Jonah And Mission: Missiological Dichotomy, Biblical Theology, And The “Via Tertia”

By Daniel C. Timmer

[Daniel C. Timmer is Professor of Biblical Studies at FAREL, Faculté de théologie réformée in Montreal, Quebec, and Visiting Professor of Biblical Studies at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Mich.]

Despite its small size the book of Jonah continues to attract scholarly interest, not least by virtue of its import for missiology.[1] The integration of the book’s message in a coherent biblical theology of mission, however, has proven particularly vexing for theologians. Thus, while a recent biblical theology of mission pointedly denies that the prophet Jonah is “presented as a missionary whose preaching to Nineveh … is intended to serve as a paradigm for Israel’s outreach to the nations,” another recent monograph on OT mission counters that “all expostulations against Jonah being a missionary book are vain in light of the force of the questions...at the end of the book.”[2]

These divergent interpretations hint at some thorny questions that face interpreters of Jonah. If the book really does advocate missionary activity on the part of OT Israel, what is one to make of the clear transition in the NT from mission tightly focused on Jews to mission that explicitly includes the Gentiles after Pentecost? And why did God not chide OT Israel for her passivity in the face of that task? On the other hand, how can claims that the book in no way inculcates a missionary disposition on Israel’s part be sustained when the book so effectively disabuses the nation of her supposed spiritual superiority and relishes the (surprising?) conversion of non-Israelites to faith in Yahweh? Is the book of Jonah as much a rogue as its main character, playing havoc with the theological expectations of the canonical reader?

This article suggests that a re-examination of Jonah’s missiology will show that a via tertia exists between these two extremes, one that is consistent both with a careful reading of Jonah by itself and with a redemptive-historical approach to biblical mission.[3] While further study must be done to fully integrate Jonah’s teaching on mission with the rest of the OT, this study’s findings can refine and deepen a coherent canonical understanding of the subject.[4]

I. Mission in the Old Testament

God’s plan of redemption has, by his grace, always been global in scope. This is consistently, albeit differently, reflected in the Noahic, Abrahamic, and Sinai covenants. Patrick D. Miller has made a good case for seeing the Noahic covenant as establishing the global stage on which God’s redemptive actions will be realized.[5] Even when God’s promises attach to Abram in Gen 12, they explicitly include in their scope “all the families of the earth” (Gen 12:3).[6] Likewise the Sinai covenant, though it continues the particularism of the covenant with Abram, includes the nations in the fundamental calling of Israel in Exod 19:4–6.[7]

In all of these covenantal arrangements, especially that of Sinai, God’s people were called to maintain an exemplary and attracting posture vis-à-vis the nations around them: this was a centripetal missiology (Exod 19:5–6; Deut 4:6; 28:9–10).[8] This approach dominated early Israel’s practice and remained determinative well into the period of the divided monarchy. Rahab, Ruth, Naaman, the Queen of Sheba, and others came to Israel after hearing of, or seeing, God’s actions on her behalf.

But that is not the whole picture. There are also, to speak for the moment only of the Psalter, numerous passages which command the proactive proclamation of Yahweh’s deeds among the nations (i.e., centrifugal mission).[9] Note, for example, how in Ps 96 Israel is commanded, with the imperatives of ספר(“recount,” v. 3, Piel) andאמר (“tell,” v. 10, Qal), to spread the news of God’s work among the nations. Additionally, there are psalms which express the desire that the nations should hear of Yahweh’s works but which stop short of inculcating the cross-cultural transfer of that message.[10] While the psalms that address themselves to the nations likely never reached that “intended” audience, there is sufficient material in the Psalms to make the book’s centrifugal missionary element incontrovertible.

To mention briefly one further aspect of OT Israel’s relation to the nations that complicates the picture, Israel occasionally functioned as the instrument of God’s judgment (esp. in the conquest of Canaan).[11] Later one finds Jeremiah summoning the nations to assemble for (eschatological) judgment (50:2; likewise Amos 3:9, etc.), a theme that reappears throughout the prophets so frequently that the term “the nations” must have more than one meaning in the OT. At times it signifies those who embody opposition to God’s purposes (and frequently, by consequence, to his people) while at other times the nations are the designated recipients of the message of Yahweh’s salvific deeds. Thus, conclusions like that of Schnabel, who states that Israel’s relationship to the surrounding nations can best be described as “tolerant reserve” though Israel indeed “welcomes foreigners when they turn to YHWH,”[12] may need to integrate the semantic complexity of the “nations” in determining how Israel was to relate to them. In light of this complexity, at this point we will conclude preliminarily that Israel was in a complex relationship with the nations: she could be attracting them to Yahweh through a sort of missionary proclamation, or causing them to flee from her (and thus from Yahweh) in her military exploits against them. While it is true that such a presentation resists easy domestication in a monolithic OT missiology, both these aspects must be dealt with when defining the role of OT Israel vis-à-vis the nations. In the remainder of this article we will first explore how the book of Jonah describes this role, then investigate some theological and historical avenues for integrating Jonah into a biblical theology of mission.

