Intro: Welcome to the Spoken Gospel Podcast. Spoken Gospel is a ministry that's dedicated to speaking the gospel out of every corner of scripture. In Luke 24, Jesus told his disciples that every part of the Bible was about him. So each week, hosts David and Seth work through a passage of scripture to see how it's all about Jesus and his good news. Let's jump in.
David: Well, hey everyone and welcome to the Spoken Gospel Podcast. Thank you for joining us. We are in week 3 of our walk through Jonah.
Seth: That's right. We are celebrating 500,000 downloads.
David: Yes.
Seth: And putting our podcast on YouTube.
David: Yes. So if you are— if this is the first Jonah podcast you've hopped in on here on the podcast or on YouTube, Welcome, but what are you doing here? Go back to the first one. This is, this is chapter 3. You have missed so much context.
Seth: Yes.
David: So go back to Jonah 1.
Seth: Yes.
David: Because we're in Jonah chapter 3 today.
Seth: And we're talking about how God overturns things, that God overturns the evil of Assyria or Nineveh. He overturns the faithlessness and disobedience of his prophet, and how he'll even turn and overturn his own desire to judge the evil in Assyria. Yep.
David: Crazy.
Seth: It's all about overturning things.
David: Yeah. Which is a very key word.
Seth: Yeah. Overturn is a very key word, but it's not a theme or an idea that's foreign to Jonah as of right now. So far throughout the book of Jonah, everything has been overturned from your expectations. The prophet who was supposed to be faithful, faithful is faithless. Yes. Do what God says, doesn't do what God says. The Tortuga Sailors, who, uh, which is a reference to episode 1, uh, the, the evil pagan sailors are the ones that are repentant, right? A fish comes out of the water, swallows Jonah, and Jonah doesn't die.
David: When you go down to the bottom of the ocean, that's where you die. You die, but you don't die at the bottom of the ocean.
Seth: And then the fish spits you out after digesting you. That's also strange.
David: That's upside down.
Seth: So we have— we're used to things being other than they should be, right? And that theme kind of gets picked up in chapter 3 really, really explicitly.
David: Yeah, probably its highest point.
Seth: At its highest point. Yeah. And it's worth naming that chapter 3 is a riff on chapter 1, meaning, right, that it parallels chapter 1 in the same way that the pagan sailors and Jonah were compared in chapter 1. We're supposed to see the faithfulness of Nineveh compared to the faithlessness of Jonah.
David: Yes.
Seth: In chapter 3.
David: Yes. And the point there is that these are two nations. You have the sailors of Joppa that we call the Tortuga Sailors, like from Pirates of the Caribbean. And then you have the Caribbean. Caribbean. Caribbean.
Seth: Is it— is there a difference?
David: I mean, no, they're the same place, but you say them differently.
Seth: Is it— are they two the same place?
David: Same place. Caribbean. Caribbean. Just pronunciation. Pronunciation.
Seth: Pronunciation. Participle.
David: Yes. So for those of you don't know, Seth grew up overseas and he says the word participle.
Seth: Participle.
David: Participle. Which is a—
Seth: which is a word everybody uses frequently enough to know the difference.
David: Absolutely. We were— we were in Greek together.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And that's how we got—
Seth: every now and again, it's like a Britishism. That comes into my speech that I'm unaware is still there.
David: It's very endearing. Yeah. So anyway, but you have these two groups of people, the Assyrians and the Tortuga Sailors, and they both are representing the wider Gentile nations that have been oppressing Israel, subjugating them, and ultimately, especially for those in exile reading this letter, they are the ones who have come in destroyed Israel and taken them off into exile. And if you were a Jew reading this book, you know what it's like to be around these people and not want to see them saved.
Seth: Yeah, you would easily identify with Jonah.
David: Yes.
Seth: You don't want your oppressors shown mercy, right? You don't want to preach a message of God's goodness to the people who are killing your sons and daughters, right? You don't want to see people outside of God's covenant included in the covenant you were supposed to be in alone, right? At least in your perception of it.
David: Yeah. And so We're going to see here, though, that maybe even you wouldn't expect that the, like, Assyria or Babylon, who historically came in and destroyed Israel, ransacked their temple, mistreated their people, you wouldn't expect them to even repent if they heard about God. Right? Right. Like, you wouldn't expect that, right? Like, why even waste the time trying to risk your life to tell them about it?
Seth: Yeah.
David: And so, but we're going to see here in the story that the Assyrians, this bloodthirsty, really like horrible country, have the softest hearts.
Seth: Yes.
