14: Minor Prophets - Jonah 3-4

[Dunkle] Alright, so welcome back. This is Minor Prophets class, and we are carrying on in the Book of Jonah. In our previous class, we actually got through halfway the first two chapters of a fairly short book.

I'll remind you, Jonah is different from all the other Minor Prophets in that it has not so much prophecy as a story about a prophet. And it's a pretty interesting story. One of the things we know about Jonah, of course, is God called him and did something that he didn't do to any other prophet that's recorded in the Bible, and that sent him to a different land other than Israel. So he sent him to go to Nineveh, and what did Jonah do? He ran the other direction. He wanted to go as far as he could.

God was having none of that. He sent a storm so that the ship wasn't going to advance, even though the sailors on the ship did what they could to try to bring it back to shore. They asked Jonah, after they cast lots, hey, what do we need to do since you're the trouble for this? Throw me in the sea.

I think I mentioned in that class that Jonah might have been sacrificial in that, or he might have just been defeatist. So we don't know for sure. We do know he didn't jump in the water himself, but the storm abated, apparently rapidly enough that the sailors were amazed and impressed, and they took vows, and they sacrificed to this God that they didn't actually know.

And then in the second chapter of the book, we have what I think is an abbreviation of Jonah's prayer. I'm going to say abbreviation because I'm pretty sure he didn't write it down while he was inside the fish. I told you the joke, it's dark inside a fish, and he might not have had a notepad with him.

What I find intriguing about that prayer is how much it echoes other writing that's already in the Bible, and it makes me think that Jonah might have been recalling the things that he'd studied. The other thing that's remarkable is what he does not say in that prayer. And the thing that I would say first, foremost, and loudest is, "Dear God, please get me out of this fish!" We don't have any record of that. What we have instead is his praise and thanks for God delivering him. So that's a pretty amazing thing.

And of course, with that, he's vomited out. He's out of the fish. He's alive, but maybe a little worse for the wear. And in chapter three, it says, "Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time." (Jonah 3:1–2) So Jonah's going to get a second chance. What does God say? "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I tell you."

There's a subtle difference here that may or may not mean anything, because in chapter one, verse two, God told Jonah, "God and cry out against it; for their wickedness." (Jonah 1:2) It's possible, although it's just a speculation, that God is being a little more specific. You give them the exact message that I tell you. Maybe, but cry against it for their wickedness is the message that God wanted him to have.

I'll note also, it says that great city of Nineveh. We'll talk about the size of the city in a little bit, but we see what happens is "Jonah arose and went." If only he'd done that the first time, right? Jonah, the book of Jonah might be half the size. I don't know, but he "went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord."

One thing I'll say is we're not sure where exactly the fish spit him out. He departed from Joppa by ship, so he's, you know, was out in the Mediterranean Sea. We presume the fish, if it dropped him off up here, would have given him a little bit of a shortcut. Maybe, maybe not. It's something we don't need to know, but he makes the journey and he began it...blah blah blah. Let me say that again in English.

He began to enter the city on the first day's walk, then he cried out. So, Jonah, he goes and he walks in the city, you know. We're not sure, you know, did he wander back and forth? Did it take him a day's walk to get to the middle of the city? We can speculate on some of these things. We do know that he's doing what God said. His attitude, though, we can't judge right now. Later on, it's not going to be such a great attitude, but at least he's doing what he should.

Now, as I said, he went to the exceedingly great city, does a day's walk, and then says, you know, "in 40 days Nineveh will be overthrown" (Jonah 3:4). I want to pause there because in this book, in the middle of the Minor Prophets, this is the only prophecy that it has. 40 days, Nineveh will be overthrown.

Now, we could wonder about 40. It does show up in the Bible various times. I've heard some call it a number of probation or a number of testing. You know, the spies sent to spy out the Promised Land did for 40 days and then came back. 40 days and 40 nights was the amount of rain for Noah's flood. Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 nights before he was tempted. So maybe there's something to this.

