Jonah is puzzling. The book of Jonah is puzzling. But so are we humans, who are by far the most puzzling creatures in existence. We begin ignorant, dominated by passions over which we have little to no control: Yes, those 2-year-olds aren’t tyrants so much as they are slaves whipped around by their insides, crying and flailing in their inner weakness and confusion. We need much love and care to achieve some modicum of self-control, but arguably, what we need most in this process are knowledge and understanding. Practically speaking, we need instruction.

But there’s the rub. The instruction that we need must at least at first come from others. Seeing the world through our own eyes as little ones won’t do (and maybe not even as big ones). We are creatures who must hear (rather than merely see), but then again, are we creatures who will listen? More than needing instruction, what we really need is to heed instruction, and it’s not at all clear that we are the kind of creature who loves instruction or loves to heed it. In fact, we seem to be the very kind of creatures who don’t and will not. Aye, there’s the rub.

“So, what about Jonah?” you ask. Well, he certainly seems like the poster child for someone not accepting instruction, so that could be helpful. But let’s not go too fast. Let’s keep pushing a bit further back and consider the book of Jonah as a volume within a national sacred library of books, a library with a strong tradition of content and style. The books, of course, begin with the Torah (“Instruction”), and it in turn begins with Genesis. There we find among the many, many truths explored in the early chapters of Genesis, one fascinating train of thought in watching God probe several “strategies” for getting his creature, man, to listen and obey– in other words to accept instruction. We have something like an instruction starter kit for exploring human nature.

And what do we find? Alas, in all but one instance, those strategies fail. (Of course, this doesn’t surprise the Creator. It’s part of His wisdom and plan to help us understand.) First, God begins His “experiment” by threating death for disobedience: “For in the day you eat of it, you will surely die.” This threat of death fails to persuade; it fails to prevent Adam and Eve from disobeying. So evidently we are to understand that something as severe as the threat of death (in itself) isn’t any solution for man.

In the next “attempt” God pulls Cain aside and carefully explains to Cain his inner workings (i.e. He plays the psychologist, as it were): “Oh Cain, do you understand what is going on inside of you? Sin is crouching at the door, but you must master it.” That doesn’t work either. Adam and Eve eat the fruit; Cain slays his brother. From a human perspective draconian lawgivers threatening death or an insightful psychologist unfolding your soul before you can’t fix our problem. We’re left, then, with the question of the mystery of human volition: Is there any kind of a workable approach to dealing with the inherent ambivalence, passions, and susceptibility to deception that govern the human heart? That’s the great question.

One could argue that the entire Bible unfolds the greatest account of the greatest attempt to penetrate this human mystery, and I would like to suggest that no small part of this strategy (at least at one level) involves the form that God’s message, His instruction, takes as a recourse for man’s condition. The form of the Bible in general, and the form of Jonah in particular, are designed to draw in the reader and give him a fighting chance to listen, ponder, and eventually embrace and love God’s instruction. Success looks like the words of the Psalmist: “Oh how I love Thy Instruction [Torah]! It is my meditation all the day!

We are finally ready to come back to Jonah. I raised a series of questions in my first musing on Jonah about how stories communicate. For example, how exactly can we come to know what the author intended in writing a story, especially when the author never expressly says what he is up to? Jesus accentuates this question with his parables, where he must divulge their meanings explicitly to his disciples in private, since the parables alone by themselves were designed to leave the listening multitudes in the dark. Farmers? Seeds? Birds? Stones? Nice story. What does it all mean? Whatever! Stories don’t have to be clear and may be deliberately constructed to obscure their meaning.

The book of Jonah, by contrast, appears to offer a delightful example of how powerfully an author can communicate his intentions AND provide the kind of instruction that proves nearly impossible to ignore. All in all the book of Jonah offers a treasure trove of insights, not only about God and ourselves, but about how best to penetrate the mystery of recalcitrant human volition. And as it turns out, much of this will involve puzzles– literary and spiritual puzzles. As we will see…

For Your Own Musing…

1. What aspects or qualities of the book of Jonah naturally grab your attention and make you “want to listen” as a reader? Clearly the fact that it is a story is in itself a draw, but what else do you see? Read Jonah with this in mind and make a list of what catches your eye and why.
2. So Jonah and his little story are about puzzles. Really? Are there puzzles, questions, things to ponder that naturally come to mind when you read it? If so, what puzzles do you notice?
3. I mentioned that the opening chapters of Genesis (chapters 1-11) offer a series of examples in which God attempts to move His creatures to heed His Word and will. There’s Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel; there’s Noah, his evil generation, his sons, and the nations of the world with their Tower. Consider reading these chapters and looking for insights into God’s various strategies for dealing with His wayward creatures. Does the fact that He nearly always “fails” at His efforts provide any significant insights? If so, what might they be?
4. At a practical level, isn’t it the case that we really are mysterious, if not downright troubling creatures? Looking at your own life, when do you find yourself most resistant to instruction from others? When do you find yourself most open to instruction? Finally, are there areas in your life where you know that you’ve heard the truth, but deliberately chose not to heed that truth? What are some reasons why this gap exists? What would you imagine it would take to bridge that gap? What are some of the costs of not living what you truly believe to be true?