David: And they just repent on a dime.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And that subverts a lot of your expectations and would've been a call to those in exile to not put salvation, the hope of salvation, out of reach from idol worshipers, which Jonah tried to do in chapter 2.
Seth: Yes. In his prayer. So Jonah has just been spit out of the fish. Mm-hmm. Vomited out of the fish.
David: Vomited.
Seth: Out of the fish, and I believe reluctantly goes to Nineveh.
David: Yeah.
Seth: God calls him to do the same thing he called him to do in chapter 1. So again, it's a parallel of chapter 1. He says, arise, go to Nineveh and call out to this, to them, and give it the message that I, I tell you to give. What's funny is we're never told what the message is, right?
David: We're never let in on what God tells Jonah, which is a total subversion of the genre of prophecy.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Because the, like most your prophetic books are, Here's the word of the Lord, and then it's quoted.
Seth: Yes.
David: And the prophet speaks the exact words that God told him to speak. And we get to hear the message of God.
Seth: And we normally— and if you've ever read the prophetic books and you're like, why did I hear the same thing 4 times? It's because you hear God say it and then you hear the prophet say it, and then you hear the person receiving the prophecy say it back again.
David: That's— yeah. And sometimes the person saying it back says it correctly or they warp it a little bit. And that's supposed to show you how they are interacting with the prophecy.
Seth: We don't get that in this version of a prophetic genre.
David: Basically none of those.
Seth: Yes. So we're just told that God tells him to say something, but we're not told what he's supposed to say.
David: Yes.
Seth: And this far in the story, Jonah has not been an exemplary character. We don't have a real change of heart in the belly of the fish. We have him wanting salvation, but no repentance for his disobedience. So my guess is he's told the same thing again. He's like, well, it's— but I better go say it because better than being swallowed by a fish. Yeah.
David: And I think, I mean, I think your, your idea that Jonah was reluctant to go, reluctant to preach in Nineveh, is convincing because of where the fish takes him while he's in the water, because he is going like the exact opposite direction.
Seth: Oh, right.
David: Of Nineveh on his way to Tarshish by point, by the— through the port of Joppa. And the fish swallows him and takes him back the way he's supposed to go.
Seth: I actually totally didn't think about that. I just assumed like, oh, the ship crashed. Near the shore of Nineveh. I was like, oh, maybe they got most of the way to Tarshish. A fish swallowed him. 3 days later, spits him back out where he's supposed to be.
David: Yes.
Seth: I never thought about like, like that.
David: The boat, like the, like the boat that ultimately takes Jonah where he's supposed to go is not the boat he got on. It's the boat of the fish. And then he travels in the fish to Nineveh where God is taking him. And so God takes him where he wants him to go, kind of against his will. So when he gets vomited on the shore, like, blah, be here, right? I mean, it feels like he doesn't want to be there.
Seth: Well, and think about what we said next. Verse 3: Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, 3 days' journey in breadth. The only other thing described as a 3 days' journey is his time in the fish.
David: It's his time in the fish.
Seth: So he is reluctantly swallowed by the fish and then reluctantly walks 3 days into the belly of
David: Yeah, because, okay, because what we had talked about in the last episode was that the, the fish that swallowed Jonah is a prophetic picture of the evil empires, Assyria and Babylon.
Seth: Yep. Throughout the prophets and Amos and Jeremiah, and even in 2 Chronicles, they all describe the exile as a swallowing by a sea monster. Yeah. So Jonah's life is a living picture of Israel's own exile. Jonah, as a representative of Israel, is going into the belly of exile, just as it had historically and will again in the future.
David: Right. And so for him to be in 3 days in the fish and then Nineveh to be a 3-day— 3 days in breadth, it's saying he's going from one belly of the beast to another belly of the beast. And the message Jonah's preaching is about what should Jews do when they're in the belly of the beast. Yes, because again, this letter would have been read by Jews in exile, Jews who had been swallowed by the sea creature and who were in the belly of the beast. So what do you do when you're in the belly of the beast? You preach, like, preach salvation to them.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And so that's really interesting. One other thing I just want to point out that I realized was that we were talking about Jonah's— Jonah reluctantly getting vomited on the shore of Nineveh. I wonder, because of his prayer that we read in chapter 2, I wonder if he thought he was going to be vomited out somewhere else, because where does he constantly say that he will when he rises out of this fish's belly? Oh, where does he say he'll be? He'll go back to the temple.
Seth: Yeah.
David: So I wonder if he thought God was taking him back to Israel. He's like, fine, I tried to run away from your presence, but I guess I couldn't. I went down away from your up place in the temple. Well, you swallowed me by a fish. I guess I'll look upon your temple once more. Phew, don't have to go to Nineveh after all.