I don't personally get caught up in numbers all that much, but when you see a pattern over and over again, it's worth at least catching the attention. And those aren't the only 40s in the Bible.

I mentioned it's a great city. Most archaeologists say it was larger than Babylon at this particular time. So Babylon would become the largest city around, at least for a while, Nineveh is bigger. Some ancient writings say it might have been as much as 60 miles in circumference. So circle the outer wall 60 miles, that's huge.

Huge enough that some scholars think those accounts probably aren't quite accurate. They say the city wall was really eight miles in circumference. And building without modern techniques, an eight-mile city wall would still be very impressive. And then there'd be more city outside of that, perhaps. So let's take into account it's big.

Matter of fact, I'll call our attention to something at the end of the book. God, in speaking to Jonah, says "There's 120,000 persons in the city who can't tell their right hand from their left." (Jonah 4:11)

That can't tell right hand from left has been interpreted in two widely different ways. One is that they don't know right from wrong. I lean towards that interpretation, but another interpretation is there's 120,000 children who have not yet learned right from left.

Ah, and I think of that because, matter of fact, I've got a distinct memory of attending kindergarten. Every morning we'd say the Pledge of Allegiance and we had to put our right hand on our heart, so we had to learn right from left. And facing the front of the room there was a picture on the right and a different picture on the left, and that's how we learned it. So imagine if there's 120,000 children that are, say, four or five years and younger, what would be the population of the whole city? Maybe a half a million? Maybe as much as a million? There's different ways to estimate it.

Now, it's possible that the whole city is only 120,000 people. I say only. I don't think there's 120,000 people living in Noford, you know, so Nineveh is a great city for that day and age.

Let's get back, though, to the prophecy, because something amazing happens here in chapter 3, verse 5. What's the amazing thing? "The people of Nineveh believed God." (Jonah 3:5) They believed God. Now, I don't know how much they believed Jonah, but of course, Jonah is carrying God's message, so they believed God.

I will call to attention here something. You see G-O-D as the name. You don't see the L-O-R-D in all caps that we've seen before. That might well be intentional. We don't know that Jonah is proclaiming this God by the name by which the Hebrews knew him. Elohim means God Almighty.

I should have mentioned, probably also, Jonah is probably speaking to them in their own language, a language that they would understand, most likely Aramaic. Even if that's not their language, it's the lingua franca, as we say. It's a language they would understand, which I call to memory in the book of Isaiah when the Assyrian armies are surrounding Jerusalem and they start trash-talking. The officers for King Hezekiah say, no, speak to us in Aramaic. We understand that. Don't speak in Hebrew.

So we know the Assyrians would speak and understand Hebrew. So what I'm saying is Jonah is speaking to them in a way they would understand and talking about a God they would understand. So he's not going to proclaim Yahweh, the self-existing eternal one, to people who don't know Him, but to a polytheistic people who worship and believe in many gods, he'll proclaim the supreme God is about to punish you. And they responded. So they respond to this Elohim, even though that's not the primary God that they worship.

It's worth mentioning here, what is the primary God they worship? Well, there are more than one, but archaeology supports the idea that they principally worshiped Dagon, D-A-G-O-N, the fish god. Have you seen the Veggie Tales movie? "We worship a great fish. We celebrate him in our art, in our literature." Yes, flower? 

Yes, that's the god in the story in Samuel when the Philistines took the Ark of the Covenant. They put the Ark of the Covenant there in the temple of their god, Dagon, and Dagon kept falling over, you know, and God broke off its arms, and so showing He was more powerful.

So there, the Ninevites are heeding the warning from this other God that they don't even know. What a lesson for the Israelites. And some people speculate maybe that's why God sent Jonah to a foreign people, to show that, hey, Israelites, you won't pay attention to a God that you know and who's blessed you and taken care of you. These foreigners who don't even know me are paying attention. Now that's speculation. The Bible never tells us for sure why God sent Jonah. I mentioned it's kind of unique, but let's get back to the point.