II. Missiological Material in Jonah

The missiological material in Jonah highlighted here treats the relation of the prophet Jonah to the Gentile sailors (ch. 1), the emphases of Jonah’s prayer (ch. 2), the response of the Ninevites to Jonah’s message (ch. 3), and Jonah’s response to God’s rescinded judgment on the Ninevites (ch. 4). Identifying the book’s author (or at least the “author” of the prayer in ch. 2) as the prophet who spoke during the reign of Jeroboam II (782–753 B.C.) seems fairly certain, not least because of the common interest in national Israel.[13] This places the narrative squarely in the period of Israel’s political resurgence (made possible by Assyria’s concurrent weakness) and her grave spiritual decline, as witnessed by the early writing prophets.[14] Not least for the strong historical roots of both author and book, here we will assume the historicity of the events that the book narrates, and take Jonah’s genre to be that of didactic history.[15]

1. Chapter One

The book of Jonah opens with the surprising and ironic picture of the prophet attempting to flee from Yahweh’s word and presence (note the repetition of מלפני יהוה, “from the presence of YHWH,” in 1:3). Verse four reinforces the impression that Jonah’s behavior is ridiculous by inverting the normal Hebrew verb-subject-object word order to place Yahweh at the head of the clause and thus “one step ahead” of Jonah. The narrative then moves to the main theme of chapter one, a multifaceted contrast of Jonah and the sailors. This begins in 1:5, where the heathen sailors are painfully aware of their plight while Jonah is immersed in stupefying sleep and so knows neither their danger nor his own. By virtue of the book’s concern with Yahweh’s character and its import for Israel and the nations, there is a sharp contrast between his involvement with Nineveh (as evinced by his sending Jonah) and Jonah’s complete withdrawal from, and consequent ignorance of, the sailors’ lives.[16] And despite the captain’s plea, we get the impression from 1:6 that Jonah remained silent: at least no speech is attributed to him at this point. It is only the casting of lots that brings Jonah out into the open, and the sailors pepper him with questions in an effort to divine his connection with their precarious situation.

With Jonah’s declaration that he is a Hebrew and that he fears Yahweh, maker of heaven and earth, Yahweh is made foremost in the characters’ minds.[17] With this self-description Jonah also sets himself off from the non-Israelites, even as his creation language articulates the fundamental fact that makes humanity equal before God.[18] Upon hearing of Yahweh, the fear of the sailors increases ( וייראו האנשׁים יראה גדולה את־יהוה, “and the men feared with a great fear,” a cognate verb-object pair with an additional adjective). The source of their fear is not made explicit; they had already suspected that a god had been offended so Jonah’s declaration would not have surprised them.[19]

While Jonah’s willingness to sacrifice his life in order to save the sailors is laudable, the heathen sailors are no less careful to make every attempt to save his life (1:13). But the growing storm, an example of the book’s penchant for “growing” phrases, renders this laudable effort unsuccessful.[20] With no other option, the sailors then pray to Yahweh, demonstrating their newfound conviction that he really is as Jonah has described him. Their prayer requests freedom from guilt for effectively participating in a human’s death without a trial, and recognizes Yahweh’s sovereignty over the men, the sea, and the storm. Remarkably, these are convictions that Jonah never expresses. No less significantly, the sailors’ statements are cast in words that echo Pss 115:3 and 135:6, as Wolff points out: “The sentence in Psalm 135:6 is explicitly related to Yahweh’s free disposal over the sea.... In both psalms, the confession of faith contrasts Yahweh with other, impotent gods (135:5) and idols (115:4–7).”[21]

