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| Sperm whale (Physeter microcephalus) illustration by Uko Gorter |
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| To Part 1 |
The
mariners had hauled cargo all across the Mediterranean; they were seasoned
sailors; they had rowed out of the worst of storms and lived to tell about it
and oared through doldrums that left their hands bleeding, but this storm was as a beast as if personally focused on getting at Jonah. the ship's captain and crew were in a dilemma
of sorts; they were in the same boat as Jonah, and the longer their paid passenger remained aboard,
the greater the chance that everyone was going under!
for
the sea continued to grow more tempestuous against them (Jon 1:13).
You
cannot help but admire these men for trying. They got caught in the middle
between Jonah’s God and Jonah. We have the luxury of knowing what was going
down; they didn’t. Now grim reality has settled in,
“We
either throw Jonah overboard, or we all perish.”
Here
comes another amazing thing emerging from this life and death struggle with the
storm; the mariners no longer prayed to their gods; apparently, Yahweh rowed it
out of them, and futility settled into their thinking that they could not save
themselves from this storm! Spiritually speaking, there is no man or woman who can
lick the storm of sin through any valiant effort, right (cf. Eph 2:8-9; Titus
3:5)? They prayed not to the “god” of Jonah but to his God, Yahweh!
Therefore
they cried out to the LORD and said, We pray, O LORD, please do
not let us perish for this man's life, and do not charge us with innocent
blood; for You, O LORD, have done as it pleased You (Jon 1:14, emphasis
mine).
What
an instrumental shift in spiritual perspective (from Jon 1:5 to Jon 1:14,
analogous from darkness to light)!
In
our English Bibles, we come across a host of references to the one and only true Deity. I wanted to share
a few and quickly get back to the boat and its crew in peril. It is fascinating to see what is driving the
variations via inspiration, translation (NKJV), and Jewish tradition, but just
wanted to refresh our memory on some of the names of God in the Holy Writ.
LORD (Yehovah, H3068), in
Jonah 25x, meaning the self-existent One or eternal One, it is the redemptive and covenant-making/keeping
name of the true God of Israel.
I
usually don’t give lengthy quotes, but Spiros Zodihiates, a Greek-American
Bible scholar (1922-2009) does a good job of covering the meaning of LORD. I
have met him a couple of times, he was a godly man, humble, caring, and very gifted intellectually.
“yehōwih is a masculine proper noun meaning God. The word refers to the
proper name of the God of Israel, particularly the name by which He revealed Himself
to Moses (Ex 6:2-3). The divine name has traditionally not been pronounced,
primarily out of respect for its sacredness (cf. Ex 20:7; Deut 28:58) [No one
knows how God’s personal name was pronounced originally. Since the original
Hebrew was a consonant-only language, phonics is of little value. It is nothing
more than a vowel guessing game among the consonant letters, added]. Until the
Renaissance, it was written without vowels in the Hebrew text of the Old
Testament, being rendered as YHWH.
“However,
since that time, the vowels of another word, ’aḏōnāy (H136), have been
supplied in hopes of reconstructing the pronunciation. Although the exact
derivation of the name is uncertain, most scholars agree that its primary
meaning should be understood in the context of God's existence, namely, that He
is the ‘I AM THAT I AM’ (Ex 3:14), the One who was, who is, and who always will
be (cf. Rev 11:17).
“Older
translations of the Bible and many newer ones employ the practice of rendering
the divine name in capital letters, so as to distinguish it from other Hebrew
words. It is most often rendered as LORD (Gn 4:1; Deut 6:18; Psa 18:31-32; Jer 33:2;
Jon 1:9) but also as GOD (Gen 6:5; 2 Sam 12:22) or JEHOVAH (Psa 83:18-19; Isa 26:4).
“The
frequent appearance of this name in relation to God’s redemptive work
underscores its tremendous importance (Lev 26:45; Psa 19:14-15). Also, it is
sometimes compounded with another word to describe the character of the Lord in
greater detail (see Gen 22:14; Ex 17:15; Jdg 6:24),” (The Complete WordStudy
Dictionary).
Lord (adonay, H136) emphatic form of adon (see below).
This is a proper name for God only. It points to the supreme authority or power
of God.
lord or Lord (adon, H113), Generally, it is referring to authority
whether human or divine. It frequently links up with
Yahweh (H3068). In such cases, the upper case of the initial letter (L) is used
by the translators to earmark that this is a reference to the Divine.
GOD (Yehovih, H3069). Translators use GOD (all in caps) to distinguish
it from LORD while others translate it as LORD! Its exact meaning is unknown,
but a form of the covenant name of Israel. Spiros Zodihiates indicates that it
is an organic combination of the essence of these renderings: “He who is or is
present,” “He who will be who He will be,” or “He who causes to be all that is.”
God (elohiym or elohim, H430) in Jonah 15x is a masculine
plural noun meaning God, gods, judges, and angels. A general term for deity and a
specific name for the true God (Gn 1:1) and often paired up with Yahweh (H3068).
It means the supreme one. Elohim speaks of “sovereignty and creatorship”
(Ironside). The personal name of Elohim the Father, Elohim the Son, and Elohim
the Holy Spirit is the Hebrew tetragrammaton (YHWH), or inserting English
vowels, Yahweh, my favorite vowel arrangement of all.
god (elohiym or elohim, H430), not referring to God,
in Jonah 1x, the lower-case (g) is used for pagan gods, angels, men, and
judges. Concerning pagan gods, this is why translators incorporated the lowercase, god, in our example from Jonah, every man cried out to his god, in the case of the
Phoenician mariners (Jon 1:5, emphasis mine).
