Jonah: Factual Account or Mere Parable—”Dare to be a Jonah”?
When it comes to the “why” and “what” questions associated with the Book of Jonah, these are difficult to answer because they are tied to the nature of the book itself. Critical scholars openly scoff at the assertion the Jonah is describing historical events. Was he really swallowed by a large fish, and spent 72 hours in a fish’s belly? Surviving despite a lack of oxygen and despite the fish’s digestive juices which ordinarily would have dissolved Jonah’s remains rather quickly. Because the book cannot be accepted as historical the critics contend, the Book of Jonah must be an allegory telling some sort of moralistic tale: “dare not to be a Jonah,” or “obey God when he calls you, so you don’t suffer the consequences,” or some such.
The better critical scholars see a broader redemptive historical purpose in Jonah. Israel failed in its mission to be YHWH’s witness to the Gentile nations, a reason why YHWH was about to bring judgment upon the nation. So, before Israel’s destruction in 722 by the Assyrians, YHWH raises up a prophet (Jonah) who will do what Israel failed to do, go to the source of Israel’s impending destruction (the heart of the Assyrian empire) and call for Gentiles to believe in YHWH and repent of their sin. To these scholars, Jonah’s apologetic purpose (in the form of a sermonic parable) does not require the events with the book to be true. This is certainly a possible interpretation of Jonah’s overall mission and this apologetic purpose may indeed be behind YHWH’s prophetic call of Jonah.
But if this is true, why does Jonah so actively resist YHWH’s call to the point that he states he would rather die than see the Ninevites repent (Jonah 4:3)? Jonah is a loyal Israelite. We know from 2 Kings 13 that Israel had been continuously at war with Syria, the Gentile kingdom immediately to the north. Syria was a sometimes client state, sometimes rival of Assyria, growing in power and geographically to the north of both Syria and Israel. According to the account in Kings, YHWH kept Syria at bay through Assyrian aggression, weakening Syria so they could not invade Israel and preventing either nation from conquering the Northern Kingdom. YHWH even granted Israel military success against Syria during the reign of Jeroboam II. These nations would have been Israel’s (and Jonah’s) natural enemies.
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