Jonah 1:1-6: Translation and Comments

Jonah is unique among the Old Testament’s prophetic books. Instead of being a record of the prophecies of Jonah it tells of his unwillingness to proclaim God’s word to Nineveh. I am currently in the process of translating Jonah and I hope to post my translation, bit by bit, with a few comments about each section, mainly from what I already know and from what the Hebrew texts highlights (which may not come over very well into English). As a result the translation itself will be very literal and the English may be awkward in places.

Jonah 1:1-6

 

1 And the word of YHWH came to Jonah son of Ammitai, saying: 2 “Get up, go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim against her for their evil has come up before me. 

3 And Jonah got up to flee away to Tarshish from before YHWH and he went down to Joppa and he found a boat going to Tarshish and he gave her a fare and he went down into her to go with them to Tarshish away from before YHWH. 

4 And YHWH hurled a great wind upon the sea and a great gale came on the sea and the boat would surely be broken up.

5 And the sailors were afraid and they cried out, each man to his god and they threw the vessels which were on the boat into the sea to lighten from on them and Jonah went down to the remotest part of the ship and he lay down and he fell into a deep sleep. 6 And the great sailor came near to him and he said to him, “What do you mean being fast asleep? Get up, call to your god, perhaps the god will spare a thought for us and we do not perish.” 

Comments

 

The first three verses of Jonah establish the problem which occupies the first half of the book. God has chosen Jonah to go and prophecy to Nineveh that God knows of her evil ways. Unlike all the other Old Testament prophets, instead of dutifully obeying, he immediately heads in the opposite direction. 

These verses require a basic understanding of Ancient Near Eastern geography and history. Nineveh was the capital city of the Assyrian Empire which was responsible for the exile of the Northern kingdom of Israel (2 Kings 17) in 722-21 BC. Jonah was a contemporary of Amos and is also mentioned in 2 Kings 14:25 so the events of Jonah most likely took place before the Northern kingdom was exiled. Living under Assyria meant paying large amounts of tribute otherwise her kings would invade to suppress the rebellion. 

Joppa is a city on the coast of Israel and would have been an important port until Herod the Great built Caesarea in the 1st century BC. Tarshish, on the other hand, is on the opposite side of the Mediterranean, possibly on the eastern coast of Spain. So not only is Jonah fleeing away from God, he is going as far away as was likely possibly at the time. But why is this? As Nineveh was an Assyrian city, Jonah did not want to proclaim their doom to them in case they turned and repented then they wouldn’t be destroyed. Instead, as a loyal Israelite he wanted God to destroy them and thought that if he fled and didn’t prophecy to Nineveh, then they would be destroyed.

However, God is not going to let Jonah run away. The boat Jonah is travelling on encounters a storm sent by God which threatens to sink it. It is so bad that the crew are throwing the cargo over board, each one praying to his gods to save them. Throughout all this, Jonah is asleep in the bowels of the ship, which is quite surprising considering that the ship was in such danger and the sea is so rough. The captain also thinks this, and orders Jonah to pray to his god, in the hope that one of the gods will step in and save the ship.

In Hebrew the repetition of words can indicate emphasis or the importance of a concept. In verses 1, 2 and 6 the word qum (to get up or stand) is used. In verses 1 and 6 Jonah is commanded to get up and do something, firstly by God and then by the captain. It is possible that this indicates that Jonah was asleep when he received the word from God in verse 1. In neither case does he follow the command paired with “get up” (“go to Nineveh” and “call to your God”). As in both cases the two commands are linked, only following the first one (as Jonah does in verse 2) is not enough, especially as in verse 2 he goes somewhere else. 

The idea of being “before YHWH” is also emphasised. In verse 1, Nineveh’s evil is before YHWH, while in verse 2, twice Jonah is fleeing from before YHWH. However, even in trying to get as far away as possible, Jonah doesn’t succeed (just as Nineveh’s evil will not vanish unless they repent), as YHWH is not a territorial god whose powers are limited to a particular area. He will even stir up the sea and try to sink the boat to get through to Jonah and have his message proclaimed in Nineveh.

The fact that Jonah can sleep through such a storm is extraordinary, and interestingly he is deep within the ship, as far away from God as he can get in this situation, hiding almost, hoping to sleep though the storm and be far out of God’s reach when it is over. The captain and all the sailors are aware of the danger, and believe that only divine intervention can save them from the storm. Throughout these verses God’s proper name, YHWH, is always used when referring to him, while other gods are called by the more generic term elohim. As the sailors are each praying to their own gods, the crew is very diverse and not from Israel. However, none of these gods have any power to step in and save them as it is YHWH who called up the storm in the first place. Jonah’s god is YHWH who does have the power so he could call on him and ask him to step in, but as he has been avoiding him so far, it doesn’t look likely. 

So by the end of these few verses we have a prophet fleeing from God to avoid prophesying to Israel’s enemy and God taking action to stop him getting away.  It is a demonstration of God’s determination that his message will be preached to Nineveh by Jonah despite his reluctance.

The next section will be Jonah 1:7-10.