Lord GOD (adonay elohim, 1x OT, Dan 9:3, in Gk., kurios
theos). Used to enhance the notion of the matchlessness of God
LORD God (YHWH elohim), in Jonah 1x, LORD (the covenant-making Yahweh)
God (the sovereign Creator).
Back
to Jonah, over the side of the ship he went,
So
they picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its
raging (Jon
1:15).
Precisely
what Jonah predicted would happen,
Pick me up
and throw me into the sea; then the sea will become calm for you (Jon 1:12).
Talk
about making good out of bad, that mighty tempest on the sea that Yahweh created was,
ironically, the best thing that could have ever happened to them,
Then
the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice to the LORD and
took vows (Jon 1:16).
If
those men truly repented of their evil ways, I wondered if in their reflections, going future forward, they ever thought about that unforgettable day or night in asking Jonah,
Why
have you done this (Jon 1:10)?
They
might have said to themselves in a sense of thanksgiving, “Jonah, if you had
not done
this, we
would have never known the only true and living Elohim, Yahweh!” Ever
think that way in a similar vein?
That
is sentimental but presumptuous. I bring this up for this kind of thinking
is not isolated to the story of Jonah; we are to be dead to sin as a principle
of life according to the Apostle Paul (Rom 6:1-2). The only correct and proper
theological perspective to take away from this, if it is true with the mariners
who converted or us thinking that way, is to know the difference between balderdash
and verities, advocating sin that good may come from it is nonsense and
strictly forbidden; Yahweh will never bless rebellion or sin, and the truth that
God cannot be prevented from achieving good coming forth even from a disaster.
If
not for the grace of God, those who were innocent of Jonah’s personal rebellion
(the mariners), but guilty of their own rebellion against the God of heaven
(the mariners), could have died in that severe storm. Yahweh would have been just if they had,
regardless of the fact of their being innocent of Jonah’s rebellion. To
disagree with that would demand biblical support that sin glorifies God; such a twisted concept finds absolutely no biblical support. How in the world Jonah
knew of the solution to keep these men from perishing is baffling (Jon 1:12)?
Jonah
tried to thwart God’s will of saving the underserved Assyrians by running toward
Tarshish. Yahweh, in His omniscience, knew Jonah would bolt; during that
rebellion, Jonah obviously was disrespectful to God and dishonored his office
as a prophet of God. Recall the fact that Jonah was the only OT prophet that
rejected his commission? This nasty storm out over the Mediterranean was a
byproduct of his foolishness, but those crazy mariners chose to row anyway in
their ignorance of God’s will.
Yahweh
gave an opportunity to the mariners to repent and turn to Him. Better to be
scared out of your wits on this side of eternity and have a hope of getting out
of it rather than being on the other side, in a God-forsaken world of eternal darkness,
suffering, and hopelessness.
Should you reread Jonah’s prayer in the sperm whale, the only thing that Jonah repented from was
to fulfill his vow (Jon 2:9). In light of Jonah’s actions in chapter four, I
would say that it is a fairly accurate assessment.
How
did Jonah know to write Jon 1:16 for he was in the water and got gulped (Jon
1:15)? The answer is found in 2 Tim 3:16; 2 Pet 1:20-21. Because Jonah wrote in
the third person doesn’t necessarily mean that someone else wrote the book of
Jonah. Do
you know of any conservative Jewish or Christian scholar who doesn’t believe
Moses wrote the Torah or the Pentateuch, the first five books of the English Bible
(Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy)? Moses wrote in the
third person as well.
Though
we are at Jonah 3:5b in our series, I felt led to refresh the repentance of the
Phoenician mariners, among providing some additional data, before we take a
look at the massive amount of people repenting in Nineveh. Did everyone on
board the ship truly repent?
I
don’t know; this could have very well been one of those fifty-oar ships,
involving a larger crew than a much smaller vessel. They were hauling freight;
that is a long journey to make and be profitable if carrying a smaller capacity
of cargo such great lengths and exposure.
Anyway,
as with Nineveh, many of these Phoenician mariners probably believed and gave
up their false deities for the one and only true Elohim, Yahweh. We will find
out in glory. One of my favorite professors at my alma mater used to say that
idolatry is not limited to wood, stone, or metal; it is anything that competes
for the will of God for your lives.
What is competing with the will of God for
your life? You may not worship some deaf, dumb, and dead idol, but is there
anything competing with the will of God for your life, a soft idol perhaps?
This makes Ex 20:3-5 just a little more meaningful, yes?
Let’s
pick up where we left off; shall we, the good Lord willing! We will head back
to Nineveh next time around and take a gander at how repentance went down on
that day in 759 B.C. Who knows? We might just learn a thing or three together?
I am uncertain if I will be able to publish the next installment until after the New Year, but you never know! Now, if the rapture takes place prior to posting (1 Cor 15:51-52; 1 Thes 4:13-17), I’m out of here; you can expect no further notifications from me (LOL)! Merry Christmas to all! Jesus, my friends, is the reason for the season. <><
I am uncertain if I will be able to publish the next installment until after the New Year, but you never know! Now, if the rapture takes place prior to posting (1 Cor 15:51-52; 1 Thes 4:13-17), I’m out of here; you can expect no further notifications from me (LOL)! Merry Christmas to all! Jesus, my friends, is the reason for the season. <><
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| End of Jonah 1:3-16, Addendum |
