Michael-Grams: M-G: 12.04.19 // Some Observations in Jonah 2:10, Part 2 of 2

Sperm whale (Physeter microcephalus) illustration by Uko Gorter

So the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry (Assyrian) land (Jon 2:10).

The Assyrian people worshiped a half-fish/half-man god by the name of Dagon, as well as his female counterpart Nanshe, a fish goddess of some sort. Yahweh had commanded this enormous whale to beach itself somewhere on an Assyrian shoreline and coughed Jonah up, along with squid spew in front of some startled Assyrians who witnessed the whole event. This was unprecedented; news of Jonah’s arrival preceded him to the king at Nineveh, probably Ashur-dan III (772-754 B.C.), that a messenger of Dagon (not mentioned in Jonah) was coming to Nineveh.

In 765 B.C., Nineveh experienced a plague. Then there was a total eclipse of the sun on June 15, 763 B.C. Then, if that wasn’t enough, they were hit with another plague in the very year that Jonah showed up in 759 B.C.1 These events were perceived as omens. It is uncertain if our prophet was there during or after the plague; naturally, I’m leaning towards after the plague ran its course and posed no threat to our prophet. These kinds of events are supercharged by superstitions and are usually associated with divine disapproval of something that they may have done that got them in disfavor with their deities.

The people were on edge of a foreboding; the plagues and the eclipse were out of reach, making it difficult to interpret these ominous signs in identifying what they have done wrong or what they needed to do to make things right. All that the Assyrian sorcerers, magicians, and soothsayers could tell them was that the gods were displeased with them; I imagined.

Then comes the news that a messenger of Dagon is heading their way who came forth from a great beast of the sea on their shores. In their fears and trepidations, Dagon’s messenger will hopefully define the error of their ways and inform them on how to correct what is displeasing to the gods!

They are desiring straight and truthful answers for the absence of peace in their lives, the plagues, and the darkening of the sun. They were confused because all of the Assyrian mystics were being ambiguous and gave oblique answers (because they didn’t know either). Finally, there comes one from Dagon who can give them some straight answers! Naturally, I am speculating.

It had to have been kind of creepy and scary of what tidings this messenger would bring to them. They felt defenseless (how do you fight plagues and odd things going on in the heavens) and extremely vulnerable like never before because they were not up against flesh and blood but something intangible that was very powerful. They would be able to relate to this messenger in human form.

The atmosphere in Nineveh was charged, and so thick, you could cut it with a blade. Their senses were on high alert; they feared the worst. It is uncanny how they sensed impending judgment; unbeknownst to them, it was only forty days out (cf. Jon 3:4)! They will soon discover that Jonah was not a messenger of Dagon but a prophet of Yahweh who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm (Jon 4:2); that doesn’t sound like anyone from Nineveh, yes? What a contrast to the worship of Dagon (demon/s behind the persona actually)! What a contrast to a lifestyle of total depravity and unspeakable violence toward humankind!

The perceived ominous threat of impending judgment would not come from their gods or their enemies, but from someone totally unanticipated, unforeseen, the Creator God; they sensed that their doom was forthcoming within days. It would be made known to them by Yahweh’s prophet that in forty more days, they would be destroyed for their lifestyle of wickedness (cf. Jon 1:2; 3:4).

The news of Jonah coming forth from a great fish on the shore along with these signs, coupled with current internal dissension, may offer an explanation why Jonah got their attention so quickly. There was a narrow window of opportunity for Yahweh to reach these people slated for destruction, and He was going to insert Jonah into that sliver. What a God we serve! Jonah, however, was not thrilled by the Divine overture as you can imagine (cf. Jon 4:1).

The Assyrians quickly realized that this messenger was not of Dagon but Yahweh, Jonah’s God, the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and dry land (Jon 1:9), when he spoke (cf. Jon 3:4b). His words struck fear in their hearts as the Holy Spirit convicted them of sin (Jon 3:5).

Consider this; of the two places Jonah went in his book, on the sea heading for Tarshish or in the city of Nineveh, people were fearing the LORD exceedingly, offering a sacrifice to the LORD and taking vows (Jon 1:16) or giving up their evil ways and their violence (Jon 3:8). In both locations, it was pretty dramatic with death either imminent or forty days out! One thing is clear; all the peoples of the earth fear death in a way that truly born again believers do not.

Some interpreters quickly throw a bucket of water on this repentant type behavior, characterizing it as “short-lived” by what took place later on down the line. Assyria demanded tributes required from Samaria ~27 years later (732 B.C.) with another king and besieging and destroying the capital of the northern kingdom in 727-722 B.C., transplanting many all over Assyria, 37 years after Jonah entered Nineveh in 759 B.C. The ten tribes of the northern kingdom were no more.

Yahweh allowed this to happen to the capital city of the northern kingdom because of their love affair with idols and attendant vices. It is unfair to describe Nineveh’s repentance as meaningless or the typical foxhole conversions. Though Jonah doesn’t use the word “repentance” under inspiration, Jesus didn’t characterize their response to Jonah’s preaching as the critics do,

The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here (Mt 12:41, emphasis mine; cf. Jer 17:9-10).

