Jonah, the Miserable Prophet

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Although Jeremiah is usually ranked as the most miserable of prophets, Jonah follows close behind. I have tried to show in a previous essay on Jonah that there is a lot of humor in the way the small book is written and presented, but the prophet's pathos and pain should not be underestimated. Let us begin by comparing Jeremiah (1) and Jonah's reactions to God's call to action. Like Jonah, Jeremiah was called to be "a prophet to the nations." Jonah is called to give God's word to the people of Nineveh, that "great city." Jeremiah registers a mild protest. "I am only a lad," he says to God's revelation that God, with the name of YHWH (any set of vowels attached to YHWH is speculative), has chosen Jeremiah from the womb. YHWH brushes aside Jeremiah's objection, and Jeremiah goes on to become the prophet that God wants him to be.

Jonah, on the other hand, is terrified by the prospect of prophesying to Nineveh, and he grabs the first boat out of town, "to Tarshish." Yet, in this simple but sophisticated tale of prophecy that we find in the Book of Jonah, God is not satisfied to let Jonah flee; YHWH does not throw up the divine hands and pick a more suitable candidate to prophesy to Nineveh. No, God insists that Jonah is the prophet who must bow to the divine behest that Jonah go to Nineveh and prophesy.

Not to go over all the details--well known as they are of Jonah's story--he ends up being thrown overboard and is instantly swallowed by the "great fish," which in the popular imagination is known as a whale. From the bowels of the ship, where the wretched prophet had found refuge in sleep, Jonah finds himself in the bowels of a great fish. On one level, this transfer has rightly been the cause of much hilarity and incredulity ("It ain't necessarily so," as the Gershwin song put it). However, in our amusement at this unbelievable development we have perhaps lost sight of what it meant to Jonah. Never was there a prophet as miserable …