Nowell's The Book Of Jonah

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The Book of Jonah is a story centered around the concept of disobedience. This book starts off in the most shocking way by showing the prophet Jonah disobeying God’s commands. The first instance of disobedience is shown when god commands Jonah to head to Nineveh in order to preach against their ideals, instead Jonah choses to flee, he heads to Joppa and boards a ship heading to Tarshish. Nowell points out in his biblical commentary Jonah, Tobit, Judith how ludicrous this situation was by citing Jonah 1:9 where Jonah expresses his fear of God because He made both “the sea and the dry land” (“JONAH’S DISOBEDIENCE AND FLIGHT”). God retaliates by sending a storm that terrorizes the sailors and forces them to throw Jonah off the boat. This highlights …show more content…

The second book of Jonah starts off almost as shockingly as the first, its starts with Jonah having been thrown overboard, being swallowed by a large fish. It is only after “3 days and 3 nights” (“JONAH’S PRAYER”) that he finally decides to pray to God. It seems odd to me that Jonah chose a psalm of Thanksgiving, something that is typically not associated with individual suffering, but the suffering of a larger group of people. Nowell also pointed out the use of the word “sheol” meaning a “grave”, or “a place of stillness” (“JONAH’S PRAYER”) The use of this word could be a subtle way of insinuating resurrection. It would be reasonable to assume that the author of Jonah was implying such by word …show more content…

In book four of Jonah we see him finally arrive at Nineveh and start his preaching. This gives the reader a huge sense of irony, because dispite Jonah hating the Ninevites he is the reason the whole city is saved by his teachings, and the population is spared gods wrath. Nowell points out that God is merciful to Jonah protecting him against the hot sun, not allowing him to die in the belly of a fish (JONAH’S ANGER AND GOD’S REPROOF), but despite this Jonah finds ways to stay angry at the Lord. God destroyed Jonah’s hut with powerful wind, and send a worm to eat away the plant that was protecting him from the sun (Jonah 4), that shows just how merciful God can be, but it also shows that God will punish us for our

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