Seth: And then, oh, surprise, wait, when he gets spat out on the shores of Assyria, God's like, no, you have to do the thing I told you to do, Jonah.
David: I just think that's kind of funny.
Seth: So Jonah goes into the city, and here's another reason why I think he's reluctant is because of the sermon that he gives, if you can call it a sermon at all. He goes a day into the city and he calls out this sermon. Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
David: Great sermon.
Seth: And that's it. There's no mention, no call to repentance. No, there's no call to action. There's no mention of God.
David: Not only no mention of God, I think it's very important that there's no mention of the name of God.
Seth: No Yahweh.
David: No Yahweh. He said God's name to the sailors and they were able to worship the name of God on their ship. After the storm calmed. He does not even give them the covenant name of God. He does not want to extend to them the covenant. So he withholds both Elohim, the name, just God.
Seth: God.
David: They have Elohim.
Seth: Yeah.
David: But see, but he doesn't tell them the covenant name either.
Seth: He just says in 5 days you're going to be over there. 40 days. Yeah.
David: By who? By what? Another army? Because why? Yeah.
Seth: There's no reason.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Like it. Is not possible that this is the word of the Lord that—
David: right—
Seth: God told him to say to them. Like, it's like, there is not enough information here, right, to bring the Assyrians into the covenant of God.
David: No.
Seth: I think Jonah is being reluctant in doing the bare minimum, right, as a prophet of God and saying, in 40 days, I expect you to die. I expect you to be overthrown. Now, should we talk about the word overthrown?
David: Oh yes, let's talk about the word overthrown. So the word overthrown has kind of a double meaning.
Seth: It does.
David: Um, it's, it's not— it doesn't mean just like— a lot of, a lot of times in our English words, there's not a, there's not a lot of ambiguity. Uh, our, our English words are usually more precise, and we're going to talk about this again when we talk about the word evil or raw.
Seth: Were you in The Office when we talked about contronyms?
David: Oh, no.
Seth: Do you know what a contronym is? Yeah, it's a word that means the same thing and the opposite. The opposite of the same thing.
David: Yes. I think we've talked about that on the podcast before.
Seth: Have we?
David: I think so.
Seth: I did not remember the name of contronyms, but yeah. Anyway, a contronym is the thing that means the same one thing and its opposite.
David: And its opposite. Do you have one pulled up?
Seth: I was looking up them right now, but the one I was thinking of was to rent.
David: To rent.
Seth: You can rent something out and that means you're offering something to be paid for, or you can rent something, which means you're willing to pay for a service.
David: And so when you're saying you're renting a room, you don't know if you're making money or spending money, right? So that's a good— that's a good example.
Seth: Yep.
David: So like something like that is overturned. It's like it can mean conquered, destroyed, brought to nothing. Yeah. But it could also mean change for the better.
Seth: Yeah. In the book of Genesis, it's used as the word overthrown or overturned is how they describe the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah once the fire falls down on them.
David: Right.
Seth: So it means Sodom and Gomorrah were overthrown, destroyed, which is judgment, which is probably why Jonah picked this word.
David: He's probably thinking, let's have another Sodom and Gomorrah. Let Syria burn.
Seth: Right. Yeah, that's exactly right.
David: Totally. And yet, in the story of the Exodus, right, the— that same word is used over and over and over again to describe when God like turned the water to blood, or turned the wind to blow the seas and open the pathway for Israel to walk through. But it's also used to like, I will turn your evil into good.
Seth: Yes.
David: Which is particularly in the story of Balaam in Numbers.
Seth: Yeah, it can mean functionally transform. So whenever the prophet Balaam is hired by the king of Oh, man, I can't remember. I can't remember. Moab?
David: Yeah, I think so.
Seth: King of Moab. And to curse Israel, as Balaam tries to go up there and curse Israel, his bless— his curse is transformed, overturned, same word, Deuteronomy 23:5, into a blessing for Israel. And so what's funny is one of our commentators pointed out is that Jonah is like Balaam. He's prophesying a curse over Nineveh.
David: Yes.
Seth: But he's about to get the opposite.
David: Yep. God's going to overturn his word overturn.
Seth: Yes.
David: From a curse into a blessing. And like Balaam here in a second, he's going to go up on a mountain, overlook the city. That's exactly what Balaam did. He was up on a mountain overlooking the camp of Israel, waiting to see this curse. And all he will see is a blessing. Yep.
Seth: The very next verse we're told, and the people of Nineveh believed in God based on that sermon. 40 days you will be overthrown. And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast. They put on sackcloth, sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least. There's this grassroots revival among Nineveh based on Jonah's half-hearted sermon. Everything we know about Jonah up to this point does not lead us to believe that he wanted that to happen.