"The people of Nineveh believed God and they proclaimed a fast and they put on sackcloth." (Jonah 3:5)

We might tend to think that was only an Israelite thing, but it was in the culture of that time. Middle Eastern peoples would often have an outward expression of inward feelings. So inwardly, they're afraid for one thing, but they also want to reform. And so they're going to fast to show respect and wear sackcloth.

Let me add one other thing historically. There are some historical sources that indicate that in the period around 800 BC, which is the window of time when we think this happened, Nineveh and the Assyrian kingdom slash empire was weaker than at other times and had even been oppressed at times from nations to the north up in what we would call Armenia. And so maybe they're chastened. They are more willing to humble themselves. You know, at this particular point in their history, you know, they're not the big bully on the block that they are at other times. That could well be.

So the people, notice the people do this first, then we're going to see the king follow after them. It's often the other way around, but the people proclaim a fast, put on sackcloth. And verse 6, we see "the word came to the king of Nineveh." He gets the message. All the people are doing this, so he gets up from his throne, lays aside his royal robe, and he covers himself with sackcloth and sits in ashes. That's powerful. He's following the example of his people, and he's humbling himself. We could say humiliating himself to fast because people are believing this message.

And he makes a proclamation, caused it to be proclaimed, published throughout Nineveh, the decree of the king and his nobles. So the fact that it's from the king and his nobles might make us wonder if this particular king isn't wielding absolute power, or if it's the way their government is structured. I'm thinking of this because there's that famous story in Daniel chapter 6, when Daniel is thrown into the lion's den, because the advisors of the king there convince him to sign a decree that no one can petition any king or god other than the Persian king.

Excuse me. And because Daniel refuses to obey that—he worships God—he gets thrown into a lion's den. The point in that story is they say once it's written by decree of the Medes and Persians, it can't be changed. So maybe this particular king of Nineveh isn't ruling as an autocrat entirely. He's working with his nobles. Okay, that's speculative. Let's get back to what they say.

"Neither let man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink water." 

Again, this reminds us of what a fast is, even though that's not our lesson here. A fast is going without food and water.

"But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily to God; yes, let everyone turn from his evil way" (Jonah 3:7–8).

So it's not just the outward show. It's not just fasting, not just sackcloth and ashes. It's change your ways. Turn from your evil ways and from the violence that is in his hands.

Okay, that's something. That speaks to real repentance. You know, so they changed what they were doing. And violence was one of the things. It doesn't say, let's repent of idol worship. They hadn't been taught that that was wrong. It doesn't say, repent from breaking the Sabbath. They hadn't been taught about the Sabbath. But all humanity had the understanding that violence against other people isn't right. And so they repented for doing the things that they knew were wrong.

And he says, "Who can tell if God will turn and relent" (Jonah 3:9)? 

I want to note something about that. Turn and relent, of course, you know, that can mean to change, to comfort. There's various words that can translate that word. But I like to bring back that rhyme that I teach: if man will repent, God will relent.

And it's not just for members of the Church, not just for members of Israel. Here it's these Ninevites, you know, they repent and they're saying, who can tell if God will relent? It's worth noting he realizes there's not a promise from God, not to them like there was for Israel. I'm not going to look up all the various scriptures, but there are numerous places where God promises through his prophets that if Israel will repent and turn from their ways, then God would forgive them and bring them back. It's a solid promise.

Matter of fact, maybe I will turn to one. I've got a couple of them written down. Thinking of Jeremiah 18 verses 7 through 10 is the first one. Let's note that—Jeremiah 17... no, sorry, Jeremiah 18 beginning in verse 7.

Jeremiah 18 verse 7, God says, "The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will relent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it" (Jeremiah 18:7–10).

Now, this doesn't match exactly what I said because I said the promise was to Israel. Well, we can say this word was only to Israel. Jeremiah wasn't sent to any of the surrounding nations, but this shows us what God is like. God will relent if people will repent, and He does here.

