deardelmar said:
That is interesting because the King of Nineveh sure took it to mean he was in serious trouble! Jonah, himself, seemed to think the word he was speaking meant to destroy! Otherwise he would not have been ticked off when God didn't destroy Nineveh.
If you're gonna use Jonah to understand that word, than you are a fool. Here are the words of the wise Jonah, "O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live."
Jonah thinks it is better to die at the hands of a gracious God than it is to suffer at the might of a God who is harsh and cruel. He would rather follow the God who is threatened by evil than he is to follow the God who can be patient in the face of evil.
Nineveh was destroyed after forty days, it just wasn't destroyed in the way that Jonah or, apparently, you expected. God doesn't come in judgment simply to reign down fire and brimstone because people have a vendetta against their adversaries. If this were true, than God would have killed the humans in the garden (as God said he would; and don't give me the crap about how they did die, because a soul doesn't die, and a relationship with God is never lost) and God would have killed Cain for the crime he committed in cold blood against his brother Abel. God's judement does not come because God has to pay back what
our enemies have taken from us. There is a reason why we hand vengance over to the LORD, because the LORD isn't after our vendettas, but is after true justice.
Now if you would actually read the story of Jonah, you would discover that even the most conservative translations (i.e. the NIV) do not translate the word as "destroy." It says in the NIV: "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned." In my translation found in the parallel English of the TANAK, it says "overthrown" as it does in the NRSV. Your translation of "destroyed" is not accepted by any of the major translations of the scriptures (even one as terrible as the NIV).
In the Hebrew the root of the word is
haphach, which means to turn, to overturn, or to destroy. And in its form as found in this passage (
nehpachet) it is in one of the derived stems of Hebrew, and I would guess is an imperfect (seeing how I am only in my third month of Hebrew, I am not an expert on the Hebrew, but I know some things). The Tanak English parallel is probably the most literal translation we have, and it uses "overthrown" as a translation.
So if you would like to bring to question my Hebrew abilities, go right ahead, but don't just say I'm wrong.
The word means more than to destroy. So when a king descends from his throne, and puts on rags, and covers himself in ashes, along with all of his people, then the city for all intents and purposes
is overthrown. When the king is humbled, the king is defeated (and God didn't even have to come in God's might for the people of Nineveh to realize this; even the pagan sailors had to see God's strength against God's own to believe). God did come in God's might with Jonah, and Jonah is still as stubborn as he was when he left for Tarshish instead of Nineveh (and God doesn't seem to be any closer to killing Jonah).
If to you this story is all about Nineveh and how a people were saved by the skin of their teeth, this story has gone right over your head (in fact it had pleanty of clearance). The people of Nineveh are secondary to this story, for the story really concerns Jonah (and more importantly God). First we see Jonah as representative of a people who have forgotten how they became a people and for what purpose, i.e. a people delivered from Egypt by YHWH to a land in which they could dwell, that they might be a blessing to the nations. Jonah is the one being judged here (along with all of whom he represents, i.e. Israel), not Nineveh and the pagan sailors. Secondly, we see a God who from the very beginning (by implication of what Jonah says at the end) is gracious and merciful, and longs for the restoration of God's Creation. God at the end need not overturn Nineveh, for Nineveh has already overturned itself, and if you want to hear the words worth hearing (those that come from the king rather than Jonah) than they would be: "No man or beast -- of flock or heard -- shall taste anything! They shall not graze, and they shall not drink water! They shall be covered with sackcloth -- man and beast -- and shall cry mightily to God. Let everyone turn back from his evil ways and from the injustice of which he is guilty. Who knows but that God may turn and relent? He may turn back from His wrath, so that we do not perish."
These are the words of the true prophet, for Jonah has failed miserably from beginning to end. The prophets never declare, "Your destruction is certain and there is nothing you can do about it!!!!" (because prophets come from within the people being judged, not from without; and they declare their own doom as well as that of the peoples). Notice how Jonah sits outside the city to watch the "fireworks" at the end. Jonah is detatched from these people all throughout. Jonah never proclaims a true prophesy, for God doesn't give God's prophets to seal the doom that God brings (God simply comes and the truth is revealed; God doesn't need an entrance). Prophets are given because the future destruction is not certain. God gives warning that a people might repent and reveal the truth for themselves so that God does not have to. And this is exactly what Nineveh does (in almost an absurd fashion, for even the animals, here, are forced to dress in sackcloth and ashes, and to fast, and to cry out to their God, and to repent). Nineveh reveals the truth that even Jonah cannot seem to grasp, that God is God, and we as members of the Creation serve the one true God. And the truth of God lived out in the Creation is justice and mercy and righteousness. God turned from God's wrath (a overturning by means of destruction and doom) because the people has already been overturn by God (an overturning of repentance).
And if we hear the words of Jonah that he declares at the end, that he knew from the beginning that God was gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, then we have to ask, where was this revealed in the prophesy of Jonah? Jonah did not tell the truth, for Jonah knew a lot more than he revealed. God's judgment does not mean destruction. It means truth is coming in justice, and righteousness, and peace.
You are a fool to listen to Jonah, for you have thrown in your lot with a sad people, who have forgotten their place in this world, and who have forgotten their purpose. Jonah wasn't "ticked off" because God didn't destroy Nineveh, but because he knew from the beginning that this was exactly what God was going to do (read the words that come from the horse's mouth!).
Peace,
Michael