David: Oh, absolutely not.
Seth: He just prayed that the people who pay regard to vain idols have forsaken their hope of steadfast love.
David: Yeah.
David: 2:8.
Seth: 2:8. Like 5 verses ago, he just said people like this will never be part of your—
David: they have no hope.
Seth: They have no hope.
David: Yep.
Seth: So he gives a sermon that says in 40 days you will be overthrown, judged, right, and destroyed.
David: Yep. That's the message I was supposed to bring.
Seth: And then the exact opposite happens, right? They are— they repent. They believe God.
David: Yes. Okay. So he says that they will be overthrown, but then In reality, after they repent, we see, oh, they haven't been overthrown. They've been changed.
Seth: They've been transformed.
David: Which is the same word.
Seth: Same word.
David: Same word. And there's this unexpected fulfillment of his— of his sermon. Yeah. Which is a theme throughout the Bible.
Seth: Yeah. But we know prophet means one thing.
David: Yeah.
Seth: The opposite happens.
David: Yeah.
Seth: God meant something different from that sermon.
David: Yeah. You were talking to me this morning about something really interesting and how to see Jesus in this, because, I mean, that's what happened on the cross. You know, that there was a death sentence for Jesus, but it meant life for him in the world.
David: Yeah.
David: Like they thought that putting the Son of God to death would mean an ultimate victory for the powers of evil. But it is the very thing that brought about the power of evil's end. And you mentioned something about Henri, right?
Seth: Yeah. Like, well, what you just made me think of is if they would have known, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory, right? If they would have known crucifixion was a path to victory, the powers would not have done it.
David: They would have done it.
Seth: But death itself is transformed into life for all, right?
David: If Jonah would have known that his fire and brimstone sermon would have ended up being the means by which Nineveh was transformed, he wouldn't have preached it.
Seth: He wouldn't have preached it.
David: Okay.
Seth: But even like the, the four words pasted over the cross of Jesus, right? Jesus, King of the Jews.
David: Yeah. Which is abbreviated INRI.
Seth: INRI.
David: You've probably seen that.
Seth: Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to think of what it means. Uh, Jesus Rex Iudorum, something. I used to know. Yeah. I forget it, but I used to know it. I used to know the Latin. Uh, in Latin it's shortened to INRI, which just means Jesus King of the Jews.
David: Right.
Seth: And that was put up there sarcastically, right? By the powers and saying, this is your king crucified on the cross. Disgusting, shameful.
David: For it, for, for Rome, it was, uh, an attempt for them to be able to— an opportunity for them to mock the Jews. Because they're like, oh, we have so much power over you. You want— you want to know what we do to your king, your supposed king? We just give him the worst form of punishment. Like, we can just do it to him willy-nilly. Here's your king. And yet, there's an irony there, because that exact word that they put over him ended up being the exact word, but a different meaning.
Seth: The way that they tried to shame the people of God is how the people of God were honored and the powers were shamed.
David: Right. Yeah. Yeah. It ended up being the proclamation of Jesus's resurrection that he reigns as king over not only the Jews, but over the whole world, because he is king of the Jews from the line of David, the King of Kings. He gets to bless all nations.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And so it's, it's an amazing thing.
Seth: Like the idea of like an ironic overturning in Jesus is foreshadowed here.
David: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. It's just, it's an amazing thing that the words that we speak, that we think hold so much power, and the assumptions that we make about what's possible in the world and the fates that we set for ourselves and others, that, that God has the power and the scandalous mercy to overturn for the better. Yes. Like, there's no way that Facebook could end up being a force for good.
Seth: Yeah.
David: You know, and it's like, oh, hold on, hold on. God could do it.
Seth: God could do it.
David: He could overturn it. Yes. Yeah.
Seth: He could take things that we don't expect and make good things happen.
David: Right.
Seth: He could also take the things we do expect and humiliate us for them.
David: Yes.
Seth: I think what happens to Jonah.
David: Yes.
Seth: Might cause in chapter 4, he's very angry at God. Yeah. But like Jonah expects to be the prophet of God to deliver a prophecy accurately and for it to happen. But by God overturning the prophecy in his own mind, he humiliates Jonah. For his self-righteousness and for his pride against Nineveh. Yeah.
David: And I guess that's what happens to the powers, right? They get humiliated.
Seth: That's right. Yeah.