Now, there's a couple things I want to call attention to. One is the amusing picture of animals wearing sackcloth. Animals fast because they don't go feed them, but I imagine the cattle being sackcloth thrown on them. I don't know if people have pets, cats and dogs running around wearing a little sackcloth. I want to imagine it to every extreme. You've got a hamster in your cage, he's wearing sackcloth. Okay, that's probably not happening, but it does say the animals are joining in. That's something in the Middle Eastern cultures there. A lot of times animals did participate in the things their owners were doing as far as humbling themselves and such.

Another thing I want to call attention to that's a bit more serious is that we've got the attestation. Let's say Jesus Christ attested that this repentance was real. In Luke 11 and verse 32, Jesus says, "The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation"—he means the generation when he was living—"and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah" (Luke 11:32).

The point is this repentance that we're reading about in Jonah chapter 3 is genuine. So they humbled themselves, and the king called on them to turn from evil, turn from the violence.

We have to take it from what Jesus said that they did turn from evil and violence, at least temporarily. And I'm going to say probably only temporarily because later on Nineveh is going to be condemned again, and eventually Nineveh will be conquered by Babylon. The Babylonians will usurp that.

I won't turn there, but you'll note the book of Nahum, which we'll cover later in this class, is directed towards Assyria and Nineveh. So they'll be condemned again later for things like violence. And they were a very violent, cruel people. But at this point, they turn and they change. It says in verse 10, "God saw their works" (Jonah 3:10).

God bases His mercy on works, not just on words. "He saw their works, they turned from their evil way, and God relented." Now that sounds like that rhyme I was talking about. That's exactly it. "So He relented from the disaster that He said He would bring on them, and He did not do it."

Now I'll note, I said this could be seen as a reproof of Israel, who didn't heed the calling from a God that they should have known to repent. But let's move on.

We get into chapter 4. "It displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry" (Jonah 4:1). The literal Hebrew word there for angry is the word for hot, which is funny. We use that in English today. If someone gets really hot, we can say they were angry. And so, you know, he was angry, and he prayed to the eternal.

I want to pause and note that because something we'll see here. We saw it in chapter 2, and we see it here, is that even when Jonah is in a bad attitude, he still maintains his communication with God. He's angry at God, but he doesn't stop talking to God. That's an example we do want to keep in mind. Not that being in a bad attitude, but at any time we could be in less than the best attitude, but we want to be like Jonah and not cut off our communication. We want to still pray to God. We can ask Him, please help me to get out of this bad attitude.

You know, and so he has this give and take. He obviously misunderstands what's going on, but he's still talking to God. And one of the things we're going to see here, he's angry. Not long ago, he repented, you know, of running away from God and not doing what God said. But now he seems to change his attitude and think he was justified. Maybe it was good that I walked, ran away because he said, "isn't this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore, I fled previously" (Jonah 4:2).

I raised the question in chapter one. Why did he run away? Here he tells us, this is the reason I fled. "I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm" (Jonah 4:2).

Let's give Jonah credit. This is fairly eloquent, a wonderful description of God. Of course, it's so eloquent and wonderful, it might not be his own words because it reads almost exactly like Joel 2:13. We've already seen from chapter two that Jonah knows God's word and is willing to call it up and quote it. That doesn't make it wrong. And we would do a lot worse than to quote words of the Bible that praise God and describe what He's like.

But he's disappointed now that in God's mercy, He's going to spare those Ninevites, those fish slappers. Sorry, if you're watching the recording, it's an inside joke, but I still think it's amusing. And I'll share the inside joke. Veggie Tales made a movie about Jonah where the Ninevites, they don't want to have a movie for little kids that shows real violence, so the movie for kids has that they slap each other with fishes, making the connection of how they honor fish. So anyways, Jonah's upset.

So in verse 3, he does something we rarely see. He's still praying to God and he says, "Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live" (Jonah 4:3). That's something rare, especially in the Bible. We don't see much of anybody asking for God to take their life, much less a prophet.

