Jonah as Satire

Jonah is portrayed as a character whom his readers would never wish to imitate--nearly his every move is satirized and shown to be a failing. This, of course, despite the fact that he is a prophet.

--Daniel C. Timmer, A Gracious and Compassionate God: Mission, Salvation and Spirituality in the Book of Jonah (New Studies in Biblical Theology; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 147.

The Human Heart's Penchant for Self-Glorification

But the point of the book of Jonah is not to foster disapproval of Jonah. Jonah's example shows that those who have a close external connection to God (Jonah was born among God's chosen people and served as a prophet among them), know the Scriptures well and believe firmly that God exists can still persevere in calm, reasoned rebellion against that same God. They can, moreover, even persist in such rebellion despite God's disciplinary actions. Jonah exhibits a puzzling mix of arrogance and apathy, of self-awareness and blindness that should make us very wary of the human heart's penchant for self-glorification, regardless of how closely we are involved with God's people.

--Daniel C. Timmer, A Gracious and Compassionate God: Mission, Salvation and Spirituality in the Book of Jonah (New Studies in Biblical Theology; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 145.

Stingy Jonah

Jonah wants to receive God's grace without being changed by it, and at the same time to snatch it away from those whose lives are in fact changed by it.

--Daniel C. Timmer, A Gracious and Compassionate God: Mission, Salvation and Spirituality in the Book of Jonah (New Studies in Biblical Theology; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 133.

Repentance Doesn't Obligate God

Although Nineveh had repented, God was in no way obliged to deliver the city because they 'turned from their evil way', but spared them out of pure grace. God acts with grace toward both Nineveh and Jonah, underlining once again the compassionate character so forcefully presented at the beginning of Jonah 4.

--Daniel C. Timmer, A Gracious and Compassionate God: Mission, Salvation and Spirituality in the Book of Jonah (New Studies in Biblical Theology; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 133.

Jonah the Deviant Prophet

When Jonah's deepest convictions and dispositions are contrasted with Yahweh's gracious and compassionate character, the book portrays with immense power the deviant nature of Jonah's attitudes and beliefs.

--Daniel C. Timmer, A Gracious and Compassionate God: Mission, Salvation and Spirituality in the Book of Jonah (New Studies in Biblical Theology; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 123.

God's Consistent Compassion

The author of Jonah seems to want us to make this connection to Exodus 32, and so to see that God's compassion to Israel then is no different from his compassion to Nineveh now, for he has cast his description of God's reaction in Jonah 3:10 in the same words as God's decision to spare Israel in Exodus 32:14. One notable difference exists, however, between those two situations: Israel in Exodus 32 had not yet even repented (though Nineveh had)--Israel was spared only because of God's gracious response to Moses' intercession!

--Daniel C. Timmer, A Gracious and Compassionate God: Mission, Salvation and Spirituality in the Book of Jonah (New Studies in Biblical Theology; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 123.

Works Don't Cancel Guilt

The OT also has no category for works whose moral value cancels the guilt of previous sin.

--Daniel C. Timmer, A Gracious and Compassionate God: Mission, Salvation and Spirituality in the Book of Jonah (New Studies in Biblical Theology; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 114.

God's Gracious Threats

When we hear God threaten Nineveh with judgment, therefore, we should not see this as one of his eternal decrees (to which we are not privy in any case) that he is modifying 'on the fly.' His relenting, though not forced by human repentance, is nonetheless a gracious response to it. I have described Jonah's message to Nineveh as a 'threat' to highlight the conditional nature of Jonah's message and thus the possibility of such a divine response. Threats by their very nature are intended to change behaviour.

--Daniel C. Timmer, A Gracious and Compassionate God: Mission, Salvation and Spirituality in the Book of Jonah (New Studies in Biblical Theology; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 113.

Nineveh's Partial Repentance

From violence before Jonah, to repentance from violence under Jonah's preaching, and back to violence a few decades later--this is an unconvincing portrait of thoroughgoing repentance.

Where does all this leave us? Nineveh believed in God, turned from her sin in some degree, but did not fully turn to God. In other words, her repentance was partial and incomplete.

--Daniel C. Timmer, A Gracious and Compassionate God: Mission, Salvation and Spirituality in the Book of Jonah (New Studies in Biblical Theology; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 104.

Unforgiven Nineveh

It should not escape our notice that no language of forgiveness or pardon appears in the story--God relents, but the Ninevites' prior sis remain unpunished....The city believed God's word through Jonah, and abandoned their violence and wickedness in the hope that God would spare them. This is a striking moral reform, but there is nothing in Jonah 3 that requires us to say it was more than that.