David: When they put Jesus on the cross, he puts them to open shame. Colossians says he humiliates them. And I mean, Jonah was humiliated. And we're going to see that in chapter 4 next week. So that's, that's really interesting. The repentance here You— we mentioned that, like, the sermon that Jonah gave was not sufficient cause for the repentance that we see in Assyria. Yeah. What accounts for the massive revival that took place in this pagan city?
Seth: Well, one explanation could be that actually Jonah did speak more words, and the author of Jonah has only given us 5 of those words in Hebrew. To highlight the irony and the disobedience of Jonah and therefore Israel.
David: That makes sense.
Seth: Totally possible. Yep. And I think that is probably closer to the real way it happened.
David: Yeah.
Seth: But I think what we are supposed to meditate on in this story is probably God's role in changing even the nations. So far, God has sent a storm. He has sent a fish. He has called out to Jonah. He has transformed sailors. He has spit— has appointed a fish to spit Jonah out just where he was supposed to go. In a moment, God's going to appoint a plant and a worm and a wind and all this other stuff. I think we're supposed to see that the God who controls the chaos of the deep and the forces of nature is also turning the hearts of kings and Assyrians to him. Yeah, I think we're so— I think that's what we're supposed to—
David: yeah, I think I agree with that, that Yeah, he appointed, you know, the fish. He appointed and prepared a wind, you know, and he appointed and prepared the hearts of Assyria and their king.
Seth: Yeah.
David: To repent.
Seth: Right.
David: That this is another show of strength from the God of Israel.
Seth: Yeah.
David: That not only does he control the wind and the sea.
Seth: Yeah.
David: He controls the hearts of the greatest king on earth.
Seth: Israel is not in charge of who gets the mercy of God's covenant, right? God is.
David: There you go. So I think that now, now you've nailed it. Because not only is it the, the motif of God's control, which is a theme in Jonah, but the point of Jonah is you have somebody who believes that certain people should not receive the mercy of God. And in Assyria, repenting so dramatically with no really verifiable outside force, we have to say, well, then God just gave mercy to whom he wanted to give mercy, which we're going to see in the next chapter, that that is a part of Exodus that Jonah quotes. He quotes that, I know, I know you're a God who, who shows mercy. And so I didn't want to, I didn't want to come preach because I'd be, I was afraid that you were going to do it right. And part of that longer quotation is God saying, I give mercy to whom I want to give mercy. And it's God's self-description of himself. Yeah. And he shows that he is not only— not only that's part of his character, but that he's capable to do it. And giving mercy to those who no one wanted to preach to them. Yeah. No one thought they could come to repentance. And God just does it.
Seth: Yeah.
Seth: And it's a rebuke not only to Jonah and Israel in exile, but also it becomes the same rebuke that Jesus has of the Pharisees.
David: Yes.
Seth: They believe— and Paul says the same thing— by virtue of being Jews, you are entitled to salvation. But that's not the way the covenant has ever worked, right? The covenant has always been based— relationship with God has always been based on God's mercy towards those he wanted to give mercy to, right? And the Pharisees refused to see that.
David: Yeah. Yeah.
David: The very first words of the covenant arguably are, I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Exodus 21 or 22.
Seth: Right.
David: You know, like that's, that's like the Jews hold that that's the first commandment. It's the first word.
Seth: It's the first word. God's promise of salvation.
David: I saved you. Yeah, I showed you mercy. That's always the basis is God shows mercy to whom he wants to show mercy. Abraham was just called out of nowhere. Yeah. You know, like he wasn't doing something meritorious or did some big act for God before he was called. He was called first. Yeah. And so, yeah, we see God just giving mercy to those who we didn't think would receive mercy.
Seth: Yeah. Okay. That's amazing. Yeah, that's the prophetic knife of the Book of Jonah. Yeah. Like, like Jonah is a prophet. His life is the prophecy. And Israel must realize that the covenant isn't just for them.
David: Like, yeah. So is there a reason that, like, in the very sparse words of the Book of Jonah, there's— it's not a long book.
Seth: So I think 40-something verses.
David: Yeah. Why spend so much time talking about the fasting and the sackcloth and like going to such a degree to explain the depths of repentance that Assyria went to.
Seth: Well, yeah. And we haven't even— we've only covered half of it.
David: Yeah, we haven't even gotten to the king yet.
Seth: The king yet. Yeah.
David: So the king, like, it starts like—
Seth: should we, should we go to the king before we answer that question?
David: Yeah, because yeah, we can. It's going to, it's going to lead to the same question. And so you had this grassroots movement, the people start repenting. Well, the word, which is another theme in Jonah, Yeah. The word of the Lord. The word of the Lord sent Jonah. The word does this. Well, the word reached the king and the king did something Jonah wouldn't do.
