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| Sperm whale (Physeter microcephalus) illustration by Uko Gorter |
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I am almost certain that Jonah
didn’t say to himself before the word of the LORD came to him in Jerusalem,
“You know; I would love to travel to Tarshish one day; it’s on my bucket list!”
Then here comes the LORD with an order for Jonah to go to the most unlikely of places, Nineveh!
There is a high degree of certainty
that neither Tarshish nor Nineveh was on Jonah’s bucket list, ever! The hated
Assyrians were in Nineveh in the east ~551 crow miles from Jerusalem, and Tarshish was west of Nineveh, 2,716 miles as the crow flies, who had not heard of
Yahweh’s fame or seen His glory (cf. Isa 66:19). It was probably one of those
happy heathen places where what happens in Tarshish stays in Tarshish.
Jonah had a knee-jerk reaction
to the word of the LORD, hence, the verb – flee, and he takes off for the seaport town of Joppa, NW of
Jerusalem about 33 crow miles, in search of a ship going to Tarshish! Why would Jonah feel the need to go to Tarshish, of all places, so quickly after being “blind-sided” by this extraordinary
commission from Yahweh for Jonah to go to Nineveh?
I’m thinking that Jonah would
have never thought in a million years that Yahweh would ever send him to
Nineveh; those people were psychotic (cf. Jon 3:8b)! That is true; the
Assyrians were legendary for their atrocities. He probably rationalized to
himself that the LORD knew he didn’t have a warm and fuzzy feeling for the
Assyrians. He may have known that Yahweh would use Assyria to judge the
northern kingdom?
In hindsight, Samaria, the capital city of Israel, was
destroyed in 722 B.C. by the Assyrians. On the bright side, there were probably
no Assyrians to be found in Tarshish, but he will never find that out to be
true or not. There was a stealth storm brewing somewhere over the Mediterranean Sea, but all would be calm when they left port for Spain, and beneath the surface was a sperm whale making its way to a divine appointment. We know Jonah will never reach Tarshish, and he will preach to the Ninevites, ca. 759 B.C.
Jonah served Yahweh as a prophet in the
northern kingdom during Jeroboam II’s reign (793-753 B.C.). Though we do not know of Jonah's lifespan, we are able to
pinpoint Jonah’s timeline in history (2 Kgs 14:25). Jonah is not a fictional
character as we would be led to believe by liberal interpreters of the Bible,
but he is as real as Jeroboam II, the whale, and Jesus (Mt 12:40-41).
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| Click Image to Enlarge |
Looking at the map above, the But Jonah mindset intended to put some
distance between himself and Jerusalem and the mission objective of God’s will
in Nineveh. Everybody has an opinion on the location of Tarshish, and by the way, no one is willing to put any money down on it. A
conservative popular opinion is that Tarshish is in southern Spain. Archaeology may reveal its whereabouts in the
future, but until then, I will speculate that its location is probably on the
southwestern coastline in Cadiz.
What this coastal town of Tarshish represents is the furthest get-away-point from something or someone. One famous commentator called it “the ultimate Thule in the Old Testament” (Robinson). Tarshish is Jonah’s “Thule.” Ours could be whatever we decide is the furthest getaway point. The problem with that thinking is there is no faraway point from God!
Again, based on v3, it is more probable that Jonah was primarily putting distance between the place (Jerusalem) which represented God’s manifest presence, and the other place, which represented the will of God (Nineveh). If you believe that Yahweh is omnipresent, you have to concur that it is impossible to run from God, but not obedience.
It is my belief that was exactly what Jonah was attempting to do, intentionally avoiding God's will because he did not want to go to Nineveh. The Ark in the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem represented His global position though He is everywhere globally. Here is what is really concerning,
Jonah so disliked this new
assignment that he thought it was worth violating his duties as a prophet of
God, resisting God’s will and breaking fellowship with Him.
He would do this because of his
hatred for the Assyrians? Yes, I believe so (cf. Jon 4:2). What he felt toward
the Assyrians was a complete contrast to who Yahweh was. Jonah was consumed by
his dislike for the Assyrians that he became unhinged and ungodlike as a
prophet of God!
What we see in the case of Jonah is that running from God’s will doesn’t pay any benefits. There is no advantage, only a disadvantage. So, we know that it is impossible to run from the presence of the
LORD, but we can run from His will…but only for so long. If we are so hardnosed
about something, and chastening doesn’t turn us around, you know the only
alternative remaining is physical death.
Jonah didn’t like the forecast of remaining
in the whale; so, he changed his mind, appealed to Yahweh, and the whale puked
him up on an unidentified shore. Jonah was given a second chance as you well know
(Jon 3:1). Yahweh knew and so do we; Jonah’s attitude was unchanged by the
immediate circumstances he found himself in (literally). He wanted a second
chance to go to Nineveh. He got it (Jon 3:1).
