East Side Church of Christ
Bible Class - Jonah 1:3-9

      • Deuteronomy 15:7–8NIV2011

  • Overview

    The book of Jonah is one of the most complex writings in all of Scripture!
    To talk about Jonah is to talk about the Whole of the Hebrew Bible. In other words, Jonah is a microcosm of the entire Hebrew Scriptures.
    It is a very familiar story to most, and therefore has been a victim of oversimplification. We teach this story to toddlers, and it is not a story for toddlers!
    This is a complex adult story that teaches us simultaneously about God, his love and care for us, for our enemies, and points out our failures while we laugh at the absurdity of the most successful and most upside down prophet that has ever served God. Simultaneous hope, conviction, and encouragement.
    “In the Book of Jonah, everything is upside down. Everybody does the opposite of their stereotypes, including the Pagans and Jonah. The only person who seems true to form is God.” - Dr. Tim Mackie

    Hebrew Hyperlinks

    Every page, nearly every paragraph of the Hebrew Bible contains hyperlinks to other stories in the Hebrew Bible. This is done in a number of ways.
    Repeated words
    Odd/rare words/phrases
    Place names
    Quotes
    Literary form (Chiasm)
    As we come across each of these in the text, we’ll address them (as well as others) so that hopefully we will have a better understanding of not only the truth of God revealed in Jonah, but a better understanding of the story of the Hebrew Bible as a whole, and have the skills to find these in other stories of the Bible.

    StepBible.Org

    To study the Bible deeper, it is helpful to have some tools that help you get beneath the surface of your English translation.
    By far the best free tool for this is www.stepbible.org. Pull up whatever translation and whatever passage you want. Click on the English words and it will tell you about the Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek word, tell you how many times it’s used in Scripture and where it is used, as well as some definitions, compare english translations, etc. An absolutely fantastic, and free resource available to any Bible student with an internet connection. Use it, and use it often!
    Jonah 1:1–2 NIV
    1 The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”
    Just curious, what is the first word of the book of Jonah in your translation?
    There is a way to attach the word “and” to other words in Hebrew…sort of like a contraction in English. Literally: “and the Word of Yahweh.”
    What does it mean when you start a sentence with the word “and?”
    Jonah 1:1 LEB
    1 And the word of Yahweh came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,
    So here’s something you should do for Biblical characters. Always check to see if they are mentioned anywhere else in the Bible. Let the Bible be a commentary on itself.
    2 Kings 14:23–29 NIV
    23 In the fifteenth year of Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah, Jeroboam son of Jehoash king of Israel became king in Samaria, and he reigned forty-one years. 24 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord and did not turn away from any of the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit. 25 He was the one who restored the boundaries of Israel from Lebo Hamath to the Dead Sea, in accordance with the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, spoken through his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher. 26 The Lord had seen how bitterly everyone in Israel, whether slave or free, was suffering; there was no one to help them. 27 And since the Lord had not said he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam son of Jehoash. 28 As for the other events of Jeroboam’s reign, all he did, and his military achievements, including how he recovered for Israel both Damascus and Hamath, which had belonged to Judah, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel? 29 Jeroboam rested with his ancestors, the kings of Israel. And Zechariah his son succeeded him as king.
    Summarize what’s going on in this story.
    What was Jonah’s role?
    Were there faithful people in the Northern Kingdom?
    Jonah 1:1–2 NIV
    1 The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”
    What do you think is going through Jonah’s mind in this moment?

    "...great city of Nineveh”

    Let’s look at the first city in the Bible.
    Genesis 4:10–17 NIV
    10 The Lord said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. 11 Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.” 13 Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” 15 But the Lord said to him, “Not so; anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. 16 So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden. 17 Cain made love to his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch.
    So the city gets attached to blood right from the beginning. Cities are fundamentally connected with the blood of innocents.
    Genesis 6:4 LEB
    4 The Nephilim were upon the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God went into the daughters of humankind, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty warriors that were from ancient times, men of renown.
    ​
    Genesis 10:6–11 NIV
    6 The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put and Canaan. 7 The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah and Sabteka. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. 8 Cush was the father of Nimrod, who became a mighty warrior on the earth. 9 He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; that is why it is said, “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord.” 10 The first centers of his kingdom were Babylon, Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar. 11 From that land he went to Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah
    So Ham was cursed, his descendent is Nimrod who was a “great warrior” just like the Nephilim who caused the flood of Noah. And he is the one who built Nineveh.
    How does this inform us about the mission that God is calling Jonah to?
    And what does Jonah decide to do?
    Jonah 1:3 NIV
    3 But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.
    This isn’t just a prophet that doesn’t want to be a prophet on this particular day. This is a man who knows his Bible, and knows the dangerous mission that God is calling him to, and he decides to find his own safety and security (EDEN) where he isn’t under God’s control.
    ​

      • Jonah 1:1–17NIV2011

      • Deuteronomy 15:7–8NIV2011

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