There was one, though, that did something similar that we might remember. I'm looking around. I'm thinking of Elijah the prophet. After his famous showdown with the priests of Baal, and he called, you know, fire comes from heaven and devours the sacrifice, the altar, and the ground around it. He prays and God sends rain and ends the drought. But then he has an emotional letdown, and Queen Jezebel threatens his life, and he high-tails it for the mountains and hides. He lays down and says, Lord, take my life. Okay, it's rare. And Jonah is not just in despair. He's kind of angry. Better for me to die than to live.

By the way, this might be seen as the second time Jonah prefers death. The first time might have been when he told the sailors, throw me in the sea. That's how you can be saved from this storm. God doesn't take his life. Instead, he asked him a simple question. "Is it right for you to be angry?" (Jonah 4:4).

You know, is this right? God doesn't chastise Jonah. He doesn't correct Jonah. He just asks a question that hopefully would lead Jonah to think about this. Another possible translation of this could have been, are you very grieved? So instead of saying, is it right for you to be angry, are you very grieved? Or I would put it in my own words to say, Jonah, how is this hurting you? I'm sparing the Ninevites. That's no skin off of your nose. Now, I'm not sure if God's talking about skin and noses, but He's inviting Jonah to think about this.

So we move on in verse 5. "So Jonah went out of the city" (Jonah 4:5), s'at on the east side of the city, made himself a shelter." Now, before I comment on the shelter, I'll just say, where it says Jonah went out of the city, the Hebrew would allow for it to say Jonah had went out of the city. So it's possible that this interaction we just read about with him and God really could have been that happened before he left the city rather than he's still sitting in the city looking at the people wearing sackcloth and such. You know, I prefer to think of it that way. It's just not certain.

But he goes out of the city. He makes himself a shelter. The word there for shelter is one we're familiar with, sukkoth. It's a booth, like in the Feast of Booths or Feast of Tabernacles. It's a makeshift shelter that he's going to stay in. And he's going to wait and see what would become of the city. That's interesting, you know, wait and see, because God hasn't destroyed the city. I've read some accounts that say maybe it hasn't yet been 40 days. So maybe he's waiting to see. Maybe God's still going to wipe them out. That's what Jonah wants, it seems. So he's going to wait and watch.

And verse 6, "the Lord God prepared a plant" (Jonah 4:6), "made it come up over Jonah." The Hebrew word there is kikion, which doesn't necessarily describe the species. It's a kikion plant. The Hebrew is vague. Many scholars believe it was a plant that's commonly called in English the palma Christi or the ricinus plant, sometimes called the castor oil plant. Yes, flower? 

Maybe a gourd. I know there's different translations where the Hebrew is vague. So we're not sure what it is. Some, I think the scholars think about this ricinus or castor oil plant because it has big leaves, so it would make a good shade. And they do grow large in this region, but to be honest, it's—the Hebrew is there—it's some kind of plant we don't know. Since it says God prepared, that's the same terminology for when He prepared the great fish. I propose that it's not necessarily a fish we can go find in the sea. It could be a unique creation. So maybe this plant isn't any species that we wouldn't find or know about. Maybe it's a unique creation.

It's not going to matter because it's not around long, right? It grows up that it might be shade for his head to deliver him from his misery. Notice at the end of verse 6, "Jonah was very grateful" (Jonah 4:6). Now it's not shocking, but I want to note this is the only time in the whole book that Jonah's in a good attitude. Jonah's happy. He's very grateful. Since we don't see it anywhere else, that's something to note. But it's not going to last.

Verse 7, morning dawn, the next day, "God prepared a worm" (Jonah 4:7). Again, that same language. It could be a unique creation.

Although the ricinus plant is one that's easily damaged, the Hebrew here—worm—is one kind of, well, I don't want to use it that way, but it could be singular for a single worm or singular for a swarm of worms. So we don't know for sure that it was a single larva. It could have been a group of them.