Seth: He arose. He arose from his throne.
David: Jonah kept going down.
Seth: Yeah. He went down to Joppa, down to the fish. And then finally it's when the king hears the word of God that he rises up. So ironic.
David: It's so funny. And he arises and calls for a nationwide fast and a national repentance. And it's an— I mean, it's an— it's revival. It's unparalleled.
Seth: And it's not just the people he calls for repentance, but he calls for all landowners, all livestock owners to repent as well, which he just means cover your cows in.
David: Yeah.
Seth: In sackcloth and ashes.
David: Yeah.
David: He tells you, don't let your animals eat.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Like no more grazing cows. And also put sackcloth on your cows. Like what?
Seth: Let them all call out, yeah, the Almighty God.
David: It's crazy. So I mean, that leads— yes, that's my question then. Why go to such detail about putting sackcloth on cows? Couldn't you just say, and Assyria repented? And it's like, on such a sparsely worded book, right? Why spend most of the chapter talking about that?
Seth: I think, I think part of it is because that's what Israel hadn't done or wouldn't do. Mm. If this is written to an Israel under Jeroboam II, which is, you know, who Jonah was a prophet to, you have a nation corrupted, an evil king on the throne full of injustice and evil.
David: Mm.
Seth: They were supposed to repent, right? They were supposed to turn from their evil ways and turn to God alone. And so to see a dramatic repentance in their enemies should indict them for failing to do the same. They have the God of the Covenant. They were rescued out of Egypt. This should have been their response. And the enemies of God's people are more quick to do it than they are. So I think there's like that ironic turn of the knife, like, yeah, these people will do it. Won't you? Shouldn't you be doing it?
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: Do you have a different answer?
David: No, I think that's right. I mean, you're making me think of other things. Like, I mean, there are comparisons to Jonah. The word of the Lord comes to Jonah and he runs away.
Seth: Yeah. We get a lot of description about Jonah's disobedience.
David: Yes.
Seth: It makes sense to have a parallel to a bunch of obedience.
David: And so I think that's probably what's happening. If these are parallel stories, if 1 and 3 are riffs on each other, then you have a long description of Jonah's passivity, reluctance, disobedience. And then you have the exact opposite happening, happening in Assyria. You have speediness, readiness, repentance, extreme obedience. And so I think that's, that's really interesting. I mean, it's also, it's the, it's the cattle that's throwing me. Yeah, livestock that's messing with my head. Like, why bring the livestock into it? You know, it's just So ratcheted up.
Seth: Why should the cows repent? Why should we throw it on them? Um, that's the question.
David: Yeah.
Seth: So I read one commentator and he said it could be a lack of information part of the Ninevites. The Ninevites don't have all the covenant information necessary, right? So they're working off their best guess about what God might want. Like, if God's gonna come down and burn us for a reason we don't know, let's do everything possible to placate him. Yeah, maybe the cows have to repent too. So, you know, it's like he doesn't know. And I mean, he says— the king of Nineveh says, who knows? God may— God may turn and relent and turn his fierce anger so that we may not perish.
David: Right.
Seth: He doesn't know.
David: I forgot about the who knows,
Seth: which is the same word the captain of the ship uses to Jonah as well. The unnamed captain of the ship, the unnamed king of Nineveh say the same word. Who knows? Maybe God will cease. Maybe the storm will cease from its raging. Maybe God will repent.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Relent from his disaster.
David: I mean, that's really interesting is that you, you just— Jonah is not doing his job as a prophet. He's not giving the people that he has been sent to the necessary information that they need to know what God wants. And so they start just doing anything they possibly can to placate
Seth: which is what he does in the story of the boat too. He doesn't tell them that he's the one who's caused the storm.
David: So they start throwing everything overboard. They start casting lots. They're doing anything they can to try to figure out how to calm down this storm and all that they needed to know. And Jonah had the information. He was the prophet of God. He had the information that they needed, that the nations needed, and he withheld it. And I mean, that's really— I mean, I'm convicted by that. You know, it's like we have the information, like as carriers of the good news, we have the information and we're not telling people, right? We're just letting the nations guess. And so what do they do? Who knows? Maybe this next trip will finally placate my conscience and, and, and salve my wanderlust. Who knows? Maybe this next marriage—
Seth: maybe God wants me to give up Pizza Hut or whatever, you know, like, yeah, maybe like, because you've heard that prayer, like, God, if you just, if you just save me from this one thing, I'll never watch porn again. I'll never do this thing again. And it's like they give away the, the store, right, to make sure God's not angry with them.
David: Yeah, I will dress my cattle in sackcloth if you will just relent because they don't know that it was in God's heart to relent. He wanted to relent. All he wanted was them to repent, right? They didn't need to dress their cattle in sackcloth. And I think the same thing applies to us today. I think people are wondering what they need to do in order to, like, be right with the God of the universe, even if they don't know his name. Like the Assyrians. Yep.
Seth: Everyone's looking for atonement.
David: That's right. And we have the answer that God wants to relent. God has relented. Where? On the cross. Like, and we can come to them and say, what does God require of you to overturn your life, to transform your life? Believe in him. Trust him. It's more simple than dressing your cattle in sackcloth, you know, like. And so I just think it's profound that we have this message and we might be just as reluctant to go and preach it as Jonah was. Yeah. And yet— and so we just were surrounded by nations trying to repent to an unknown God, an unnamed God, and they're trying to grope their way toward atonement and they just can't. And we have the answer. It's a simple one. And it's that, like, Jesus has died for your sins.
Seth: I was—
David: trust him.
Seth: I was thinking of, like, rewording Jonah's sermon. It's like, it's with all this in my mind, like, it's turn. Jesus has overturned, right? Like, that's all the information. It's like, Jesus has overturned what exactly? He has been destroyed so that you might be transformed, right? Jesus has overturned himself and you. Yeah, but on the cross.
David: Mm-hmm.
David: Yeah, it's so strong. And so we were talking about repenting and relenting that like, yeah, God, like the people are repenting and then God relents.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And those are similar concepts, right?
Seth: Well, in— they're like the same word.
David: Okay.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Yeah.
Seth: So we're about to get in this section where all the same words are being used to describe bad things and good things, which is on brand for a chapter where it has over the double meaning of the word, the contronym of the word overturned. Is like central to what's happening. So whenever the people repent of their evil, God repents of his disaster. When the people relent of their evil, same word, God relents of his disaster. And even more on the point, when people repent of their evil, their ra in Hebrew, God repents of his ra. The way that God responds to his people is in kind.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Does that make— yes, it's like And the reason I want to focus there is because that feels more radical than I want to accept. If I say it in English, yeah, when Israel repented or when Nineveh repented of their evil, God repented of his evil.
David: Whoa.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Okay. Yeah. Right.
David: That was like, oh yeah, that hits, that hits me like, well, hold on. God can't repent because he's, he's not, he has nothing to repent of. He's not bad. You repent for bad things. And two, God's not evil. He doesn't do evil. He does justice.
Seth: But, but the word they use is the same. So I'm like, okay, there is something profound, right, that the book of Jonah wants to teach us here in the way in which our evil and repentance is linked to God's goodness and mercy and his repentance— relentance and repentance.
David: Right, right.
Seth: So I just want to lean in and be like, okay, there's some work to do here because I think this might be the heart of why Jonah refuses. Like, if we refuse to accept that phrasing, we become Jonah who calls God evil for relenting of evil.
David: Right.
Seth: If we can't say God repents of evil, we become Jonah.
David: Right. So like, right, right. Yeah. And that's because Jonah knew God's heart. He knew that if Israel heard that they could repent and be saved, they would. And if they did, God would repent and save. And he didn't want that causal relationship to happen.
Seth: Yes.
David: And so he tried to keep the message of repentance and God's relentance away by just saying that their doom is coming.
Seth: Yes. Right.
David: They're going to be Sodom and Gomorrah. They're going to be overturned. But God was able to work through that to bring out a different ending, as we've said. What else are you wanting to draw out from that connection?
Seth: Well, one, this is actually another way the prophets speak about God's designs for the nations. So in Jeremiah 18, it says, if at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will repent. And not inflict on its disaster what I had planned.
David: Right.
Seth: So there is something about that. God is acting consistently with his character here. Yes. God is a God of mercy and love, as Jonah will tell us in a second. He is the one who saved Israel out of Egypt. He is the one who tends towards that. And he has always said, consistently said, that my mercy will be extended to all those who repent.
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: And I have an intention to bring that mercy when they hear of my Ra coming, you know, it's like, yeah, yeah, I'm trying to like land that. But does that land?
David: It totally lands. Well, and I just can't quite connect with it until I get to Jesus. So I need to do that because I'm like, okay, it's, it's part of the gospel message to say that in 40 years, in 1,000 years, at some point the world will be overturned, my life will be overturned. Like God has Ra, which can be translated evil disaster.
Seth: We should like name that.
David: We should name that.
Seth: In English we have two words, evil and bad, right?
David: Bad. Yeah. Or like even. Yeah, just like, yeah, something bad is going to happen. And that bad can also have the moral connotation of that is bad or good, right?
