Day 267. Obadiah and Jonah

Our reading for today comprises not one but two short prophetic books—one by a prophet and the other about a prophet. Obadiah is an angry little book—it comprises a single speech or oracle delivered at a single moment in time by a prophet about whom we know very little. It calls itself a "vision" (verse 1), which the prophet receives from the LORD shortly after the city of Jerusalem has fallen to the Babylonians. But the anger of the book is directed not so much at the Babylonian conquerors, but at the neighboring country of Edom, which has proved itself a proud and cruel neighbor to the people of Judah "on the day of distress." The prophet is so filled with indignation with their behavior because the Edomites are kin to Israel, part of the same Semitic gene bank. The Book of Genesis tells us that Edom's ancestry goes back to Esau, the twin brother of Jacob, who is also called Israel—see Genesis 25:19-34. The ancestral relationship between the two nations makes the callous cruelty of Edom all the more execrable. But God has seen, and his justice is forthcoming, the prophet proclaims. In Bible times the people of Edom—also called in our text "Esau" and "the house of Esau"--inhabited a mountainous area southeast of Judah on the far side of the Dead Sea. It is an inhospitable place, and the prophet says the Edomites live "in the clefts of the rock" and "in the heights" (v. 3), and apparently considered their land impregnable. From their elevated vantage point, they looked down on their more vulnerable neighbors, including Judah, with contempt. The God of Israel, however, is exalted above all nations, and even if the people of Edom "soar aloft like the eagle" (v. 4), the LORD is determined to bring them down. What has happened to Jerusalem will happen to them—and worse. Verses 5-9 are an ironic lament over Edom framed in the past tense, as if the desolation which is surely coming has already happened. "Esau's" closely guarded treasures have been plundered (v.6). His trusted allies have let him down (v.7), and his "confederates" have betrayed his trust. Now he cannot understand why he is left alone, abandoned by all. Teman—mentioned in our text in verse 9—was Edom's capital, and in ancient times the city was legendary for its wisdom. But now "understanding" has been destroyed in "Mount Esau" (v.8). Soon the "warriors" of Teman "shall be scattered," and the people who were so smug and secure in their pride "will be cut off" (v. 9). And why? Because of "the slaughter and violence [they have done to their] brother Jacob" (v. 10). When the city of Jerusalem was taken the Edomites "gloated over [their] brother" (v. 12) and rejoiced in the downfall of Israel. The LORD is outraged because they "looted his goods" (v. 13), and even worse, because they "cut off the escape of his fugitives" and "handed over his survivors" to the captors (v.14). Because of this, the inhuman cruelty of their actions shall be turned against them, and their "deeds shall return on [their] own head" (v. 15). The bitterness that Judah has "drunk" on the LORD's holy mountain"—Jerusalem--"shall all the nations around [them] drink" (v. 16). But Obediah ends on a hopeful note. God is faithful, and on "Mount Zion" a remnant shall escape destruction. That remnant "shall be holy"—set apart by God-- and the remnant of Israel in turn will eventually dispossess "those who [have] dispossessed them" (v. 17). This includes, first and foremost, the "house of Esau" which shall be kindled and consumed like stubble by the fire of "the house of Jacob," and Edom shall be left without survivor (v. 18). The lands of the surrounding peoples shall be annexed into a restored Israel. Even those tribes belonging to the northern kingdom who were carried off by the Assyrians in 722 B.C. shall miraculously return from "Halah," a place in Assyria where they were taken as exiles. They shall come back and take possession of the land of Phoenicia (v. 20). So in the end justice shall be done. The chosen people shall be vindicated, and "those who have been saved" shall "rule Mount Esau," as agents and deputies of the LORD (v. 21). The book of Jonah is really more of a fanciful short story than a prophetic oracle. It too is a little book, but the influence of its symbolism has been enormous in both Judaism and Christianity, far out of proportion to its size--see Matthew 12:38-40. The story is too familiar to need much repeating—but thoroughly charming. Jonah is commanded to go and preach repentance to Nineveh, capital of the great Assyrian empire. God has decided to offer the city mercy, instead of the judgment it so richly deserves. Nineveh was a city whose very name is synonymous with wickedness and cruelty in the Bible. It was, we remember, responsible for the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel and for untold suffering throughout the ancient Near East. Jonah is only too well aware of this, and he wants Nineveh to remain unrepentant and perish, as it should. So in order to escape his calling he takes ship for Tarshish, in modern Spain, a place important in ancient times for the tin necessary for the making of bronze and as remote as could be from Nineveh. Jonah is a caricature of the snobbery and prejudice of post-exilic Judaism, the period of Ezra and Nehemiah. It is a book filled with gentle mockery and broad humor. Jonah would rather undertake a long and perilous sea-voyage to Tarshish, than share the God of Israel with the unclean and godless people