And in this part of the country, I think of bagworms. I don't know if all of you are from an area—sometimes a certain time of year, you look up and there's this kind of fuzzy-looking bag and it's full of larvae. It's really gross. And they'll come out and then eat up all your plants. So, you know, in central Ohio, we get a torch and burn them before they come out. So it could have been, you know, a single swarm. Whatever in your imagination, that's kind of gross, but it's something that's going to damage the plant. Okay, so this plant's pretty vulnerable.

The worm or swarm of worms comes, damages it, and then in verse 8, "it happened when the sun arose, that God prepared a vehement east wind" (Jonah 4:8). Okay, same word for prepared, but I can't imagine God prepared or created a new species of wind. But it's a hot desert wind, probably. Notice, you know, it's coming from the east, and what's to the east is largely desert and dry. So it's that hot, dry wind.

I believe the word sirocco is from—I'm not sure if that's Arabic. I know Volkswagen used to have a car named the Scirocco, which has absolutely nothing to do with the book of Jonah. But east wind, and the sun beat on Jonah's head, and again, he wishes he could die. Better for me to die than to live. So this is at least the second, maybe the third time, Jonah prefers death to doing his job.

Okay. And by the way, the coincidence—this we see, the book tells us this isn't just a series of coincidences. The plant appears, worms come and kill it, you know, and notice it grew up in a day, almost overnight. It was miraculous, and that's going to help drive home the lesson. Because we could make the point that if Jonah had to cultivate and water and fertilize this plant, he would have a reason to be invested in it. But God is going to point out to Jonah, you didn't do anything for this plant. He didn't. And then the worm killed it very quickly. You know, easy come, easy go, I like to say.

Okay, so Jonah is ready to die again. God asks another question. Again, God said to Jonah—I'm in verse 9—"Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?" (Jonah 4:9). That's saying, do you do well to be angry? Are you very grieved? How is this hurting you? "It is right for me to be angry, even to death" (Jonah 4:9).

Now, I want to insert here that God asked the question—I think it's a rhetorical question. I don't know if He wanted an answer from Jonah, but I can say for all of us, very, very seldom will we do well to be angry. Now, I'm saying seldom. I'm not saying never. Ephesians 4 and verse 26 is where Paul said, "Be angry, and do not sin" (Ephesians 4:26). Anger can motivate us. It can help us to change, but anger is a dangerous thing. It can get out of hand. It's kind of like fire. Fire is a very useful tool if it's controlled and kept where it's supposed to be. It gets out of hand, it can ruin things. Anger is like that. It can ruin your life.

And now that he's worked this up, Jonah says it out loud. Now is the time that God is ready to teach him a lesson—a lesson that I think deals in priorities, that deals in God's love. And that's where it's important to understand that this was a special plant.

And God tells him in verse 10, "You had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night" (Jonah 4:10). As I said, Jonah had done nothing to create that plant or help it grow, so he didn't really have much room to be upset when it's gone. Like I say, easy come, easy go.

Now the contrast. God says, "Should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left—and much livestock?" (Jonah 4:11).

We talked about how large it is. And that great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who can't discern between their right hand and their left, along with a lot of livestock. One hundred twenty thousand people—I said even if that's the entire population. I mean, think—Jonah's upset about a plant that he didn't do anything for, and he's totally calloused to those people.

And God would make the point that, you know, God made people. They're a special creation. You know, Jesus said that God knows every hair on your head—they're all numbered. That doesn't have to be just us in God's Church. That's everybody. God knew those people of Nineveh. God loved those people. And He's looking at Jonah saying, how is this bothering you that, you know, I care about them?

Now, there's a difference in some ways, right? Because we're called. We're the special ones. Again, referring to the VeggieTales, there's one place where Jonah's singing a song and he tells God, we're the good guys and they're the bad guys. They don't deserve your mercy. But that's not true. We're not any better. They're not any worse. It's a matter of God's calling and His mercy.

I want to connect this to 2 Peter 3 and verse 9. And 2 Peter 3:9 is where it says, "the Lord is not slack concerning His promise... but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).

God's not slack. He's not willing that any perish. Not a single Ninevite is one that God wants to perish. He wants all of them to come to repentance. And even though it was on a temporary basis, this 120,000 people—or maybe even a half a million people—came to repentance.

