2023-Q4-L05

2023-Q4-L05: Excuses to Avoid Mission

Read for This Week’s Study: Jonah 1:1-17; Jonah 2:1-10; Jonah 3:1-10; Jonah 4:1-11; Nahum 1:1; 2 Kings 17:5-6; Psalms 24:1; James 1:27; Isaiah 6:1-8.

Memory Text: Memory Text: “Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?’ Then I said, ‘Here am I! Send me’ ” (Isaiah 6:8).

Seven Episodes in Jonah

{1:1-3} Jonah's commissioning and flight. What will happen to Jonah?

....{1:4-16} Jonah and the pagan sailors. How responsive are the pagan sailors?

........{1:17-2:10} Jonah's grateful prayer. How does Jonah respond to God's grace toward him?

.............{3:1-3a} Jonah's recommissioning and compliance. What will happen to the Ninevites?

........{3:3b-10} Jonah and the pagan Ninevites. How responsive are the pagan Ninevites?

....{4:1-4} Jonah's angry prayer. How does Jonah respond to God's grace toward others?

{4:5-11} Jonah's lesson about compassion. "Should not I pity Nineveh...?"

Jonah chiasm

(1:1–2) A. The Lord showed his love extended to Gentile nations by calling Jonah to “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it.”

(1:3)—B. Jonah expressed his anger with the Lord’s mercy to Gentiles by rising “up to flee . . . from the presence of the Lord.”

(1:4)——C. “The Lord sent out a great wind into the sea” in response to Jonah’s angry flight over the Lord’s reaching out to call Nineveh’s Gentiles to repent.

(1:5–6)———D. As “the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god,” the shipmaster commanded that Jonah “arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not.”

(1:11–17)————E. Jonah yielded his life (1:14) to save the Gentile crew; they feared God, offered a sacrifice, and made vows. “Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.”

(2:2)—————F. Jonah’s voice was heard: “Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.”

(2:4)——————G. Jonah looked to the temple: “I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.”

(2:5–6)———————H. Jonah despaired, “The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed . . . weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains . . . the earth with her bars was about me for ever.”

(2:6)———————H. Jonah saw salvation: “Yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God.”

(2:7)——————G. Jonah’s prayer ascended to the temple: “When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple.”

(2:7–9)—————F. Jonah’s sacrificing voice offered thanks and vows: “I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed.”

(2:10) ————E. Jonah was miraculously delivered on the third day, “the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.”

(3:1–9)———D. The king of Nineveh feared Jonah’s warning from God, and he commanded his people to “cry mightily unto God . . . that we perish not.”

(4:1–8)——C. Jonah was angry, and “God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah.”

(4:9)—B. Jonah was lastly angry over the Lord’s withering of the gourd. He said, “I do well to be angry, even unto death.”

(4:11) A. The Lord taught Jonah that his merciful, love extended to Gentile nations saying, “Should not I spare Nineveh, that great city?”

Jonah signs and parallels

Important for its typology.

"Jonah" means "dove". Symbol of peace: end of the Flood (Gen. 8:8). Doves were sacrificed in the Temple (Lev. 1:14). For Isaiah, one who mourns (Isa. 38:14; 59:11). Dove is harmless (Matt. 10:16). The form of the HS in Jesus' baptism.

Sign of Jonah: images of the dove, baptism, mission, messiahship, and resurrection.

Joppa. Peter faced the same issue as Jonah: the acceptance of God providing salavation to Gentiles.

Jonah fast asleep in the boat while a storm raged. Jesus asleep in the boat. Matthew 8:23-27; Mark 4:36-41; Luke 8:22-25. "Do you not care that we perish?" Jesus calms the storm, having power over earth and sea. Great fear came on the sailors with Jonah and with the disciples of Jesus.

Sailors feared shedding innocent blood. Pilate also feared condemning Jesus.

"Take me up and cast me into the sea." Jesus volunteered his life and was lifted up. John 12:32. Lifted up as the serpent in the wilderness (John 3:14-15).

Swallowed by the great fish for 3 days and nights. A type of Sheol. "so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." Matthew 16:4. See also Luke 11:29-30.

Three nights. Jesus' suffering really began Thursday night at Gethsemane, then at the trials before the Sanhedrin, Herod and Pilate. That would mean Jesus was in (the hands of) darkness Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.

Prayer in the belly of the fish. Jonah vowed to pay his vows. Jesus vowed to do His Father's will.

Jonah 2:4, "cast out of thy sight". Jesus was forsaken at the cross.

Jonah mentions the temple in chapter 4. In Jesus crucifixion, the temple veil was torn in two.

Jonah 2:9, "salvation is of the Lord."

40 days of probation, before judgment.

