HERMENEUTICAL STUDY OF JONAH IN THE LIGHT OF JONAH- IT’S RELEVANCE TO COMTEMPORARY NIGERIA
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- NGN 3000
Background of study
The book of Jonah is an Old Testament book composed of four chapters with forty-eight verses. The book is full of abrupt changes of direction in thought, humorous touches and unexpected twists in plot. It contains prose and poetry. The book is unique among the books of the biblical prophets. It is not like the other books of the prophets but rather consists of a midrashic story made up to teach important lesson. Hence, modern day scholars placed it in a category which has been named ‗Theological Midrashism‘. For Achtemeier (2005), Midrash assumes that the biblical text has an inexhaustible fund of meaning that is relevant to and adequate for every question and situation. Other books that belong to this group are the book of Esther, the book of Ruth, Deutero-canonical books of Tobit, and Judit. These are referred to as ‗theological novels‘ in Menezes (2009) opinion and therefore history is not ought to be sought in them. The author has a great sense of literary style. The author of the book of Jonah is unknown. However, what seems clear is that his tale of reluctance, self-pity, and narrow-mindedness are meant to counter particularistic tendencies current in postexilic Judaism. A point to be made here is that the author of the book of Jonah knew that his audience would enjoy the story and not be forced to choose if it could actually have happened or not or if the fish was a shark or whale. He makes some important points about prophecy and the nature of God without ever losing his sense of humor while creating his outrageous story and its many separate plots. Irony is its major literal style. Jonah does everything a good prophet should not; from fleeing, to refusing to speak, to complaining that God does not fulfill all the threats of doom that he made Jonah preach. 2 The book of Jonah differs from other prophetic books in that it is a story narrated about a prophet. Schmidt (2008) alluded to this when he said ―In the book of the Twelve Prophets the book of Jonah holds a special place, because it is not a collection of prophetical sayings but a prose story about a prophet‖ (p.330). Three of the four chapters are narrative prose describing the Prophet Jonah‘s misadventures. Jonah‘s preaching and prophetic oracle consists of only one ‖overturned be shall Nineveh and days forty Yet. (―עוֹד אַ רְ בָ עִ ים יוֹם וְ נִינְוֵה נֶהְ פָכֶת׃ -proclamation 3:4). In the centre of the book is a prayer of thanksgiving (2:2-9), reported to have been uttered by Jonah when he was in the belly of the fish. Jonah is best seen as an interpretative development of history (midrash) in the form of a short story pervasively didactic and carefully structured. Jonah himself symbolizes certain pious Israelites whose theological perspective is problematic. For Von Rad (1965) Jonah is a story with strong didactic content. Scholars such as Fretheim writes that the book is prophetic in that it speaks a word of judgment and grace to a specific audience, evoking amendment of thought and life. Modern scholars in the last century have regarded Jonah as a work of imagination. Some call it myth, allegory, didactic story etc. concerning the nation of Israel who at a point in their history was narrow-minded with regard to Yahweh‘s choice of them. For instance Boadt (1984) opines that Jonah reminds us of the close of life in Judah under the Persians. It reminds us that this narrow-mindedness of Israel did not bring Israelite spirit to death during the time of Ezra. Postexilic Judaism as exemplified in Jonah kept alive Israelite sense of its covenant and election as gifts of Yahweh now to be shared with the rest of the world. The book of Jonah opens up by first identifying the prophet as Jonah son of Amittai. There is a prophet by that very name who according to 2 Kings 14:25 ministered during the reign of 3 Jeroboam II (786-746). There is no other personal information about this prophet Jonah to show the link between the one in the book of Jonah and that of Kings. Several arguments over the years have been given to know whether the Jonah of the book is the same man named in 2 Kings 14:25. It is worthy to note that Jonah 3:3 indicates that Nineveh was an exceedingly large city. Reading through the book of Jonah, the reader notices that the book does not locate itself in a particular historical setting and there are various reasons for this fact. Many authors tried to propose possible date owing from the different elements and the entire book. For Phillips (2011) ―Because of the place, names and other references to Jonah and his message, a date between 786 and the second century B.C has been suggested‖ (p.2). However, Branick (2012) was of the opinion that ―the Hebrew of this book has more the characteristics of fifth-century than of eightcentury Hebrew‖ (p.262). Many scholars believe the book was written after the exile. In Jonah 3:3, the author speaks of Nineveh in the past tense which suggests a date of composition after the destruction of Nineveh in 612 B.C. It must be noted that many of the arguments namely the tense of ‗was‘, Aramaic influence, quotation from other biblical books have been seriously challenged. However, many scholars locate this book in the postexilic period. For greater number of others knowing the date is irrelevant to the interpretation of the story. The book of Jonah was therefore written in Palestine around the 5th century B.C.E. This was when the Jews were still recovering from their exile in Babylon. The territory that was once controlled by David and Solomon got encroached upon by major foreign powers around 9th and 8 th centuries. In 722 B.C.E Assyria had conquered the northern kingdom of Israel. They took their stronger citizens captive and settled groups of people of other nations in northern Palestine. Through another century Judah hung on but could not for a long time. In 587 B.C.E. Nebuchadnezzar and Babylonian army destroyed Jerusalem and led the blinded king and much 4 of the people into Babylonian exile. No wonder Assyria came to be identified as the arch-enemy of the people of God. None of the smaller nations of the Ancient Middle East escaped the whip of the Assyrian, and so not only Israel but all the other nations had developed a hatred for the cruel Assyrians. No doubt Assyria would be punished by God for her excessive insolence and cruelty. However, after fifty years in 538 B.C.E. Cyrus the Persian king when he defeated Babylon issued a decree allowing the Jews to return to Jerusalem and to rebuild their temple. The struggle between the returning exiles and those who had remained behind, along with glaring poverty and the continuous demand of labor necessary to rebuild a land that was left desolate and greatly destroyed, provide the background for book of Jonah. At the back of the mind of the returning Jews was the conviction that they had suffered in exile as a result of their sin and infidelity to God. Nowell (2001) referring to the outcome of this downing knowledge to the returning Jews has this to say ―as a result, they developed an attitude of exclusivity and religious observance of the law. They avoided anything that might lead them away from God, such as foreign customs or even foreign wives‖ (p.7) (Ezra 9:1-3; 10:10-15; Neh 13:23-30). It is against this background that this research goes into an exegetico-hermeneutical study of Jonah 1:1-3, 3:4 in the light of Jonah 2:1-11.
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