Prophet
Jonah
Jonah is the fifth of the twelve minor prophets.
His exit from the belly of a large fish is interpreted as a foreshadowing of the Lord's Resurrection.
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Jonah the Prophet
We are faced with a historical figure, a story that wants to remind the Jews (who have returned to Jerusalem from exile) to be universal, because Yahweh is a God of mercy for all men. Beyond the metaphorical language, the message of the book of Jonah intends to support the universalistic opening that was taking place in some circles of post-exilic Judaism, especially in the context of the Jewish diaspora. If, on the one hand, there was no lack of currents inclined to the closing of Judaism as a protection against any ideological infiltration from the outside, well testified by the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, on the other hand there was a need for a missionary commitment. towards the Gentiles.
Jonah, "Gift of God", is commanded by the Lord to go and preach in Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, a great city, offering the Ninevites the opportunity to be reconciled with God. Jonah instead flees to Tarsis by ship, because he does not it seemed right to him that God should be able to do grace to those barbarians, even if they repented. But the ship was hit by a storm and was in danger of sinking due to the violence of the waves. Jonah was therefore forced to reveal to his traveling companions that the fault of the divine wrath was his, because he had refused to obey JHWH: in order for the ship to be spared from the rush of the storm, he must be thrown into the sea.
And so it was done, but a whale swallowed him. From the belly of the whale, where he stayed for three days and three nights, Jonah prayed to God with intense prayer and God answered him, ordering the whale to vomit Jonah onto the beach.
The Lord then returned to talk with Jonah, sending him again on a mission to preach to the Ninevites. This time the prophet obeyed and went to Nineveh, which was so extensive that it took him three days to travel it; in those three days Jonah vigorously preached a message inviting the inhabitants to draw near to God and to be converted. Against all odds, they believed him, they proclaimed a fast, dressed in sackcloth, and God decided to spare the city. But Jonah, was not satisfied with divine forgiveness, also wanted a punishment for Nineveh, for that people who ruled with tyranny and violence and who had stained themselves with horrendous atrocities. Thus, in chapter 3, we find Jonah sitting in front of the city asking God to make him die.
The three days of the pilgrimage mission in Nineveh lead back to the Book of Exodus, to the "three-day journey" that it took to leave Egypt, make a pilgrimage in the desert and offer sacrifices to the Lord.
(Exodus 5,3).
But also for the three days of walking after the crossing of the Red Sea, necessary for the chosen people to reach Mara (Exodus 15:23), the place where God's Mercy was manifested.
Jonah is truly twisted, problematic, fanatic, devoid of any spirit of universality. and God "plays" with him. He was supposed to go to Nineveh, preach conversion and the love of God and instead he prefers to flee in the opposite direction. In vv. 3-4 of Chapter 4 God seems to punish him and when Jonah, believing he is on a par with the great prophets, asks to die, he sees instead his life spared and his pilgrimage taken as a model: "But there will be no sign to her given, if not the sign of Jonah the prophet. As in fact Jonah remained three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, so the Son of man will remain three days and three nights in the heart of the earth".
(Mt 12,39-40).
Jonah is the failed, petty prophet, but God makes use of him, of this humanity of his: it is precisely in this human poverty that God's glory is manifested. And, remaining on the level of symbolic and universal interpretation, it is paradoxical how it is It was Jonah himself who proposed to be thrown into the sea and how this sacrifice of his bears an unexpected fruit: conversion and salvation for all the men of the crew! It is evident that it is God who accomplishes the sign of Jonah; the sea, the whale represented for the Jews the powers of evil and sin; the Almighty enters the dark and apparently invincible womb of this evil and this sin. Jonah also becomes the sign of the paschal mystery, of Christ who "descends" into death to be "exalted", to "ascend" and thus forever manifest God's love and mercy for all men. It is the greatest sign in history.