But Jonah arose to flee to
Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa, and found
a ship [a large trading ship?
Phoenician?] going to Tarshish; so he paid
the fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from
the presence of the LORD [emphasis mine].
To be clear, I am of the opinion
that Jonah was running from the will of God, not running from the presence of the LORD. Someone might say,
“You believe
in the Bible, don’t you? Twice it is stated in this verse that Jonah was running from the presence of the LORD!”
Yes, Jonah even told the mariners why he was going to
Tarshish (Jon 1:10b)! And by the way, we know Jonah wasn’t running out of fear of
the Assyrians (cf. Jon 4:2). He was fearful they might repent!
How does Jonah intend to reach
his ultimate Thule? Being a true prophet of God, he had to have known that God
was omnipotent, omniscient (includes foreknowledge), omnipresent, and so forth
(Read Psa 139:1-12!). So, how do you get away from Yahweh’s presence, who is all-knowing
and everywhere present?
It is laughable indeed if Jonah truly
believed he could succeed in getting away from the presence of the LORD! He is
either the stupidest prophet of God in the Bible or guilty of doing what we all
have done at one time or another, running from the will of God in some matter. This
is how I interpret his leaving Jerusalem for Tarshish, but Jonah selecting
Tarshish is puzzling.
Jonah is going to discover that
even God’s will is difficult to ignore! He doesn’t know it yet, but he has to
make a faith choice on which end of the whale he wants to egress from,
seriously! Yeah, it will be a hard decision, right? Getting out of the whale
wasn’t a pretty thing, but it sure was miraculous, but I will refrain from
commenting until we get there. It’s a whale of a story…
Jonah’s ultimate Thule only emphasizes
just how deeply he felt about offering repentance to some very vicious and
heartless heathens, but as a true prophet of God, that was not his call to make,
right? No one has a legitimate right to decide who is worthy of salvation, no
one, regardless of how he or she might feel! They deserve to go to hell, but so
do we. This is the most beautiful thing Jonah said in his book,
… I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and
abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm (Jon 4:2b).
If we ignore or attempt to avoid
God’s will, we will wind up in a place where we don’t belong. When it comes to running
from God’s will, we are not victims but volunteers of the consequences. We have
a right to choose, but we are never free of the consequences of our choices.
from the presence of the LORD.
In regards to Yahweh’s perfection
of omnipresence, every Jew, proselyte, and those acquainted with the Jewish
religion knew that the manifest presence of the God of the Jews was centered in
the Solomonic temple at Jerusalem, but that does not contradict His
omnipresence of being everywhere fully there. Being spread too thin is an
incorrect concept in this matter of God being everywhere present. His manifest
presence is known to be in Jerusalem for symbolic purposes though He was
actually there in the Holy of Holies also, He is everywhere else.
For anyone to think that the Creator God could ever be contained
by His own creation is ludicrous. However, it was only in Jerusalem where the sins of the people had their sins propitiated by blood being sprinkled on the mercy seat and expiated by blood sprinkled on a goat that was then released into the wilderness on the day of atonement, once per year.
The ark of the covenant was not God or an image of God but a representation that He was in their midst. Nowhere else on earth had a visible representation of God’s presence, which is why theologians use the phrase, “manifest presence.” This is where God manifests Himself in worship. Nowhere else on earth is there a visible for the Invisible.
The ark of the covenant was not God or an image of God but a representation that He was in their midst. Nowhere else on earth had a visible representation of God’s presence, which is why theologians use the phrase, “manifest presence.” This is where God manifests Himself in worship. Nowhere else on earth is there a visible for the Invisible.
It
would be correct to say that just because there was only an ark in one specific
location does not mean God is nowhere else to be found on earth. He is still
everywhere there as He was in Jonah’s day in the 8th century B.C.
Today no one knows what became of the ark; the last Scriptural reference of its
whereabouts is found in 2 Chron 35:1-6; cf. 2 Kgs 23:21-23.
In 597 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar
captured Jerusalem and raided the temple, but in 586 B.C., Neb took what was
remaining in the temple and burned it and Jerusalem to the ground (2 Kgs 25:9)!
When the temple was rebuilt under Zerubbabel’s leadership (Ezra 1:2), there was
no ark in the Holy of Holies.
In Jesus’ day, there was no ark in Herod’s temple, which was a restoration and expansion of Zerubbabel’s second temple, lasting until 70
A.D. During the future millennial reign of Christ, following the Great Tribulation period, there will be no ark (Jer 3:12-16), for
Jesus Himself is our mercy seat (Rom 3:24-25; cf. 1 Jn 2:1; 4:10)! Halleluyah! <><
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