Call Upon Your God!
As the storm intensifies, the ship’s captain found Jonah below deck, sound asleep. The captain screams at Jonah, “what do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your god! Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we may not perish.” (Jonah 1:6) We know that sailors can be a superstitious lot–then as now. After awakening Jonah, the captain insists that the fleeing prophet call upon “his god” as the others had done. We are not told if the captain knew yet that Jonah was a worshiper of YHWH and was aware of YHWH’s great power. Perhaps the captain’s fear was that unless all onboard were praying to one of their collective gods, one of these gods would remain unappeased and cause all onboard to perish. But the irony should not be lost upon us. Jonah is awakened by the captain to pray because the storm truly is Jonah’s fault! Jonah is fleeing from YHWH’s prophetic call which is the reason for the terrible storm which has placed the ship and its crew in jeopardy.
Of course, praying to gods who do not exist does not end the storm. In fear and panic, the crew seeks to figure out which one of the crew or its passengers has offended his god sufficiently for that particular god to bring the storm down on the lot of them. The suddenness and intensity of the storm points to some sort of supernatural peril, since none of the other measures have worked and the ship is about to break up. Pacifying whichever god was angry became paramount to the crew. According to verse 7, “and they said to one another, `Come, let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.’ So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.” YHWH brought the storm to pass. So too when the lot is cast, it falls on Jonah. It is just as the author of Proverbs (16:33) tells us, “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.” YHWH is directing all things (even the roll of the die) to his appointed end–that his word be preached in Nineveh. The mysterious passenger sacked out below deck is the one who has brought the terrible storm to pass.
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