--Daniel C. Timmer, A Gracious and Compassionate God: Mission, Salvation and Spirituality in the Book of Jonah (New Studies in Biblical Theology; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 103.

Something Askew in Jonah's Prayer

Considered abstractly, the theology of Jonah's prayer is orthodox. But when seen in the context of the book, a very different picture emerges. Jonah has assumed that his relationship with God is healthy while that of the (idol-worshipping) sailors is non-existent, while the narrator has shown that the truth is almost the opposite.

--Daniel C. Timmer, A Gracious and Compassionate God: Mission, Salvation and Spirituality in the Book of Jonah (New Studies in Biblical Theology; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 88.

Self-focused Praying

The one praying for deliverance is more prominent in Jonah's prayer than God the deliverer.

--Daniel C. Timmer, A Gracious and Compassionate God: Mission, Salvation and Spirituality in the Book of Jonah (New Studies in Biblical Theology; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 86.

Jonah: The Irresponsible Prophet

Especially if Jonah's assumption that God was out to kill him was mistaken (as I suggested in the previous chapter), here Jonah is glossing over any personal responsibility for his brush with death by affirming the agency of everyone but himself.

--Daniel C. Timmer, A Gracious and Compassionate God: Mission, Salvation and Spirituality in the Book of Jonah (New Studies in Biblical Theology; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 85.

Jonah's Myopia

Jonah, however, although he is unquestionably in dire straits because of his own disobedience, does not even recognize his sin and so utters not a word of confession.

--Daniel C. Timmer, A Gracious and Compassionate God: Mission, Salvation and Spirituality in the Book of Jonah (New Studies in Biblical Theology; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 82.

God's Universal Kingship Calls for Repentance from All

Even though Israel was almost constantly threatened by Assyria, and would fall to its armies barely thirty years after the end of Jeroboam's reign, the book of Jonah views Israel and Assyria through the largest possible lens, that of humanity under the threat of divine judgment but presented with the possibility of repentance. In doing so it pushes to the side the imperialist motives of Jeroboam II and Assyria alike and reasserts Yahweh's universal kingship and grace, paradoxically pointing to the only way of escape for both Israel and Nineveh.

--Daniel C. Timmer, A Gracious and Compassionate God: Mission, Salvation and Spirituality in the Book of Jonah (New Studies in Biblical Theology; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 74-75.

Pagan Sailors Convert, While the Prophet Runs Away

[The sailors'] reverence for Yahweh is expressed in precisely the same terms that described their fear of the storm: 'and the men feared YHWH with a great fear' (Jon. 1:16). This can hardly be something less than whole-hearted conversion to Yahweh: as already noted, the phrase 'to fear/revere God' in the OT consistently describes those who have and maintain a healthy relationship with Yahweh.

--Daniel C. Timmer, A Gracious and Compassionate God: Mission, Salvation and Spirituality in the Book of Jonah (New Studies in Biblical Theology; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 73.

Doubting Jonah's Motives

Jonah's confession in 4:2-3 that his attitude toward Nineveh has been consistent from the beginning gives us good grounds to doubt that an altruistic motive was uppermost in Jonah's decision to go overboard.

--Daniel C. Timmer, A Gracious and Compassionate God: Mission, Salvation and Spirituality in the Book of Jonah (New Studies in Biblical Theology; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 72.

Trusting God for Who He Is, Not for What He Can Give

[The sailors] recognize Yahweh as God before he has shown that he will not hold them guilty for Jonah's death, and before the storm has abated. Because their religious transformation is evident before they derive any demonstrable benefit from it, it cannot be motivated by pragmatism or self-preservation. In short, they revere Yahweh for who he is, not for what he can give them.

--Daniel C. Timmer, A Gracious and Compassionate God: Mission, Salvation and Spirituality in the Book of Jonah (New Studies in Biblical Theology; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 72.

Jonah the Unrepentant Prophet

Nowhere in this chapter [Jonah 1], or anywhere else in Jonah for that matter, are we told that he repented of his disobedience, so his eventual trek to Nineveh should not be taken as irrefutable evidence that he has fully submitted himself to God's call.

--Daniel C. Timmer, A Gracious and Compassionate God: Mission, Salvation and Spirituality in the Book of Jonah (New Studies in Biblical Theology; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 71.

Jonah the Hebrew

Since Jonah identifies himself first ethnically, then religiously, we may infer that his ethnicity is foremost in his self-identity, though it is clearly of no relevance to the sailors.

--Daniel C. Timmer, A Gracious and Compassionate God: Mission, Salvation and Spirituality in the Book of Jonah (New Studies in Biblical Theology; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 70.