The Book That Ends on a Question

He walked out of the city and sat down on the east side of it, where he could watch.

He built himself a booth there, a little shelter of whatever was at hand, and sat down under it in the shade. The city below him had just been spared. Its king had come down off the throne and sat in ashes. Its people had fasted, the greatest of them to the least, and God had seen it and turned from what he’d said he would do.

Jonah sat in his booth, the text says, till he might see what would become of the city.

Watching from a distance is a very human thing to do. Usually it isn’t a city. It’s one person, and a name, and a feeling that doesn’t want them let off. How a working prophet came to be sitting east of the city, hoping, is the whole book.

Jonah was a real prophet. He shows up in the book of Kings, prophesying to the king of Israel about the borders, a working professional with a track record. This wasn’t an amateur.

Then God said: go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before me.

Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, and the whole book depends on what that meant to an Israelite. Assyria was the empire that would, within a generation or two, wipe the northern kingdom off the map, deport its people, and scatter them so thoroughly they’re called the lost tribes to this day. The Assyrians were known for cruelty even by ancient standards. Their own royal inscriptions boast of flaying people and stacking skulls, carved in stone so everyone would know. Nineveh was the seat of it.

God told Jonah to go warn them. Jonah got up and went the other direction. Not out of fear; he’ll say why later, and it’s worse than fear. He went down to the coast at Joppa, paid the fare on a ship bound for Tarshish, as far west as a ship went, and went below deck and fell asleep.

The middle is the part everyone knows. The storm. The sailors crying out, every man to his own god, while the prophet of the real one slept below. The lots, the confession, throw me into the sea. The fish, three days and three nights. The prayer from inside it, which is a good prayer. The fish vomiting him onto dry land, which is the text’s own word for it.

Then the sentence that would be the whole point, if the book were about the fish. The word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time.

This time he went. He walked into a city of three days’ journey and preached the shortest sermon in the Bible, five words in Hebrew. Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. No call to repent. No offer of mercy. Not even God’s name. The sermon of a man doing exactly what he was told and not one syllable more.

And Nineveh repented. The people believed God and called a fast and put on sackcloth. The king got off his throne and sat in ashes and issued a decree that covered the animals, so even the cattle fasted in sackcloth. Who can tell if God will turn and repent? And God saw what they did, and turned, and did not do it.

One sermon, five words, and the cruelest city on earth on its knees.

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.

He prayed, and in the prayer he finally said why he’d run:

O Lord, was not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.

He’s quoting the oldest creed in Israel, the words God spoke to Moses on the mountain, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and he’s quoting it as an accusation. I knew you were like this. I knew you’d forgive them. That’s why I ran. He wasn’t afraid of Nineveh. He was afraid God would let them off.

Therefore now, O Lord, take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.

He’d rather die than watch them be forgiven. He didn’t dress it up as a concern for justice. He said it straight, and the book kept it.

God answered with a question. Do you do well to be angry?

Jonah didn’t answer. He went out to the east side of the city and built the booth.

God made a plant grow up over the booth to shade his head, and the text says Jonah was exceedingly glad of the plant. It’s the only time in the book he’s happy. Not when the sailors were saved, not when the fish let him go, not when a whole city turned to God. When he got some shade.

Then God sent a worm at dawn, and the plant withered. Then a hot east wind, and the sun beat on Jonah’s head until he fainted, and he asked to die again.

God asked the same question a second time. Do you do well to be angry for the plant?

This time Jonah answered. I do well to be angry, even unto death.

He was a real prophet with a real record, and he sat outside the city with it. Grace for the people you can’t stand is still grace. It’s the same grace, not a lesser, unfair kind handed to your enemies while the real kind is kept for you. And the anger about who got forgiven is the last thing to go. It goes after the guilt and after the shame and after the fear, because it’s the one that feels like justice, and it can look righteous from the inside for a lifetime.

Where this meets your week

The booth outside the city gets built in ordinary places, and it’s usually built with a view.

The one who’s doing fine. If you retired from a ministry, or left a role you gave years to, the person who came after you may be doing well, and you may have noticed that you check. The attendance, the posts, the mutual friends. Jonah built his shelter where he could see the city. Don’t check for a week. See what happens to the booth when you stop sitting in it.

Hearing they got right with God. If you were pushed out of a job, there may be a person tied to it whose life has since turned toward God, and everyone around them is glad, and you’re supposed to be glad too. Jonah quoted the creed as an accusation: I knew you were merciful. If you can’t be glad, don’t fake it. Say it to God, out loud, the way Jonah did. The book kept his version. Then notice what came back to him, which was a question and not a rebuke.

The family table. There may be a sibling, an in-law, a cousin you’ll sit near at the next holiday, and a corner of the room where you’ve built your booth for years. This time, do one small thing for that person before you leave. Pour the coffee. Ask about their week. Not a reconciliation. Just one step toward Nineveh, to find out whether the anger is still a wall or has started to become a question.

The sailors. If you spent years caring for someone who has since died, think back to the worst of that stretch. There were likely people around you who didn’t share your faith and carried you anyway. A hospice nurse. A neighbor. Someone from work. Before the fish, there were pagan sailors on a ship in a storm who tried hard to row back to land rather than throw a stranger overboard. The book gives them more credit than it gives Jonah. Thank one of yours this week.

The book never tells Jonah what to do next. It hands him something to carry, and that’s the thing to do with it.

Name the person. Write the name down. The one you don’t want forgiven, the one whose restoration would send you outside the city to build a shelter and watch. Don’t pretend there isn’t one. Jonah’s honesty is the only thing in the book that gets him anywhere.

Then sit with God’s question, the last one, for a week. Don’t answer it. Jonah didn’t, and the book let him not. Carry it around, let it be the last thing you think about at night, and see whether it’s still a question at the end of seven days.

The plant was dead. The city was alive. The prophet sat in the heat east of the city, angry enough to die. And God said the last thing in the book.

You have had pity on the plant, for which you did not labor, neither made it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night. And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle?