Jonah Talk 2

‘Salvation belongs to the LORD’

'Some people believe football is a matter of life and death.
I'm very disappointed with that attitude.
I can assure you, it is much, much more important than that.'
Bill Shankly – manager of Liverpool Football Club

We live in a society that is somewhat glib in it’s view of death don’t we?
At best we set out to numb the specter of it, by the endless pursuit of ever increasing doses of pleasurable experience, whether they be physical, natural or even artificially induced using chemical means. As a society we have a mantra to try and ‘suck the marrow out of life’, which seems to at a subconscious level be the means of cheating death, or at least last ditched attempt to belittle its impact. An Attempt, so at least we can utter those apparent words of great comfort that, ‘they died doing what they loved’. Like that helps at all!

But as Christians, we can be guilty of being a little glib about death ourselves can’t we?
It’s alright, I’m right with God, we’ll be resurrected.. and that’s true, but you do have to go through the door that is marked death first, and that is a thoroughly unpleasant concept isn’t it?
You do actually ‘walk alone’ through that door, in contrast to the song.

Death for everyone is a deadly serious business, even the death of someone else is nothing to be trifled with, and that is what our ‘hero’ or maybe I should just call him our ‘protagonist’ Jonah is finding out now. Death is really a deadly serious business for everyone, Jew and Gentile a like. A serious business for Jonah, but then again a serious business for you and me just the same.

Summary
And that is the predicament we left Jonah in last week, at the end of Scene 1 which finishes in verse 16, he is heading toward the bottom of the ocean. As you may remember in scene 1, Jonah has been told to go to Nineveh to preach against them for their wickedness has risen up before the Lord, and instead, Jonah runs in exactly the opposite direction, he heads for Tarshish. He directly and defiantly disobeys God and heads in the other direction. It would be fair to say, Jonah throws a bit of a tanty really.

So in response the LORD throws a storm at Jonah, and Jonah was then thrown into the sea in response. And as we start scene 2 found in chapter 2 of Jonah, we join him as he hits the water’s surface, and then he describes for us his predicament, in poetic terms.

Jonah has been told to by God in 1:2 to talk, but up to this point he has said very little. And only now, when there are no people to hear it, Jonah decides to wax eloquent with his speech, in his own Psalm, a Psalm that seems to borrow on the language of the other Psalms from King David’s time as well.

[aside] Chapter 2 is primarily poetic in form, which can make it a little unusual for us to read really, because Hebrew poetry is not about rhyme or meter like English poetry, but is about parallel ideas and a kind of symmetry of structure and words.

Hebrew poetry often uses parallel phrases that sometimes are directly next to each other, but at other times the structure is more widely related. For instance the parallel ideas or phrases can be at either end of the poem, and the poem tends to work from the outside in towards the middle. I guess it is like using sets of brackets or parenthesis in a equation or an sentence if you like, and you look for the pairs to work their way into the middle point.

This poetic technique is called a chiasm, and I suspect Jonah uses some of this technique in its poetry, which helps to explain why the poem doesn’t seem to unfold in a linear fashion of logical and temporal order. What you can notice is that the poem seems to jump the perspective of the writer from one situation to another.

Now as usual with these soughts of things, don’t sweat the details of it, reading poetry is much like reading the Australian constitution, it is all about the vibe.

Now the as we look at the overarching shape of scene 2, we can see it has a piece of narrative at both ends, so 1:17 & 2:1 and then 2:10. In between these narrative comment is poetry.

It seems likely to me (although this is not categorical by any means), that the poem breaks into two parts, the first part from verses 1-6 and the second from verses 7-9 and both of these two sections seem to be using a form of chiasm or parallel structure to help convey their message.

So as we look to try and flesh out the meaning of this second scene of Jonah’s story, it seems the easiest method of approach is to try and follow the chronological chain of events for Jonah. He is the main reference point of the story after all. In order to do this we are going to commence by looking at the first piece of poetry, the story of Jonah’s descent to the bottom of the sea.

1. Jonah’s Descent
Jonah started his descent to this most hairy of predicaments when he ‘descended’ to Joppa back in 1:3, and now because of his rebellion against God’s direct command, Jonah is literally in dire straights, and he is descending to the deep depths of the ocean. And this is the situation in which we find Jonah explaining in his Psalmic prayer to God that is something of a lament in v3-5 where we are going to start.

3 C You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas,
and the currents swirled about me;
all your waves and breakers swept over me.

4 D I said,
'I have been banished [driven out] from your sight [your eyes];
yet [how?] I will look again
toward your holy temple.'

5 C’ The engulfing waters threatened me,
the deep surrounded me;
seaweed was wrapped around my head.

I think it is a fairly safe assumption that if Jonah attended a NSW state school, when it came to summer time, he would have been placed in the group marked ‘non-swimmer’.

Jonah is flung into the water by the sailors under God’s design, and only then does he start to realize the gravity of the situation, the reality that he is as good as dead. The waves crash over him and the weeds are wrapped around his head. Jonah realizes he can’t fix this on his own. Jonah laments his predicament.

This is one of those horrible moments in life, which I’m sure we’ve all experienced in life at some level, (whether it was physically or relationally), a moment when we know we have done the wrong thing. We have caused damage, and there is absolutely nothing humanly possible we can do to repair it.

Jonah knows that from the depths of the ocean, with weeds wrapped around his head, his only hope is the Lord. But then isn’t the Lord the one whose hand is acting against Jonah at this time?

Jonah has been banished from God’s presence we learn in v4, in language that is identical to how Adam was banished from the garden in Genesis 3 because of his sin. It doesn’t look good for him.

Jonah’s very real question is ‘How can I pray, how will God hear me?’.
And his problem is two fold, firstly, God hears Israel’s prayers when they pray them at the place where his name dwells, when they are presented at the temple in Jerusalem, not at the bottom of the ocean. And secondly, why would God want to here Jonah’s prayer anyway?

Jonah is being punished for his direct disobedience of God. His submerged journey is God appointed, why would God relent and save him?

Well despite these two difficulties Jonah (probably realizing he has nothing else to do) prays to his God. And to his great amazement and delight, the Lord is not only able to hear Jonah’s prayer, the Lord is willing to hear Jonah’s prayer, and not only is the Lord able and willing to hear Jonah’s prayer, even more than that, the Lord answers it!

2. Jonah’s Prayer
The distinct petition portions of this first section of Jonahs prayer are found in v2 and V6.
2 A "In my distress I called to the LORD,
and he answered me.

B From the depths of the grave [Belly of Sheol] I called for help,
and you listened to my cry.


6 B’ To the roots of the mountains I sank down;
the earth beneath barred me in forever.

A’ But you brought my life up from the pit,
O LORD my God [YHWH Elohim].

In the outside parallel parts of this first piece of Jonah’s poetry in V2 & 6, we see a clear answer to his predicament. The Lord who has disciplined him in this most dramatic of ways, will be his Saviour. The Lord will not reject his prophet in his time of his need, God hears his cry for help. God is able and willing to save Jonah even from the depths of the grave, literally ‘belly of sheol’, the place where the dead reside in the OT.

Jonah is (in a profound way) raised from the dead, raised from the pit by the Lord His God. And as a result, Jonah no longer talks of the God who made the heavens and the earth, in some generic sense or national sense, but Jonah calls on the Lord, ‘MY God’. Jonah now has a personal understanding of God and what he has done for him directly. Jonah knows personally of the God who is the creator, but more than that the Lord who is the saviour. The one who ‘brought’ Israel out of slavery in Egypt has now ‘brought’ Jonah out of the grave.

In the second piece of Jonah’s poem, he seems to develop the message of the first piece of the poem. Jonah is now certain that God hears his prayer as is clear from the contrast of V4 and V7, now Jonah is sure his prayer reaches God in the temple.

7 "When my life was ebbing away,
I remembered you, LORD [YHWH],
and my prayer rose to you,
to your holy temple.

8 "Those who cling to worthless idols
forfeit the grace [hesed] that could be theirs.

9 But I, with a song of thanksgiving,
will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good.

This second piece of poetry seems to contrast the heart of the problem in the first. In v4 Jonah sees the problem, as his descent to the bottom of the sea, but in v8 he curiously sees the problem as idolatry. But we’ll get back to that in a minute.

In response to Jonah’s prayer we see the final movement of this second scene of Jonah’s story.

3. Jonah’s Deliverance
Finally Jonah’s poem of prayer raises to God himself and Jonah seems to discover the heart and the truth of the matter, you could even say that this line is indeed the thematic centre of the book (in fact the centre theme of the whole Bible really). Jonah now understands with new conviction that:
Salvation [yeshua] comes from [belongs to] the LORD."
Now not only does he know it to be true with renewed vigor, because of his prayer, he experiences it first hand.

The Lord has provided a great fish to pull him from the weeds at the bottom of the sea. (Now At the time do you reckon he this was the answer to prayer he was looking for!)
Do you reckon at the time he thought being swallowed by a fish was a good thing?
What if the unspecified fish, was actually a great white shark!
Would that have seemed like manna from heaven?
Something about frying pans and fires comes to mind!

But we know the fish is a good and merciful thing from the Lord. The salvation of the Lord from the ‘belly of sheol’ (which is ironic again), and almost at once the hard discipline of Jonah’s object lesson is over. After the profound eloquence of his prayer, Jonah is then dumped upon dry land, in a most unceremonious way.

I’ve been out to sea and as a result found myself intolerably sea sick once, and I can assure you that I found getting back on dry land a great relief, but it could not compare to how much of a relief as it would have been for Jonah I suspect.

Interpreting the Story
What is this scene two of Jonah all about, Well it seems key to the story is the contrast that started in scene 1 of:

Jonah Vs the Gentiles
The Sailors in scene 1 knew they were in peril, great peril actually, and they needed no convincing to pray. After their prayer, they were obedient, (with a little trepidation which was understandable). Obedient to the Lord’s command and then they were delivered. Following on from their salvation, their response was to offer sacrifices and vows we learn from 1:16.

Jonah who was an Israelite, and not just an Israelite, but a prophet non the less, was (in contrast to the gentiles), some what presumptuous with his position before God. The storm that convinced the Gentiles to repent, didn’t seem to scare Jonah straight, he instead traded on the mercy of God, that it would be ok for him. It took quite some doing to get his attention, like being plunged into the valley of the shadow of a watery death..

But it did get his attention, God’s original command for Jonah to, ‘Get up, GO and to call to the gentiles’ was a matter of life and death for them. And Now finally Jonah understands this with a new tangible clarity.

And now ironically we see Jonah imitating the gentiles experience. Of praying, being delivered and then offering sacrifices and vows in response as we learn in V10.

The story of Jonah of so far has been one of irony, that the Gentiles seem to understand better, and need less provocation than the Jewish prophet, on how to live the right way before the Lord.

But there is something more profound than just the deliverance of Jonah going on here I suspect. You see Jonah’s madness was to run from the command of the Lord and it required his deliverance from the watery depths we read in V4, which is all clear enough, but why is there the mention of idols in V8?

Well in a real way, in this story Jonah is symptomatic of all of Israel at his time. He is in a sense representative Israel, and if there is one thing all the prophets tell us, it is that Israel was rebellious against God, just like Jonah.

Jonah’s madness lead him to need to be saved by the Lord from the sea, Israel would need to be saved from the Idols of the nations around them, that they were enslaved to.

The message at the heart of Jonah’s psalm is that ‘salvation belongs to the Lord.’ Salvation from deep water and salvation from idols, which is salvation from death, and salvation from sin. Salvation belongs to the Lord. Salvation for the Jew and the Gentile alike.

The Theological implications of the Story
As you may remember when we were talking about v4, the question that seems to have been at the forefront of Jonah’s mind, is ‘how can I pray to God, when I am so far from the temple?’

The real problem for Jonah however is not how can God hear, but:

Why would God listen to Jonah’s prayer?
Well in short in V8, Jonah talks of the grace of God that would be theirs, that belongs to those who turn to him. The grace of God has been something of a focus for us over the last couple of weeks, but the expression here is the ‘Hesed’ of God. In the OT this a confident acclamation of the covenant faithfulness of God. This is exactly what the psalmist means when he says ‘His steadfast love endures forever’. Jonah knows he can trust in the character and consistent action of his God. The God of Israel who had promised that he would be their God and they would be his people. This God would be faithful to his promise.

Jonah knows personally of the robustness of God’s character and his unquenchable commitment to those he loves and to those he has promised good things.


God’s steadfast love for his people, was the grounds and guarantee that he would hear Jonah’s prayer. God’s steadfast love for us in Christ is the grounds and guarantee that he will hear our prayer too, despite the brokenness and weakness of ourselves and our lives before him.

Sovereignty of God
Most people when they conceive of the Sovereignty of God, are doing well they acknowledge that ‘God says’ and ‘it is’. That seems to be the rules of the game when it comes to God. But in lots of ways it is hard not to convince yourself that this kind of view is essentially fatalistic, or a determinism if you like.

But we see in Jonah that God’s sovereignty is far superior to this view, because God’s will is certain to be done (just look at the fish and the storm for examples), and yet in the same breath he does it while genuinely interacting with his people and their prayers. God is SO sovereign, his will, will be done and at the same time, (because of great mercy), his people’s prayers will be heard and answered as is good for them!

God’s sovereignty is greater (much greater) than some third world dictator who rules with an iron fist. God is entirely sovereign in all things, and yet in a real way his sovereignty is personal as our heavenly father, who is willing, able and concerned to genuinely interact with his people through their prayers.

And God’s sovereignty is a good thing, for God has to be entirely sovereign if he is to be able to save. And the clear affirmation of Jonah after his escapade is that the greatest expression of the personal sovereignty of God is that, Salvation Belongs to the LORD. Salvation is God’s gift to give.

Interpreting the Story in light of NT
Well the NT most directly talks about our friend Jonah in relation to Jesus himself, which is an odd coupling as we discovered last week, but most noticeably they are connected in Jesus words about the Sign of Jonah which we read in a couple of places. Matt 12:39-41 – Sign of Jonah + Matt 16:4 (Luke 11:29-30)

Matt12:38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you. 39 But he answered them, An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. 42 The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.

Matt:16 1 And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. 2 He answered them, When it is evening, you say, It will be fair weather, for the sky is red. 3 And in the morning, It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening. You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. 4 An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.

Now Jesus shows from his response, he is no circus performer who provides tricks on cue, he points for these people to the past, and in particular to Jonah. Jesus tells us, that just as Jonah was dead and raised by God, so he will be also. HE goes on to say in ch16, it seems the Sign of Jonah is not just the event of his resurrection but the preaching of the resurrection also. Jesus helps us to see that signs and explanations need to go together!

And in the greatest twist of Irony, the men of Nineveh (who we will talk about next week) will condemn Jesus faithless contemporary Israelites (the Gentiles get it, while the Jews miss it all together). It seems for Israel some things never change.

The Application of the Story today
What does scene 2 of Jonah’s story say to us today, well two things:
Firstly, Salvation is from the Lord, and
Secondly, Pray Confidently.

V10 Salvation [yeshua] comes from [belongs to] the LORD."
The Salvation of God that appeared Jonah, has now appeared to all men and is a sign to them. The salvation that is found alone in Jesus Christ and his cross, the one who was raised from the ‘belly of sheol’ like Jonah.

There can be no doubt that for humankind Death is a serious business, and in light of the apparent certain hopelessness of being in the situation of having no word of salvation from God, what else can we expect from people, than a flippant casualness on one hand or a deep despair on the other.

Well we can offer them a certain hope in the face of death, a Gospel message that Salvation comes from the Lord. The gift of God the faithful promise of God that Christ has defeated sin on the cross. And in a more amazing and a greater way than Jonah, Christ has defeated death as he was raised from the dead.

Pray confidently.
Jonah’s story is one of the sovereign and merciful God, who desires to save people, a God who also desires to hear the prayers of his people. And all of these things are based on His good character, not ours, as Jonah demonstrates to us in a pretty emphatic way.

So from Jonah’s story we should be encouraged to pray confidently!
If God can deliver Jonah, and God can deliver Jesus, well God can deliver you, and God can deliver those you love – so pray to the Lord, Because Salvation belongs to him, as salvation is only found in his son.

If God will listen to Jonah (of all people) in his prayers, we can have a real confidence that God will listen to us because of Jesus.

At Mt Riv, we are good in praying for the sick, and this is important, because it can in fact be a matter of life and death. But we shouldn’t let this distract us from the primacy of praying for the salvation of the lost.

Because, Salvation is not a matter of life and death.
It is much, much more important than that.