Inter-Varsity Press

Contents

Author’s preface

Introduction

What is the book of Jonah?

Approaching the book of Jonah

1 The nations and mission in Jonah

Universalism

The nations

Israel between universalism and mission

A definition of mission in the Old Testament

Mission in Jonah?

Mission from Pentecost onward

Evaluating contemporary approaches to mission

Mission and the priority of the gospel

2 Conversion and spirituality in Jonah and in biblical theology

Conversion in biblical theology and in Jonah

Abram’s faith

Abram’s repentance

Conversion elsewhere in the Old Testament

Approaching conversion in Jonah

Spirituality in biblical theology and in Jonah

The possibility of a unified biblical spirituality

Approaching spirituality in Jonah

3 Looking into Jonah 1

Meeting the main characters

Initial identities and contrasts

Identities clarified and remade

The aftermath of the storm

4 Looking into Jonah 2

Yahweh prepares a fish

Jonah prays

Jonah is saved from drowning

5 Looking into Jonah 3

Introduction

Assyria in the eighth century BC

Nineveh in the eighth century BC

Jonah’s message

The response of the Ninevites

The limits of Nineveh’s repentance

The response of Nineveh’s king

Who was Nineveh’s king?

Nineveh’s repentance in context

How does God ‘relent’?

God’s justice and his relenting

6 Looking into Jonah 4

Jonah’s anger against Yahweh

The root of Jonah’s anger: God’s gracious character

The fruit of Jonah’s anger: life with God impossible

Yahweh’s first response to Jonah’s anger

Jonah’s anger over his discomfort

Yahweh’s second response to Jonah’s anger

Conclusion

7 Conclusions

Christocentric interpretation and application

Sin and its consequences in Jonah

Judgment and salvation in the Day of the Lord

Jonah, mission and the gospel

Jonah, conversion and spirituality, and the gospel

Jonah, imitation of God, and the gospel

Mission, Christ-conformity and our triune God

(From the ) Author’s preface

The present volume is the outgrowth of ongoing reflection on the biblical theme of mission, particularly on how the role of Israel in the OT relates to the roles of the church and of individual believers in the New Testament. Although my use of biblical theology has repeatedly confirmed the importance of the progressive revelation and accomplishment of redemption, and thus of salvation-historical epochs (as Geerhardus Vos might say), the complexity of the biblical data on mission resisted my efforts to categorize it neatly in chronological categories as one might other themes like divine presence or atonement. This study is thus an effort to appreciate the various kinds of unity that exist in Scripture. The New Testament focus of much prior study of mission (note especially the volume by Köstenberger and O’Brien in this series) also prompted me to focus my attention on the Old Testament. …

It is my prayer that this volume will help the church to understand better the glorious theme of mission and, in the power of the Spirit, to follow in the footsteps of her Lord. Soli Deo gloria!

Daniel C. Timmer

Introduction

What is the book of Jonah?

The book of Jonah is full of surprises. This is no less true for readers of our day than it was for its original audience. How is it possible that a city like Nineveh, whose political stature depended on the success of the Assyrian empire’s brutal military campaigns, would repent? Why does Jonah seem so out of touch with the God who calls him to act as a prophet? And a very different surprise awaits readers as the book encourages them to adopt a critical attitude of Jonah, only to ask them at the end the same question that God poses to Jonah: to what extent is their character truly in accord with that of the God whom they claim to serve?

At the same time, Jonah centres on the grand theme of the Bible: the manifestation of God’s unmerited grace to those who have sinned against him. Not only does the author develop this in all of the main characters as God’s grace affects the lives of the sailors, of Jonah, and of the Ninevites, but the clearest description of God’s character in the book appears in the application to Nineveh of

Exodus 34:6–7, where God’s great mercy toward rebellious Israel first comes gloriously into view. This, as we will see, goes a long way toward explaining the prominence that the book gives to Gentiles and their various positive responses to what they learn of Israel’s God. It also draws the reader into the progressive unfolding of God’s intention to bless all nations through his chosen people, even raising the possibility that certain Israelites might not have wanted that to be the case.

