Many may have heard or even read the account of Jonah in the Bible. While this account is under scrutiny by some, Jonah never the less is called a prophet of God in the Book of Jonah.* The plot centers on a conflict between Jonah and God. God calls Jonah to proclaim judgment to Nineveh, but Jonah resists and attempts to flee. He goes to Joppa and boards a ship bound for Tarshish. God calls up a great storm at sea, and, at Jonah's insistence, the ship's crew reluctantly cast Jonah overboard in an attempt to appease God. A great sea creature, sent by God, swallows Jonah. For three days and three nights Jonah languishes inside the fish's belly. He says a prayer in which he repents for his disobedience and thanks God for His mercy. God speaks to the fish, which vomits out Jonah safely on dry land.
After his rescue, Jonah obeys the call to prophesy against Nineveh, causing the people of the city to repent and God to forgive them. Jonah is furious, however, and angrily tells God that this is the reason he tried to flee from Him, as he knew Him to be a just and merciful God. He then beseeches God to kill him, a request which is denied when God causes a tree to grow over him, giving him shade. Initially grateful, Jonah's anger returns the next day, when God sends a worm to eat the plant, withering it, and he tells God that it would be better if he were dead. God then points out: "You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labour and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals? (NRSV)"
Ironically, the relentless God demonstrated in the first chapter is shown to be the merciful God in the last two chapters (see 3:10). Equally ironic, despite not wanting to go to Nineveh and follow God's calling, Jonah becomes one of the most effective prophets of God. As a result of his preaching, the entire population of Nineveh repents before the Lord and is spared destruction. The author indicates that the city "has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left". While some commentators see this number (120,000) as a somewhat pejorative reference to ignorant or backward Ninevites, most commentators take it to refer to young infants, thus implying a population considerably larger than 120,000.
I took this photo of a poster with my phone as photography is prohibited in the theater because of copyright laws.
If you have the chance to see this presentation, by all means go and see it. The costumes, music, stage sets and special effects are worth the cost of seeing. Plus there is a lesson to be learned from the story of Jonah!
* Some say that it is impossible for a whale to swallow a man. The Hebrew text of Jonah 2:1 (1:17 in English translation), reads dag gadol (Hebrew: דג גדול), which literally means "great fish." The Septuagint (The Greek translation of the Hebrew text) translates this into Greek as ketos megas, (Greek: κητος μεγας), "huge fish"; in Greek mythology the term was closely associated with sea monsters. Saint Jerome later translated the Greek phrase as piscis granda in his Latin Vulgate, and as cetus in Matthew 12:40. At some point, cetus became synonymous with whale (cf. cetyl alcohol, which is alcohol derived from whales).