Seth: But evil is always morally, morally wrong. Bad can mean it's a bad thing or happenstance or—
David: Right. I had a bad day.
Seth: I had a bad day. It can mean both those things. In Hebrew, you only have one word. Right. It's the word raw.
David: Raw.
David: Yeah.
Seth: So you have to—
David: You wouldn't say I had an evil day.
Seth: I wouldn't say that.
David: Unless you did a bunch of horrible things.
Seth: In Hebrew, you would.
David: Yeah. You would say I had a raw day.
Seth: I had an evil day.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And so the fact that they're using the same word twice is consistent with Hebrew, but it also pulls in all these other connotations that you're supposed to meditate on and figure out.
David: So, wonderful. Right. And so, yeah. And so to— it's part of the gospel message to say that God has raw planned for the world, that he is going to overturn the world, that he has disaster, like bad, planned for those who are not his. And like, I mean, I know we like— I think like today we shy away from that message, right? But like, it's part of the message. And what you're saying is that when that message comes to us, it's calling us not to like lash out at God and be like, how could you do this? Or anything like that. It's calling us to just repent. And if we repent of our raw, God will repent of his raw. And so he has his raw, he has, he has bad news prepared for us. But if we repent of our bad, our raw, then that changes to good news. I mean, I mean, that's the gospel story, right?
Seth: It's the gospel story.
David: Yes.
Seth: And that's what Jonah finds so offensive.
David: Jonah is offended by the gospel.
Seth: He's offended by the gospel that good news could go to any bad people. And he calls God evil for allowing people like Nineveh and the Assyrians to be extended God's mercy. But it displeased— verse 4, verse 1— but it displeased Jonah. That's the word ra again, a verb form of the word ra again. And so I think that actually lands. We actually don't shy away from judgment on evil people. No, we don't. Like, we want justice done to the oppressor and to the evil and to the Nazis.
David: Yes.
Seth: We don't want to see Hitler in heaven. No, Hitler could be in heaven, right? Yeah.
Seth: If—
David: right.
Seth: Like, that's why Jonah is like, no, that is evil.
David: God.
Seth: Yeah. To allow someone like that.
David: Right.
Seth: The king of Nineveh. Yeah. The leader of the army putting in stone relief the way that they tortured its people. It is evil for that person to be in your covenant.
David: Right.
Seth: That's why Jonah can't stomach the gospel.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Because it holds out hope for people like that.
David: Yes. And so, like, I think Jonah comes to us then and says, are you offended by the fact that God does good to evil people?
Seth: Yeah.
David: That God relents of the justice that they deserved. And you should be a little offended by it.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Until you realize that that's you, that you are the raw person, the evil person that God has relented.
Seth: Well, I'm offended by that too. Yeah, right. Like, yeah, that's the effect. Like, I'm still offended if that's how God sees me. I'm still offended by that.
David: You're offended that you are an evil person.
Seth: Yeah.
David: God would have seen you as that and have had to, had to relent.
Seth: Right. But if I refuse to admit that, I'm also refusing mercy towards myself.
David: Right.
Seth: Which is what's going to happen in the next chapter with Jonah. He's going to be forced to confront the fact that he won't call himself evil, but he will only call Nineveh evil.
David: Right.
Seth: And God's going to call him out on that hypocrisy. So if I can call— I feel objectively certain people evil within human history, within my own life. But if I refuse to allow them mercy and call myself evil in the same moment, That's hypocrisy. Yeah, right.
David: Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Seth: That's why Jonah is so damning.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Because it makes me make the connection that Jonah refuses to.
David: Right.
David: That I might not be as perfect of a person as I thought I was.
Seth: Right.
David: Yeah. But it's in that recognition that we find the mercy that Assyria got to experience.
Seth: Right. Assyria realized it. They repented. They let their cows repent. And they were— and they— God repented of his wrath. And saved them.
David: Yeah, man, that's really good. Okay, that's chapter 3.
Seth: That's chapter 3.
David: All right. Well, I'm excited to wrap up Jonah. Chapter 4.
Seth: That's right.
David: We're going to talk about a giant gourd plant. Gourd plant grows up. It's a very weird part of the story. Like I said in the first— I think I said in the first episode, I never even knew chapter 4 existed as a kid.
Seth: Chapter 4 is the oddball that you don't read in the kids— the kids version of the story. Um, but it lands the point that we're making here. Jonah is angry at God and calls God evil for extending mercy to his enemies.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And God's gonna call him a hypocrite for it. Right. Okay.
David: Well, tune in for that. We will, uh, we'll see you guys next time. Thanks for listening.
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