This book is read out publicly in the synagogue during the Yom Kippur afternoon service. Its message, in some minor way relates to the subject of “a spiritual returning to God”, but its greater lesson is more complex. On Yom Kippur – the holiest day of the Jewish year, Jews around the world close gather in order to pray for their own lives and for their beloved, for personal atonement and for forgiveness of the sins they have committed throughout the year, and while so many Jews delve into their conscience and make amends and quiet commitments to themselves and their family, the Book of Jonah is read out – telling us of a very different sort of sin - that the Jewish people must atone for. One would expect that this publicly read book would focus on private - spiritual themes, amplifying and directing the congregation’s appeals for personal forgiveness. Strangely though, it does no such thing. Perhaps a different Biblical book – with themes more appropriate for Yom Kippur - should have been chosen to be read on this awesome day!

The Book of Jonah, we shall discover, focuses on the salvation of another country, not Israel. That country is a super power of the time, Israel’s enemy and in conflict with its ideology and its national interests. Another theme is the questionable fidelity to the Divine will of a certain Hebrew prophet. It does not point towards the righteousness of God’s chosen messenger, but his continuing waywardness. The story’s end is bitter for the Hebrew protagonist and happy for the Gentile nation that was lucky to encounter him. The book of Jonah puts the Gentiles as the central concern of God. The sinning, escaping and suffering messenger to them - is the Hebrew prophet, whose end is sad. The book does not reconcile Israel to God, but keeps them in conflict. It seems highly inappropriate to read the book on the Day of Atonement, even offensive to Jewish sensibilities.

Those who question rabbinic sophistication might assume that the rabbis may have made a mistake; maybe they paid little attention to appropriating the most suitable text to the right occasion? Perhaps they saw enough in common with the Book of Jonah and the Yom Kippur liturgy to squeeze it in? For example: Jonah rebels, and so do the Hebrews. Jonah runs away, so do the Hebrews. Jonah is forced into a realization of God’s will and repents and carries out his intended calling. The Hebrews should do so too. End of story.

There seem to be two outstanding themes of the book which are not emphasized in rabbinic teachings:

1. Eternal rebellion of Jonah, the Hebrew Prophet

If Jonah is an analogy to the Hebrew nation then one might expect to see in the story a rebellion, a punishment, and then repentance and eventual return to God. But it appears that Jonah rebels and continues to do so without ever returning to God or to Israel. Jonah is eternally struggling with God, escaping from His calling and avoiding all expectations made of him. Even though Jonah is eventually forced to do what is instructed of him, he remains – till the end – un-reconciled, and dies escaping and rejecting God’s role for him.

2. Other Nations vs Israel.

Jonah’s function in this work appears to be as an instrument – conduit of God’s concern for other nations of the earth, instead of him being the terminus - a direct recipient of God’s grace. In this respect the book is universal in nature. Contrary to most other works of the Bible, where Israel is clearly the terminus – end result - of God’s concerns, in this work, the word “Israel” does not even get a mention. The sole concern of God here is for the people of Ninveh. In fact, according to the Midrash, Israel pays a heavy price for God’s concern for the other nations – and is destroyed by Ninveh hundreds of years later. And Jonah certainly pays a heavy price too. If Jonah is analogous to Israel then the Chosen People have the, not so gratifying task, to be an instrument – a conduit for God’s concern for other people’s sake, at Israel’s own expense.

With this in mind, let us take a brief look at the text and some of its nuances.

Jonah ben Amitai hears the word of God “Arise and go to the great city of Ninveh and cry out to them, ‘that their evil has appeared before me’”.
Note the difference between what he is told here and the message he finally delivers.

Jonah does arise, but instead of going to Ninveh, he tries to escape his duty by getting a ship from Jaffa to Tarshish.
The term “to descend” is used on several occasions here in the context of his escape. “He descends into the ship” while in the context of Noah’s Ark they ‘come to it” or “enter”. When a storm comes, Jonah “descends into sleep”. The term “descend” is used a few more times in the context of Jonah’s escape, to indicate that escaping from God’s intentions is a descent.

The crew encounters a destructive storm and eventually traces its cause to Jonah who admits his fault and is prepared to be thrown off board for the sake of the others. His willingness to sacrifice is the best part of his personality. But the Gentiles on the ship do everything in their power to avoid casting him away, but are eventually left with no choice and throw him off. When the storms abate they pray and praise God and make vows.
The biblical text and indeed the rabbinic commentaries present the Gentiles in an unusually positive light. No one mistreats Jonah nor disrespects him, they respect the God of the Hebrews and do everything they can for him until they are sure it is the will of God to cast him off.They pray to God after this and make vows. They appear righteous, or at least willing for righteousness.

Jonah is swallowed by a big fish. By contrast, he does not “descend” into the fish but rather “is” in its stomach. The prayer he sings in the fish is quite touching. He is thankful to be alive, expresses hope and faith in God and sentimentality towards his home and relief that he has not been deserted by God as he suspected. He portrays a deep yearning spirituality and expresses a realisation that there is no escaping God’s will “those who cling to empty folly forsake their own welfare” and he finally undertakes: “what I vowed I will perform”.
But he does not express regret at his actions nor agreement with God’s command. His actions to follow indicate that his obedience to God is under protest.

The rabbis of the Midrash defend Jonah’s disobedience by arguing that he acted on behalf of Israel, not on behalf of God, indicating there were cross purposes. How? Jonah, as a prophet, knew that the Ninveites would repent without much persuasion but the Hebrews do not repent so easily. Their actions would show the Hebrews to be stiff-necked and stubborn. Another Midrash explains that Jonah foresaw that from Ninveh would come invading armies into Israel and he chose to disobey God so as to save his own people.

One may also view Jonah as representing the quintessential lack of interest of the Hebrews in the welfare of the Nations. Even though the Bible tells the Hebrews to be a ‘light unto the nations’ they are uninterested in this role and actively reject it. Even though they believed they communicated with the Divine and were in possession of a superior moral system, they did not care to share it. It indicates a battle between the will of the Jews – allegorized in Jonah, and the will of God. The Jews are disinterested in an international mission, while God insists on it. This theme is taken up by many others, including Christian activists who took up the banner of evangelism and international mission centuries later.

It is quite curious that the early symbol for Christianity in the 2nd and 3rd centuries was a fish. While there are other explanations for this, it may also be hypothesized that the early Christians, whose goal was to preach to the world, considered themselves the fish – the instrument which delivered the message of God – Jonah – to the nations of the world. It is even more interesting when we see that in the catacombs of the Christian martyrs buried under the city of Rome, there are an inordinate number of paintings of Jonah and the fish, indicating that he and the fish were popular images for them.

Another possible reason for Jonah’s disinterest in carrying out Divine instructions is, perhaps because he is embarrassed. Who was he to go to the super power of the time, to preach to them the ethics and message of a relatively insignificant nation? Why would anyone listen to him? This theme appears in the story of Moses, who initially rejects his mission with the same contention. And is a theme in Jewish life since. Another possibility, is that Jonah simply believed he was not a suitable person to preach to anyone, not an example of good living. He did not bare the signs of a Hebrew – we know this because the people on the ship did not recognize him for one. It would be hypocritical for him to go to another nation and tell them they would be destroyed for sinning, when he too thought he sinned and by implication would be liable for the same punishment as the subjects he was warning. Jonah was behaving in good conscience and refused to preach standards he didn’t live by himself. But this was apparently not sufficient for the Divine will!

Jonah is coughed out on dry land and walks to Ninveh and there he dutifully cries out and says “In forty days Ninveh will be destroyed”.

Apart from not being the same message that God specifically tells Jonah to relay in the first paragraph of the work, we also get the sense that the message he delivers is weak and uninspired. He seems to impart the bare minimum, with little concern whether they heed his words or not. Nevertheless, the residents of the city – remarkably - listen to his meager one-line announcement and collectively and without any hesitation or any more encouragement embark on a far- reaching campaign of repentance, fasting and mourning from young to old and even for the beasts and cattle. The king also listens and makes a royal pronouncement to the same effect. They treat his words with the utmost deference.

The biblical text and even the rabbis, who are often loath to view the Gentiles with any degree of favour, both recognize the good-will and earnestness of the city and its inhabitants.

Jonah sees that the city is repenting and understands that God will forgive them and not destroy them. Jonah is unhappy. “Isn’t this just what I said when I was still in my own country?” “God who is all merciful” will forgive them “Please, Lord, take my life” he exclaims.
Jonah understands that he will appear as a false prophet at the end of the forty days when the city is not destroyed as he said it would be. He is greatly humiliated and prefers to die. Jonah appears unhappy to do God’s will – to be a conduit - so far as it concerns the improvement of other nations. He would rather maintain his own convenience, his own reputation than the survival of a great city. Or perhaps now he realizes that if that nation repented, then his nation would also have to repent, and perhaps he too would be expected to repent, a burden he was unwilling to accept.

There is a conflict between the will of God and the will of Jonah. God says go out and be a message to the Gentiles. The Jews as analogized by Jonah says, “who are we’? ‘What message do we have to relay? It is not in our interest! It will only end in humiliation for us!

God asks him in response to the repentance of Ninveh: “Are you that deeply grieved?” He does not answer. But he shows the extent of his depression by leaving the city towards the East.
The direction he goes towards is not arbitrary. Ninveh is North East of his home in the Land of Israel. By heading further eastward we get the impression that Jonah does not intend to return to Israel, but rather is abdicating prophecy and continuing to escape from God. Later we discover that he is suiciding.

He set up a shelter (succah) outside the city and waits to see what happens with the city.
The immediate rabbinic association that comes to mind is that Ninveh was forgiven on Yom Kippur and then Jonah sits in a succah to celebrate the festival of booths and freedom. But in the succah he sits in, Jonah continues his antagonistic dialogue with God.

It is very hot and so God causes a plant to grow over his shelter to give him more shade. Jonah is immediately happy and full of gratitude for God’s attention towards him. The next day God causes a worm to eat the plant. Jonah mourns that the plant has died. And then God causes a hot eastward breeze, causing Jonah to faint and beg to die. God asks “Are you so deeply grieved about the plant?” Jonah answers this time saying “yes” and that he wishes to die.
Jonah is resisting God again. He wishes to die and refuses to see things as God wishes him to. God tries to educate him, first by causing a plant to give him shade and renew his taste for life again. Jonah is happy with the shade and would continue to be happy so long as he is “terminus” of God’s grace. But he refuses to be an instrument – a conduit for the sake of others. God causes a hot wind to come from the east, the very direction in which he was heading. This might be to reinforce the meaning of his own prayers “They who cling to empty folly forsake their own health”. That is by heading east – away from Israel – he would be forsaking his own health. God also causes a worm to eat the plant in order to teach Jonah a lesson. But Jonah refuses to learn the lesson. He is sad with the plant dying because it was a gift of God to him and gave him shade, he does not seem to accept that an analogy can exist. He asks to die.

The lesson that God wishes to teach was “you cared about the plant that grew overnight…should I not care about Nineveh, that great city…”
The story stops here. The issues are not reconciled. God wanted Jonah to be his instrument to the nations that did not know Him. Jonah, who is undoubtedly a passionate man of some unspecified convivtion, with great love for God and a poetic yearning for Israel “will I ever gaze again upon your Holy Temple?” he asked in the belly of the fish, was unwilling to extend himself for the city of Ninveh and preferred to escape his duties at the cost of his own life. It seems that Jonah died at this point, on the outskirts of Ninveh. Killed by God, by hot winds and the beating sun.

In considering all this, what possible motivation could the rabbis of the 2nd century have to allow such an unusual work to be read in the synagogue at all, never mind on the Day of Atonement, a day they anticipated many Jews would be most attentive to its message. Were they encouraging dissidence? Justifying rebellion from God? Was this some sort of acknowledgment that God was more concerned with the Gentiles than with Israel? The Jews being a mere instrument to bring the Nations a message?

There are a number of ways to understand the rabbinic view of Jonah, but time and space allows us to consider only the most likely.

The rabbis seem to indicate, despite what the worshippers in the synagogue think, that the Jews have a role to play in the correction of the other nations of the earth. We see throughout the book that the ship’s crew are upright, behave nobly and cannot be faulted in any real way. The same goes for the people of Ninveh. The only one who can be faulted, who refuses to answer the calling of God, is Jonah. Answering the calling requires not just being pious at home and looking after one’s own interest, but harkening the call to go out to the nations of the world. This seems to be the message of the very same rabbis whom we often accuse of inwardness, exclusivism and xenophobia. And even though the Jews continually reject this message, and even while modern rabbis are prone to do this too, the sages recognized that they were not at liberty to let this ideal entirely slip away from the Jewish program. For the book of Jonah to be understood in the context of its reading on the Day of Atonement, we may assume that the Hebrew goal as told through the reading of Jonah is that, after having repented, it is to accept the yoke of heaven and become an educating agent to the nations of the world.

Indeed, Jonah (of blessed memory) refused this role and was mercilessly left to die in a strange land, miserable and un-consoled. Today, on the outskirts of the ancient city of Ninveh, in modern day Iraq, an ancient tomb is the site of reverence and worship for the local region, a mosque stands on the site, it is named - Nebi Junis, and is believed to be the grave of Jonah, the rebellious Hebrew prophet.

M. Avrum Ehrlich is professor of Jewish Civilization, Language and Thought at the Department of Philosophy at Shandong University, China. He gained rabbinic ordination in Israel, did post-doctoral research at the Department of Social and political Sciences at Cambridge University and a diploma of theology at the Centre for Jewish – Christian Relations in Cambridge. He is author to a number of books and articles on Jewish religion and philosophy. Email: a.ehrlich.99@cantab.net