This story might be about me, Jonah, it might be about a fish, and it was quite a fish. It might be about the Assyrians who live in Nineveh and their great repentance before my God. In retrospect, I think this story is about God's desire to reach out to all people. At first, I didn't see a reason for God to reach out to the 120,000 people in Nineveh and that's where the fish comes in. Now, in retrospect, I do see how God's will worked in this story. I thank and bless God that I have been given that gift.

 

I'm a prophet of God. I pray to God, seek His will and sometimes deliver a message from God to my country, the people Israel. God's message can be various things though most often it points out the gap between God's will and what people are doing. My father was Amittai from the Galilean village of Gath-hepher. It's pretty near Nazareth. My country and the people of Assyria have been fighting for generations. I see this now as unfortunate though at the beginning of the story, like most of my country men, I just didn't like Assyrians. It is a very, very  long  time  ago, Jeraboam II is the king in Israel, Uzziah  is the king in Judea, and my friend Amos is also a prophet in Israel. One day I was praying.

 

God said to me, " Go to the great city of Nineveh and announce my judgment against it because I have seen how wicked its people are.”

 

I ran in the opposite direction, went to the port of Joppa, found a ship leaving for Tarshish and bought a ticket. I was trying to escape my Lord. A violent storm came up and threatened to break the ship apart. Fearing for their lives, the ship's desperate sailors threw the cargo overboard to lighten the ship. I was sound asleep down in the hold of the ship. The captain came down and said, "How can you sleep at a time like this? Get up and pray to your God! Maybe he will spare our lives. Why has this awful storm come down on us? “Who are you? What country are you from? What is your nationality?”

I answered, “I am a Hebrew prophet, and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land." I told him that I was running away from the Lord.

"Oh, why did you do it?” he groaned.

The storm was getting worse all the time, they asked, “What can we do to stop this storm?”

God had already shown me the solution when I was asleep in the hold of the ship. I said, “Throw me into the sea, and it will become calm again. I know this terrible storm is my fault.”

 Instead, the sailors rowed even harder to get the ship to the land. But the stormy sea was too violent for them, and they just couldn’t make it. I told them again.

 

The sailors picked me up and threw me into the raging sea. The storm stopped at once! The sailors were awestruck by the Lord’s great power, they offered Him a sacrifice and vowed to serve Him.

 

The Lord arranged for a great fish to swallow me. Think what you want but I was swallowed by this very large fish and I was inside the fish for three days and three nights. I hear people say it was a whale. I grew up near the sea and it was a fish, actually quite a fish. I prayed inside that fish, I said:

     “I cry out to the Lord in my great trouble,
      and He answers me.
      I sank beneath the waves,
      and the waters closed over me.
      Seaweed wrapped itself around my head.
      But you, O Lord my God,
      snatched me from the jaws of death!
      As my life is slipping away,
      I remembered the Lord,
      and I will fulfill all my vows.
     For my salvation comes from the Lord alone.”

 

Then the Lord spoke to me, “ Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh, and deliver the message I have given you.” The next thing I remember is being on shore and never wanting to see a fish again. I didn't waste any time getting to Nineveh.

 

Nineveh is so large that it takes three days to walk from one end to the other within its walls.

I entered the city and shouted to the crowds:

“ Forty days from now, Nineveh will be destroyed! ”

The people of Nineveh believed God’s message, and from the greatest to the least, they declared a fast and put on burlap to show their sorrow. The king of Nineveh heard what I was saying, he stepped down from his throne and took off his royal robes. He dressed himself in burlap and sat on a heap of ashes. Then the king and his nobles sent this decree throughout the city:

 

"No one, not even the animals from your herds and flocks, may eat or drink anything at all. People and animals alike must wear garments of mourning, and everyone must pray earnestly to God. They must turn from their evil ways and stop all their violence. Who can tell? Perhaps even yet God will change his mind and hold back his fierce anger from destroying us.”

When God saw what they had done and how they had put a stop to their evil ways, he changed his mind and did not carry out the destruction he had threatened.

The Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry about this? Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all the animals. Shouldn’t I feel sorry for such a great city?”

So, for me, this story of God's love and mercy is not about the fish, and it's not even so much about the repentance of the people in Nineveh. It's that God cares for the Assyrians. He cares and has compassion for all peoples. Yes, for each person. I thank and bless God that I have been given the gift to know this about Him.

I am trying to care and have compassion for Assyrians and all people, just as my God does.

 

                Jonah