Now, Jonah's missing the point, you know. And what's interesting, though, is God says, shouldn't I have pity on them? You had pity on the plant. And then, of course, book ends—wait a minute, that's it? You know, it doesn't describe anything else.

I will note this is something unique. I think this is the only book in the Bible that ends with a question. It ends with a question and never gives the answer. Now, it's a rhetorical question. It doesn't need an answer. Should God pity Nineveh? Should God pity anyone? Well, obviously, He can and He does.

But we might have this other question. And again, I refer to you to the VeggieTales movie because I love the way it ends. So anybody watching this video, if you haven't seen it, check your local library or see if you can stream it online. Because in that movie, of course, there's these sailors—supposedly the ones that took Jonah—they're telling the story. And then they reach this point and they say, they close the door and say, the end.

And people hearing the story are like, what? What? Well, what happens next? And one of them asks, what did Jonah learn? The person telling the story says, the question, my friend, is not what did Jonah learn. The question is, what did you learn? And I think that might be exactly why the book ends the way it does.

I mentioned when we went through the five W's, who wrote the book? You know, a reasonable assumption is that it's Jonah, but it doesn't tell us that. We could say, would Jonah make himself look this bad? I mean, how many of you want to write a book about yourself and say, yeah, I was a real jerk, and I never learned my lesson?

Is it possible a prophet could end up bad? And the answer to that is yes, we have some—most notably Balaam the prophet that appears in Numbers chapters 22 to 24. We see God talking to him. He is a prophet, but he's bad.

Yes, flower?

Would I say that God spoke to Jonah through a parable? We could. I mean, speaking in parable, but He's having him live out a parable. And I'd like to think so, but I'd like to say if so, it's for our benefit.

And that's where I'd like to say, yeah, maybe Jonah never learned his lesson. Maybe the sailors that threw him in the sea were the ones that wrote the book. I have trouble believing that. Jonah is the one that knows all the details of this story.

And if he knows the details and he left it in the way it did, I think it's a stroke of genius. It's a great way for an author to use a technique to make his audience go, huh, and maybe think about it. And again, reason, well, I don't know what Jonah learned, but I can think about what I learned. What should I learn? Well, I should think about God wants all to come to repentance.

He's not willing that any should perish. God wants—you know, He teaches us as a Church to go preach the gospel into all the world, to all nations. As I said, He didn't send His prophets to other nations except for Jonah. But for the Church, He commissions us to spread that good news. And we should want them to come to repentance.

You know, that's an amazing, wonderful thing. One of the things I'll borrow from the movie again, when Jonah's in a bad attitude, the worm, the caterpillar is talking to him and he says, did it ever occur to you that God loves everybody? Not just you?

Sometimes I have to look in the mirror and say, Frank, did you realize God loves everybody? I believe God loves me. I hope you all believe that. Sometimes we lose sight of how much He loves other people, wants to give them a chance to repent, wants them to repent.

And I think about that more than I might when Jonah is left with a question mark. You know, the book of Job tells us Job learned his lesson. God blessed him, gave him twice as much as he had before. You know, Jonah, we've seen how much he knows the Bible and seems to be quoting from it. Surely Jonah knows how the book of Job ends. It would have been easy to follow that example, but maybe he purposely said, I'm going to do something different.

I'm not going to write that I learned my lesson and God gave me these other blessings. I'm going to leave it hanging. Of course, I say that it's also possible he wrote it out and the scroll got ripped accidentally and they just lost the happy ending.

Boy, that's so much less satisfying, or it's anticlimactic. But I'll say, I think that's—I hope at least—that we are thinking about it. Because I could be wrong in my interpretation. I know there's a word I was thinking for, but it's good for us all to have the mental exercise of thinking about it.

With that, I think I'm at the end of Jonah. This might be a little shorter class than usual, but I'm not going to drag it out. So I'll say, thanks very much. Next time we're going to pick up with the book of Micah.