it and made it grow. and yet he still allowed it to die.

similarly, even though god loves nineveh, as he created the 120,000 men inside it, he’d still allow it’s destruction it came to it. his wrath is not incompatible with his love. this is foundation of justice.

and of course, this principle was why jonah was swallowed up by the great fish. jonah’s sleeping on the boat, with full faith in god’s chillness, knowing, probably, everything will be fine and soon enough he’d get to chill in tarshish with the homies. but god woke him up and threw him into a fish until he agreed to do what was asked of him!

those whom I love, i reprove and discipline.
-- revelations 3:19

i used to feel bad for jonah. i mean i still do. my guy just wants to live a chill life in tarshish. is that too much to ask? i just want him to be happy. i think most of us do. god seems harsh in the story. i don’t like it!

i also think jonah’s theology is especially relatable to our modern opinions. of course god wouldn’t destroy nineveh! a loving god wouldn’t hurt a fly!

but to the religious mind, the structure of reality is one of cause and effect. and not just the laws of physics, but moral cause and effect. wicked deeds can end up with physical consequences. and these consequences can seem brutal to us.

and by the way, nineveh was destroyed. we know this historically. it happened in 612 BC. after jonah saved them (around 750 BC), they went back to their wicked ways, and the mighty capital of the assyrian empire fell to their antagonistic neighbors.

actually, the vision of their destruction comes only a few pages after the book of jonah, in the book of nahum. so it was not simply a material-historical siege. it was divine. the fact than nahum prophesizes it, focusing on god’s wrath against them for their ways, imply that this destruction was allowed by the lord for the sake of justice.

now, the fact that it was human beings who destroyed nineveh rather than some god-wrought natural disaster softens the blow a bit. god allowed, rather than caused, the destruction. and perhaps too the weakness of nineveh that let them fall to their enemies was due to their impious ways.

now, unlike with nineveh, god appoints a worm to kill the plant. but i mean… death is an essential part of nature. worms eat plants all the time. that’s just what worms do. god made them that way. if we think this is cruel, we must think nature is cruel by design, which means either god is cruel. the alternative is that god is good, and we are misreading reality. we are simply out of touch with the authorial intent of the creator, and projecting too much of our flawed opinions onto it. this is what jonah is doing when he is furious at the plant and wants to die. he is suffering what one suffers when they see everything as cruel, irritating, too hard, too useless. i understand, jonah!

but the truth is, as god says to jonah, he loves the plant more than we do because he created it. if we think a worm eating a plant is wrong, we misunderstand reality, and we will suffer for it.

and now, a final recap: jonah’s a chill guy. but he’s chill because he doesn’t really think god would actually let anything bad happen. even when god is rocking his both with a big storm, he’s sleeping peacefully. jonah does not see that justice is compatible with love. and so he does not take up his divinely given work in preventing the potential destruction of nineveh. he just wants to chill and do his own thing. god rectifies jonah’s beliefs by showing him that, though god loves his plants, he still kills them with his worms. and in doing so, god also shows jonah that he does have an important role to play. that he did actually save nineveh (at least for a century or two). and his time was much better spent there than in tarshish with the homies.

i see jonah is the slacker who thinks his actions don’t matter. who thinks everything is gonna work out in the end and so just wants to chill. but actually, jonah is crucial. jonah’s actions and inactions had the power to change the course of history.

there is a certain axis of advice i see nowadays. on one side, people say: chill out. relax. god will get it done with or without you. on the other side, people say: what you do really matters! god is calling YOU, specifically! you must fulfill his call, or ELSE!¹ it is on this side of the spectrum that we have the story of jonah.

anyway, that’s all for today. i hope you gained something from this. a lot of people don’t like the old testament, but i honestly find it most the relatable for our daily human struggles. we all have a bit of jonah in us!

1. this ominous “else” is expressed in esther 4:14: “if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish”