NOTES for Jon 1:11-12

Jonah's book is unique in its kind. Unique not because, as suppose certain biblical scholars, was written when Nineveh was already in ruin: anachronisms are found also in other biblical books. The mention of Nineveh as the center of the world’s evil, testifies if not directly, then indirectly about the after captivity of the origin of the book: particularly in this period Nineveh was the symbol of the opposition of man to God. Later such a symbol will become Babylon.

The originality of the book is somewhere else: it is not a collection of the prophetic sermons, as are it the other prophetic books, but the book speaking about the prophet, of how it is difficult to follow God's will, even the one who, it would seem has already made his choice. Jonas knows perfectly, what God wants from him: he heard His voice very clearly. The problem is not in the spiritual deafness, but in the bad will to leave where, as Jonas is sure, nothing good awaits him.

Jonas himself suggests to cast him into the sea at a critical moment and it proves only that he understands perfectly: what happens is not a fate, it is the hand of God, from which one cannot run away. So much he does not want to go to Nineveh that he, up to the last, feels the firmness of His hand. He says: cast me into the sea. To be in the storm of the sea, whether you are even on the board or on the raft, - is a certain death. To be saved in such situation, is possible if only God intervenes directly in the situation. Jonah provokes in a way God to such intervention. He shows him: if You do not want to free me from the entrusted affair, well, I will cast myself into the sea, and, if You need me, You will not let me drown and will take me where You will want. One cannot say directly what is more important here: the call, the confidence or both simultaneously.

One thing is clear: such an act supposes solid and quite confident relationships with God, which in spite of the confidence, can sometimes be very ambiguous. Quite as between close people, anything can happen: tiff, stubbornness, the lack of understanding. But, quite as between people, all this does not eliminate the fact of the closeness and confidence. In the end, God takes His servant all the same to the place. However in a very unusual and even fabulous way: in the stomach of a giant sea animal (in the translation it is sometimes called the whale, sometimes fish, but in the original it is about a sea monster). The prophet does all the same what God entrusts him.