Jonah 1:9

1:9 He said to them, “I am a Hebrew! And I worship ¹  the Lord, ²  the God of heaven, ³  who made the sea and the dry land.”

Jonah 1:17

Jonah Prays

(2:1)

1:17 ⁴ The Lord sent ⁵  a huge ⁶  fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights.

Jonah 2:7

2:7 When my life ⁷  was ebbing away, ⁸  I called out to ⁹  the Lord,

and my prayer came to your holy temple. ¹⁰ 

Jonah 3:2

3:2 “Go immediately ¹¹  to Nineveh, that large city, ¹²  and proclaim to ¹³  it the message that I tell you.”

Jonah 3:10

3:10 When God saw their actions – they turned ¹⁴  from their evil way of living! ¹⁵  – God relented concerning the judgment ¹⁶  he had threatened them with ¹⁷  and he did not destroy them. ¹⁸ 

[1:9]  ¹ tn Or “fear.” The verb יָרֵא (yare’) has a broad range of meanings, including “to fear, to worship, to revere, to respect” (BDB 431 s.v.). When God is the object, it normally means “to fear” (leading to obedience; BDB 431 s.v. 1) or “to worship” (= to stand in awe of; BDB 431 s.v. 2). Because the fear of God leads to wisdom and obedience, that is probably not the sense here. Instead Jonah professes to be a loyal Yahwist – in contrast to the pagan Phoenician sailors who worshiped false gods, he worshiped the one true God. Unfortunately his worship of the Lord lacked the necessary moral prerequisite.

[1:9]  ² tn Heb “The Lord, the God of heaven, I fear.” The Hebrew word order is unusual. Normally the verb appears first, but here the direct object “the Lord, the God of heaven” precedes the verb. Jonah emphasizes the object of his worship. In contrast to the Phoenician sailors who worship pagan polytheistic gods, Jonah took pride in his theological orthodoxy. Ironically, his “fear” of the Lord in this case was limited to this profession of theological orthodoxy because his actions betrayed his refusal to truly “fear” God by obeying him.

[1:9]  ³ tn Heb “the God of the heavens.” The noun שָׁמַיִם (shamayim, “heavens”) always appears in the dual form. Although the dual form sometimes refers to things that exist in pairs, the dual is often used to refer to geographical locations, e.g., יְרוּשָׁלַיִם (yÿrushalayim, “Jerusalem”), אֶפְרַיִם (’efrayim, “Ephraim”), and מִצְרַיִם (mitsrayim, “Egypt,” but see IBHS 118 §7.3d). The dual form of שָׁמַיִם does not refer to two different kinds of heavens or to two levels of heaven; it simply refers to “heaven” as a location – the dwelling place of God. Jonah’s point is that he worships the High God of heaven – the one enthroned over all creation.

[1:17]  ⁴ sn Beginning with 1:17, the verse numbers through 2:10 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 1:17 ET = 2:1 HT, 2:1 ET = 2:2 HT, etc., through 2:10 ET = 2:11 HT.

[1:17]  ⁵ tn Or “appointed” (NASB); NLT “had arranged for.” The Piel verb מִנָּה (minnah) means “to send, to appoint” (Ps 61:8; Jonah 2:1; 4:6-8; Dan 1:5, 10-11; HALOT 599 s.v. מנה 2; BDB 584 s.v. מָנָה). Joyce Baldwin notes, “Here, with YHWH as the subject, the verb stresses God’s sovereign rule over events for the accomplishment of his purpose (as in 4:6-8, where the verb recurs in each verse). The ‘great fish’ is in exactly the right place at the right time by God’s command, in order to swallow Jonah and enclose him safely” (Joyce Baldwin, “Jonah,” The Minor Prophets, 2:566).

[1:17]  ⁶ tn Heb “great.”

[2:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “my soul.” The term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “soul”) is often used as a metonymy for the life and the animating vitality in the body: “my life” (BDB 659 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 3.c).

[2:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “fainting away from me.” The verb הִתְעַטֵּף (hit’attef, “to faint away”) is used elsewhere to describe (1) the onset of death when a person’s life begins to slip away (Lam 2:12), (2) the loss of one’s senses due to turmoil (Ps 107:5), and (3) the loss of all hope of surviving calamity (Pss 77:4; 142:4; 143:4; BDB 742 s.v. עַטֵף). All three options are reflected in various English versions: “when my life was ebbing away” (JPS, NJPS), “when my life was slipping away” (CEV), “when I felt my life slipping away” (TEV), “as my senses failed me” (NEB), and “when I had lost all hope” (NLT).

[2:7]  ⁹ tn Heb “remembered.” The verb זָכַר (zakhar) usually means “to remember, to call to mind” but it can also mean “to call out” (e.g., Nah 2:6) as in the related Akkadian verb zikaru, “to name, to mention.” The idiom “to remember the Lord” here encompasses calling to mind his character and past actions and appealing to him for help (Deut 8:18-19; Ps 42:6-8; Isa 64:4-5; Zech 10:9). Tg. Jonah 2:7 glosses the verb as “I remembered the worship of the Lord,” which somewhat misses the point.

[2:7]  ¹⁰ sn For similar ideas see 2 Chr 30:27; Pss 77:3; 142:3; 143:4-5.

[3:2]  ¹⁰ sn The commands of 1:2 are repeated here. See the note there on the combination of “arise” and “go.”

[3:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Nineveh, the great city.”

[3:2]  ¹² tn The verb קָרָא (qara’, “proclaim”) is repeated from 1:2 but with a significant variation. The phrase in 1:2 was the adversative קְרָא עָל (qÿra’ ’al, “proclaim against”), which often designates an announcement of threatened judgment (1 Kgs 13:4, 32; Jer 49:29; Lam 1:15). However, here the phrase is the more positive קְרָא אֶל (qÿra’ ’el, “proclaim to”) which often designates an oracle of deliverance or a call to repentance, with an accompanying offer of deliverance that is either explicit or implied (Deut 20:10; Isa 40:2; Zech 1:4; HALOT 1129 s.v. קרא 8; BDB 895 s.v. קָרָא 3.a). This shift from the adversative preposition עַל (“against”) to the more positive preposition אֶל (“to”) might signal a shift in God’s intentions or perhaps it simply makes his original intention more clear. While God threatened to judge Nineveh, he was very willing to relent and forgive when the people repented from their sins (3:8-10). Jonah later complains that he knew that God was likely to relent from the threatened judgment all along (4:2).

[3:10]  ¹³ tn This clause is introduced by כִּי (ki, “that”) and functions as an epexegetical, explanatory clause.

[3:10]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “from their evil way” (so KJV, ASV, NAB); NASB “wicked way.”

[3:10]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “calamity” or “disaster.” The noun רָעָה (ra’ah, “calamity, disaster”) functions as a metonymy of result – the cause being the threatened judgment (e.g., Exod 32:12, 14; 2 Sam 24:16; Jer 18:8; 26:13, 19; 42:10; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2; HALOT 1263 s.v. רָעָה 6). The root רָעָה is repeated three times in vv. 8 and 10. Twice it refers to the Ninevites’ moral “evil” (vv. 8 and 10a) and here it refers to the “calamity” or “disaster” that the Lord had threatened (v. 10b). This repetition of the root forms a polysemantic wordplay that exploits this broad range of meanings of the noun. The wordplay emphasizes that God’s response was appropriate: because the Ninevites repented from their moral “evil” God relented from the “calamity” he had threatened.

[3:10]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the disaster that he had spoken to do to them.”

[3:10]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and he did not do it.” See notes on 3:8-9.