of Nineveh. Some within Judaism would do anything to resist God's purpose for the Jews, to bring salvation to the world. So Jonah takes ship in Joppa (1:3).And soon thereafter a terrible storm arises—in the tiny trading vessels of ancient times that must have been a harrowing experience. The danger becomes so great that the sailors throw the cargo overboard. Jonah, however, oblivious to the peril, had "gone down to the hold of the ship and had laid down, and was fast asleep" (1:6). And Christian readers will be reminded of how Jesus slept in the storm on the Sea of Galilee--see Mark 4:38. The ancient world was essentially polytheistic—the sailors call on their many gods, and the captain wakes Jonah to call upon on his God too (1:6), unaware that it is the LORD who has "hurled a great wind upon the sea" (1:4), We have noted elsewhere that the ancients often used lots to seek divine guidance in making decisions. The sailors cast lots (1:7) to determine who "the Jonah,'' the unlucky influence is among them, and the result is predictable. They question the prophet, and he reveals that he is "a Hebrew," a worshiper of the One God. Now they are truly afraid and want to know—"What is this that you have done!" (1:10). One of the elegant ironies of the story is that these pagan sailors are so much more admirable that God's reluctant prophet. They "row hard to bring the boat back to the land." Only when that proves hopeless, do they reluctantly and with a prayer for forgiveness do what Jonah told them and cast him into the sea" (1:14). Then, just as in the story of Jesus and the calming the storm, "the sea [ceases] from its raging" (1:15), and like the disciples in the boat, the sailors "[fear] the LORD even more." But Jonah does not perish—as the youngest child knows. The gracious providence of the LORD is one of the themes of the book. God provides "a large fish to swallow" him (1:17). Fish are part of the elaborate symbolism of the story. Fish, because of their cold-bloodedness, are a symbol of life in death. Jonah dies. Jesus dies. Jonah is buried in the belly of the fish. Jesus is buried in the tomb. Jonah waits "three days and three nights" for his resurrection (1:17), but in the end life overcomes the powers of death. And while he is there in the belly of the fish with nothing else to do, Jonah composes a psalm of thanksgiving for his deliverance from "Sheol," the place of the dead (2:1). The experience of drowning is beautifully evoked—"weeds were wrapped around my head at the roots of the mountains" (2:5), the prophet sings—and yet he does not drown. Instead he lives to praise the LORD who has "brought up [his] life from the Pit" (2:6). Finally after three days the LORD speaks to the fish, and it vomits Jonah "upon the dry land" (2:10). Now again the LORD commands Jonah to go to Nineveh, and he knows better than to refuse. The city that is described as so exceedingly large that it takes "three days to walk across" (3:3)—an exaggeration, perhaps, but necessary to a story filled with exaggerations. Jonah delivers his prophetic message—repent or in forty days Nineveh shall be destroyed—and his warning meets with more success that most prophetic preaching in the Old Testament. The whole city and its king "[turn] from their evil ways" and do penitence in sackcloth and ashes. So when the LORD sees it he changes "his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them" (3:10). The essential humanity of the God of Israel is emphasized throughout the Old Testament by the fact that under the influence of changed circumstances, God can change his mind. The God of Israel is not blind fate—he is a companion in our destiny. Now it is Jonah's turn to be angry—angry "enough to die" because he knew all the time "that [the LORD] is a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing" (4:2). He is furious because the LORD has spared and not destroyed Nineveh, as the wicked inhabitants of that wicked city deserved. Human beings are always more vengeful than God is. So Jonah went out of the city to pout. There the LORD finds him, sitting in the sun, wishing to die. But just as God had provided a fish to save him from the sea, so now God "[appoints] a bush, and [makes] it come up over Jonah" (4:6). The bush may in fact have been a bean plant, but in any case Jonah was happy about it. That is, until "God [appoints] a worm that [attacks] the bush, so that it [withers]" (4:7). So the angry prophet is back where he started, sitting in the scorching sun, asking that he might die—the image is intentionally ridiculous. There God comes to him in his misery, as he came to Job, to ask him what business he has to be angry. The bush was a transitory thing, it appeared and it vanished. Its dying is no tragedy, except to the self-centered prophet. For God the object of concern is Nineveh, lost and condemned to destruction—"a great city," as the LORD points out, "in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from the left, and also many animals" (4:11). Even the animals are precious to God, who as their creator has made himself responsible for them. This represents the highest evolution of religious consciousness in the Old Testament—the realization that the love and mercy of God is not limited to Israel, it is extended to all of humankind. And it is not even limited to humankind; it also extends to the animals. So the funny story of the reluctant prophet ends with the announcement that God's mercy extends in ever widening circles to all creation.