Despite its short length and concentration on major biblical themes, however, interpretative challenges remain for readers of Jonah. In addition to the various unexpected twists of the plot, challenging theological questions regarding the nature of religious conversion and to what extent the sailors and Ninevites underwent conversion force the reader to consider what conversion looked like prior to the full revelation of Jesus Christ and the completion of his cross-work. The import of Jonah for mission is also a subject of continual debate: while all would agree that in the NT era the church is commanded to proclaim the Gospel worldwide, there is no widely accepted way of integrating Scripture’s presentation of a Hebrew prophet’s preaching repentance in Nineveh with OT Israel’s largely passive role in mission. And that passive role itself seems to stand in tension with various OT passages that command Israelites to proclaim their God and his deeds to the nations (Ps. 96:3, 10). Finally, this little book suffers from no shortage of fascinating historical aspects. How might the Ninevites have perceived a foreign prophet who appeared with a message of imminent destruction? Do existing historical records mention anything that correlates with, or at least sheds light on, their repentance? And since the book was written in Hebrew, what was the author intending to accomplish in writing this brief account for his Israelite audience?

Approaching the book of Jonah

All these questions, and more, require that the reader of Jonah come to the text with a certain base of knowledge, not to mention a certain disposition of heart. This book is intended to aid readers of Jonah on the first front in several ways: first, by putting in their hands the relevant data on the book’s historical backgrounds (both in Israel and Assyria), and next by discussing the biblical text in detail. But it seeks to do more than that, since Jonah is part of a larger collection of books that, as Christian Scripture, is authoritative for men and women across the world who have come into a saving and transforming relationship with God through it. If all Scripture bears witness to Christ (Luke 24:36–52), the reader of Jonah surely has to respect that fundamental orientation while avoiding excesses (interpretations, and especially connections to Christ, that are not well grounded in the text and in theology) as well as deficits (oversimplifying the various theological facets of the book). This task of understanding Jonah’s message in the context of the full self-revelation of God in the Scriptures is even more challenging than a detailed discussion of its historical context, since it requires that Jonah’s teaching on various topics be brought into relation with the rest of the Bible. This is especially the task of what is called ‘biblical theology’, not because other tasks and forms of theology are not biblical, but because this aspect of biblical interpretation tries to appreciate fully each biblical book’s unique contribution (diversity) while showing how it enriches the full, Christ-centred picture that God paints across the history of God’s actions on behalf of his people (unity). In approaching Jonah by means of biblical theology, we will pay special attention to the various stages of God’s work (often referred to as redemptive history) with an eye to avoiding oversimplifications of dynamic themes that span the two Testaments. We will also strive to respect the vocabulary that the book uses so that its author’s thought is not forced into moulds drawn from another biblical author or from later theologians.

As we will see, this kind of approach is helpful in making sense of the book of Jonah because of the ways that several of its prominent themes are developed across the whole Bible. We will explore the relationship between Israel and the nations (a subject that includes the question of mission), what religious conversion in the OT consisted of, and the nature of OT spirituality (also called piety, godliness or sanctification). Conversion and spirituality are closely related, but as will appear from the book of Jonah (and for other reasons as well), it is wise to distinguish them.

Lastly, this volume reflects on how the author of Jonah, precisely by writing what he did as he did, communicates material uniquely suited for creating in the reader certain beliefs, virtues and intentions that he holds dear. The ideal reader must of course understand the text first, but he understands in order to ‘stand under’ it in humility, with the prayer that its life-giving and life-transforming truth would be brought to bear on him by the Spirit of God himself, resulting in his sanctification and God’s glory (2 Tim. 3:16; Jas 1:25; 1 Pet. 1:22–25). The book of Jonah, in other words, was written to facilitate spiritual change in its readers, and our study of the book is not complete until we have wrestled with it on those terms.

Neither standing nor understanding, however, is the final word in interpretation. The final word belongs to following.

The church should be that community of humbly confident interpreter-believers whose consciences, seared and sealed by the Spirit, are captive to the Word, and whose commentaries and communities seek progressively to embody the meaning and significance of the text. ‘Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.’ (Vanhoozer 1998: 467)