Not only that, with the changing of the kings and new generational mindsets, what took place a couple of decades later cannot be blamed on that generation in Nineveh when Jonah came to town. I would like to think everyone repented, but realistically, I would agree it wasn’t in toto, but something took place because Nineveh wasn’t destroyed in 759 B.C. but in 612 B.C. This generation of Ninevites did not experience destruction because they repented over their sins due to Jonah’s message (cf. Jon 3:5, believed God). The 612 B.C. generation of Ninevites would experience the brunt of divine destruction.

Any remaining non-believers going through the motions at that time were spared. Yahweh knew who they were. Once they closed their eyes for the last time in unbelief, hell would be their destiny. It is highly unwise to douse the flames of what Jesus said happened! Critics are quick to make a liar out of God’s Son. This will always come back to haunt them, particularly on judgment day.

Nineveh would finally fall in 612 B.C. (147 years later after Jonah came to Nineveh in 759 B.C.). Yahweh would also use the Babylonians to punish Jerusalem and the southern kingdom in 605, 597, and 586 B.C. for its idolatrous ways and remove them from the Promised Land, as undeserved of it, to Babylon for seventy years.

Getting back to Jonah’s physical appearance, I do think that Jonah’s outer appearance was altered by his ordeal in the forestomach of the sperm whale. He was being scarred and left with the memory of a time of disobedience! It was not a time for singing, “It is ’whale’ with my soul.” There could have been a divine measure of acid reflux entering the chamber of the forestomach from the main stomach that bleached Jonah’s skin, from head to toe, possibly removing his hair, too. He would, for the rest of his life, have a surrealistic look about him with his mottled skin, a daily reminder that it doesn’t pay to disobey.

We all bear some kind of scars whenever we decide our will is better than the will of God, right? And then, there are those unseen scars, and let’s not forget about those ripples of disobedience. Though we are forgiven and restored to fellowship (1 Jn 1:9), there are the consequences of rebellion that continue to ripple; another example of why it doesn’t pay to disobey.

Given the natural understanding of the Hebraic expression, three days and three nights, Jonah’s time in the whale could have been up to 72 hours, unlike Jesus, and both would still be accurate by the natural understanding of this expression. As I said before, Jonah’s time in the belly of the whale and Jesus’ time in the tomb do not have to match up precisely to x-number of days, x-number of hours, x-number of minutes, and x-number of seconds.

There is far more wiggle room in Jonah’s time in the belly versus the time that Jesus spent in the tomb. Either way, they will both be considered three days and three nights, though Jonah probably spent literally more hours, minutes, and seconds in the belly than Jesus in the tomb. Neither one exceeded 72 literal hours.

A Literal Look at Jesus’ Time in the Tomb

Fri ~1900	1^st day begins (Our Good Friday begins at 0001 hours)	Sunset
Fri ~0630	Sunrise
Fri ~0900-1500	Jesus on the cross.	~3^rd – 9^th hour
Fri ~1500	Jesus died.	~9^th hour
Fri ~1830	Jesus buried.	Placed in tomb	~.5 hours
Sat ~1900	2^nd day begins.	Sabbath begins with the sunset
Sat ~0630	Sunrise
Sun ~1900	3^rd day begins.	Sabbath ends with the sunset	~24 hours
Sun ~0630	He had risen!	The first day of the week	~11.5 hours
Mon ~1900		The second day of the week
	Tomb Time Total:		~36 hours

Frankly, I am more inclined to keep a Friday crucifixion based on the natural understanding of the Hebraic expression, three days and three nights. It should not be surprising that not everyone subscribes to this explanation because they insist that Jesus must be in the tomb for a literal period of 72 hours; anything less is considered heretical!

I made mention of this in a footnote already in Some Observations in Jonah, but from a liberal’s perspective, they all mock conservative Christians as literalists, while ultra-conservative Christians charge people like me with heresy for not being literal enough in their eyes! We must be doing something right when both sides don’t like us, right?

Note that the emphasis of this phrase, three days and three nights (Jon 1:17), is on the word, days, treating a part as a whole (cf. Est 4:16 with Est 5:1). So, the natural understanding of this expression used by Jonah under inspiration could accommodate a Friday crucifixion without jumping through hoops to make a literal 72 hours out of Jesus’ tomb time. Otherwise, a Friday crucifixion is untenable.

This timing thing tends to be a bit confusing for us because we are taught from scratch that a day runs from midnight to midnight, but a Jewish day starts ~6 hours before our new day begins, from sunset to sunset. I personally prefer midnight to midnight because of the variances in the time of sunsets and sunrises, but that’s obviously not my call but the practical nerd in me.

What is our call is our personal choice: the choice to fear God and keep His Word or to really play the fool and disobey His will. The Ninevites were presented with a choice, weren’t they! If Jonah’s episodes teach us anything, it is this; it does not pay to disobey, whether you are a king, a kingdom, or an individual. Without the ability to choose one way or another, faith would be meaningless. Think about right now; is it well with your soul? <><

So the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry (Assyrian) land (Jon 2:10).