Let’s take stock of things: Either by way of argument, assertion, or suggestion I’ve offered the following claims for consideration:

1. The book of Jonah is decidedly about Jonah’s (at that time) unique spiritual condition. We are slowly attempting to decipher the exact nature of that condition and the author’s suggested remedy for it. Jonah’s hardened (and fierce) desire to see Nineveh judged is part of his problem, but it’s not, as it were, the root of the problem. Rather, I suggest that it’s one (if not the most egregious) of several fruit. Jonah invites us to dig deeper to bring that root to light.
2. Jonah not only wants to give us an account of his condition, but to write in such a way as to draw us into deciphering his message. He draws us in with questions and puzzles– literary tactics for spiritual surgery, using narrative as a means of achieving what C.S. Lewis called “getting past the sleeping dragons.” He wants us to do the work of discovery on our own for our own spiritual good.
3. Jonah’s deeper problem seems to be rooted in his desire to flee God’s presence. His God is someone that he wants no relationship with. We are supposed to be puzzled by this, and we are. Furthermore, it looks as though his problem is intimately tied to his acute sense of personal integrity, an integrity that he considers more important than his life or his relationship with God. These points are mostly assertions that will need further substantiation on our way to ferreting out Jonah’s root problem.

Authorial “Strategery.” So far so good. But before going further let’s revisit the question of what resources Jonah has as an author for communicating his intentions indirectly and implicitly. I suggested several such resources earlier when exploring how Jonah drives us to ask the central question of the narrative: Why does Jonah flee the face of his God? (See Jonah: International Man of Mystery (3)).

Terms. Rather than relist them here, let me suggest at least three more strategies that Jonah uses in his narrative. The first is the obvious repetition or strategic placement of key terms in his work. As we will see, Jonah has a critical handful of terms that he clearly repeats or situates in a way that can’t be explained away as accidental or arbitrary. He wants us to know that he is up to something. He is giving us key focal points to ponder and eventually piece and weave together.

Echoes. The second resource he has is to enlist key terms and phrases that echo, and thereby draw us back to previous biblical narratives that deepen and enrich his own. To use a silly example: If I were to begin a story with: “Once upon a time there was prince who declared: ‘I am not a crook!’ or ‘It all depends on what the meaning of “is” is,’ ” any educated American would immediately know that this is no mere fairy tale, but some kind of satirical socio-political commentary. Avert your eyes, children! This be no bedtime story! In like manner Jonah has a national library of sacred texts at his disposal, and he mines them a plenty. As we will see, in essence he creates a series of “parallels with a difference,” where an initial parallel allows us to focus on a decided difference, which in turn points us to what Jonah is doing.

Poetry. The third is the simplest and most obvious: Jonah divides his work, not only through the narrative structure (Chapters 1-2 and Chapters 3-4), but literarily in the sense of distinguishing poetry from pose. Jonah the author clearly highlights Jonah the prophet’s prayer which essentially comprises the second chapter of his work, and the peak of its first part. We don’t know why at this point, but Jonah’s prayer is decisive for him in some way that drives him to put it in poetic form.

[Bonus: Jonah isn’t the first to use these literary tactics. He’s part of a long Hebrew literary tradition which uses them fully from its very beginning. In Genesis, for example, many of the key stories echo earlier stories: both the Cain and Abel story, as well as Noah and the Vineyard, echo the account of Adam and Eve’s Fall. The Flood and Tower of Babel echo Cain’s building of his first human city, and so forth. In terms of terms, the Cain and Abel story gratuitously uses “brother” 7 times, while the Joseph story neatly divides into two major portions with the term “brother” used 7 times in each major part. If that’s not enough, Joseph cries out from the pit in echo of Abel’s blood crying out from the ground. Fratricide and fraternal unity weighs on the author’s mind from nearly the beginning to end of the book of Genesis.]

Back to Jonah! Ok, so some quick examples from Jonah to close things up for today and prepare the way for some “Onward Forward”:

1. Most obviously: Yes, Jonah’s prayer is poetry, unlike the rest of the work, which is prose. Got it.
2. Key terms in the order of appearance: great, bad, appoint, and fear. If my tallies are correct: * Great (gadol) is used a total of 14 times in the entire work. It is the term most used throughout and translated mostly as “great.” * Bad (ra) is used a total of 9 times and translated in a number of different, but provocatively related ways. * Appoint is used in four strategic places along with similar terms of divine control. * Fear is also used four times, clustered in thematic fashion in chapter 1.
3. Echoes abound throughout the text from basically the beginning to the end, but for starters, God’s opening message to Jonah harkens back to a larger biblical theology of city that begins with Cain in Genesis 4 and includes other salient narratives such as the the founding of Babel and Nineveh by Nimrod in Genesis 10, the tower of Babel in Genesis 11, and especially God’s encounter with Abraham with regards to the wickedness of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. Much more on these and other echoes to come.

For Your Own Musing

1. Consider rereading the book of Jonah with these three strategies in mind. Do the special terms of “great,” “bad,” “appointed,” and “fear” seem to tie together as themes in some way? What possibilities come to mind as to why Jonah wants us to focus on these specific terms in light of his greater concern with his own spiritual crisis?
2. Just considering the use of these terms in Jonah, what do you think it means for something to be “great,” and is it good to be great or not? What about fear? What is the best definition of fear, and is fear a good thing?
3. In rereading Jonah do there seem to be any echoes of earlier biblical texts anywhere? The most obvious, perhaps, are the allusions to several psalms in Jonah’s prayer. Check the margins in a cross reference Bible. What are some of these psalms and how might they shed light on Jonah’s inner spiritual condition?