Judgment from the east. Ezekiel 43:2; Matthew 24:27.

Threes in the story. Jonah is commanded to arise three times—twice by the Lord and once by the shipmaster (1:2, 6; 3:2). He went down three times on his flight from the Lord—down to Joppa, down into the ship, and down into the sides of the ship (1:3; 1:5). The story hinges on three greats—the great fish, the great city, and the great wind. Nineveh’s size is described as a three days’ journey (3:3). Most important is the time Jonah spends in the great fish (1:17).

Notes

Nahum timeframe. 660-614 BC.

Jonah timeframe. 786-746 BC.

Joppa. Dorcas, Peter's vision of unclean animals.

ch1. Sailors

ch2. Jonah

ch3. Ninevites

ch4. Jonah remains in conflict with God. Jonah is the only person that does not move toward God conclusively.

Presence of the Lord. Jonah went away.

Nineveh. Ninâ is a fish within a house (cf. Aramaic nuna, "fish"). This may have simply intended "Place of Fish" or may have indicated a goddess associated with fish or the Tigris, possibly originally of Hurrian origin. The city was later said to be devoted to "the goddess Ishtar of Nineveh" and Nina was one of the Sumerian and Assyrian names of that goddess.

Dagon (Hebrew) or Dagan (Sumerian). Fish god. Prominent among the divinities of ancient Assyria, as shown by the monuments, was Dagon, a creature, part man and part fish. Images of this fish-god have been found guarding the entrance to palace and temple in the ruins of Nineveh, and they appear upon ancient Babylonian seals, in a variety of forms.

Article: According to the various fragments of Berosus, preserved in later historical writers,' the very beginning of civilization in Chaldea and Babylonia was under the direction of a personage, part man and part fish, who came up out of the sea. According to the account of this tradition given from Berosus by Apollodorus, "the whole body of the animal was like that of a fish; and had under a fish's head another head, and also feet below, similar to those of a man, subjoined to the fish's tail. His voice, too, and language were articulate and...

Berosus also records that from time to time, ages apart, other beings of like nature with this first great teacher, came up out of the sea with fresh instructions for mankind; and that each one of these avatars, or incarnations, marked a new epoch, and the supernatural messenger bore a new name. So it would seem to be clear that, in all those days of Israel's history within which the book of Jonah can fairly be assigned, the people of Nineveh were believers in a divinity who from time to time sent messages to them by a personage who rose out of the sea, as part fish and part man. This being so, is there not a perceptible reasonableness, or logical consistency of movement, in the narrated miracle of Jonah in the fish, and of the wonderful success of the fish-ejected Jonah as a preacher in the Assyrian capital?

SUNDAY. Our Excuses: Fear. Jonah

Scripture

Nahum 1:1 (ESV): An oracle concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh.

Nahum 3:1–4 (ESV): 3 Woe to the bloody city, all full of lies and plunder—no end to the prey! 2 The crack of the whip, and rumble of the wheel, galloping horse and bounding chariot! 3 Horsemen charging, flashing sword and glittering spear, hosts of slain, heaps of corpses, dead bodies without end—they stumble over the bodies! 4 And all for the countless whorings of the prostitute, graceful and of deadly charms, who betrays nations with her whorings, and peoples with her charms.

2 Kings 17:5–6 (ESV): 5 Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria, and for three years he besieged it. 6 In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

2 Kings 19:32–37 (ESV): 32 “Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there, or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it. 33 By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares the LORD. 34 For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.”
35 And that night the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. 36 Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went home and lived at Nineveh. 37 And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, struck him down with the sword and escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.

EGW

“Among the cities of the ancient world in the days of divided Israel one of the greatest was Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian realm. . . . In the time of its temporal prosperity Nineveh was a center of crime and wickedness. Inspiration has characterized it as ‘the bloody city, . . . full of lies and robbery.’ In figurative language the prophet Nahum compared the Ninevites to a cruel, ravenous lion. ‘Upon whom,’ he inquired, ‘hath not thy wickedness passed continually?’ Nahum 3:1Open in Logos Bible Software (if available),19Open in Logos Bible Software (if available).”—Ellen G. White, Prophets and Kings, p. 265.

Notes

Fear is part of the human condition.

Fear over Authority.

MONDAY. Our Excuses: False Views

Notes

Language, culture, safety, education. Someone else can do it better. Qualifications.

TUESDAY. Our Excuses: Inconvenience

WEDNESDAY. Our Excuses: Uncomfortable Confrontations

THURSDAY. Here Am I, Send Me

FRIDAY. Further Thought:

APPENDIX

https://davidschrock.com/2018/03/16/getting-into-jonah-by-seeing-the-books-literary-structures/