Chapter one closes by describing the sailors’ faith. First, their reverence for Yahweh is expressed in precisely the same terms that described their fear of the storm as a sign of Yahweh’s displeasure (וייראו האנשׁים יראה גדולה את־יהוה , “and the men feared YHWH with a great fear.”)[22] This is almost certainly whole-hearted conversion to Yahweh: Wolff reminds us that the phrase “to fear God” “describes a living relationship of obedience and trust; cf. Gen. 22:12; Ex. 20:20; Prov. 1:7; Ps. 111:10.”[23] The sailors’ offering of sacrifices and vows in the same verse confirms this interpretation, indicating the permanent commitment to Yahweh that the OT elsewhere associates with authentic Yahwism (Ps 50:14; Isa 19:21).[24] This brings the contrast between Jonah and the sailors to its peak: “Der Erzähler stellt dem hebräischen Propheten, der sich Gottes Wort verschließt, Nichtisraeliten gegenüber, die sich dem Gott Israels im Gebet öffnen, seine Rechts-und Kultterminologie zu der ihren machen (v. 14) und schließlich zu Teilnehmern am Kultgeschehen werden (v. 16).”[25] Ironically, Jonah’s anti-missionary activity has resulted in the conversion of non-Israelites, preparing the reader for the shocking contrast between Jonah and God that comes fully into view in chapter four.

2. Chapter Two

The second chapter of Jonah takes us under the waves to witness Jonah’s deliverance. The missiological elements in this chapter are wrapped up in the references to the temple and Jonah’s closing statement that “deliverance comes from Yahweh.” Against the immediate backdrop of formerly unbelieving Gentile sailors enacting their faith in Yahweh via cultic observances, the two references to the temple in this chapter merit notice. The Jerusalem temple played an important role in establishing the centripetal nature of Israel’s mission during the OT period. As long as it stood, it was the privileged locus of true worship.[26] Jonah clearly espouses this view in his prayer, with his eye turned expectantly toward the God who has located his presence in Jerusalem and with confidence that his prayer has been heard. It is important to note that Yahweh’s saving power is not confined to the temple, but can deliver Jonah in his unreachable position. Jonah’s deliverance shows that God saves beyond the geographical limits of Israel, and Jonah’s life depends on it!

The fact that Jonah’s sincerity or transparency in this prayer can certainly be questioned serves to underline the truth that God shows mercy toward those who do not deserve it. Jonah’s declaration in 2:8 [ET 2:9] that “those who regard vain idols forsake their faithfulness” must be read together with what follows because of the waw which begins 2:9 [ET 2:10]. Since the heathen sailors are prominent in the prior context and the Ninevites in the subsequent context, it is difficult to see how those who “forsake the covenant faithfulness which comes to them” could refer to Israelites here. Jonah thus sets himself up as a faithful worshiper who enjoys Yahweh’s covenant faithfulness; those who worship false gods have no hope of experiencing this divine response.[27]

Considered abstractly, the theological verbiage of Jonah’s prayer is orthodox. But he has assumed that his relationship with God is healthy while that of the sailors is non-existent (recall the contrast in 2:8). The narrative has anticipated this ignorance and superciliousness by revealing to the reader that the sailors did not remain idol worshipers, which Jonah did not know (and likely would have had difficulty believing). Indeed, when Jonah becomes an eyewitness of this grace in action in chapters three and four, he shows without any ambiguity how malformed his non-missionary theology is. Still, the God who has put his name in Jerusalem is indiscriminately gracious, and he exercises his grace wherever he wishes, truths which chapter three deploys in an unprecedented way.

3. Chapter Three

Having been delivered by Yahweh, Jonah is again called to bring the divine word to Nineveh.[28] The period during which Jonah was to do so was an unusually trying one for Assyria, not merely because of weak government and numerous domestic revolts but especially due to a number of foreboding disasters.[29] The Assyrian Eponym List records famines, earthquakes, and an eclipse during this time, which were not only deleterious (eclipses excepted) but functioned as negative portents of the greatest significance within Assyrian religion.[30] This state of affairs would have made both ruler and subjects unusually attuned to the message of a visiting prophet, as the book bears out. The importance of the effect of Jonah’s message for the book’s missiology is hard to overstate. First, the description of the Ninevites’ response to Jonah’s preaching with the Hifil of אמן (“believe”) with the preposition ב (“in”) and God as the grammatical object is quite significant. While frequently used in the Pentateuch to describe the response that Israel should have toward God after seeing his miraculous works on her behalf, the phrase also describes a believing response to Yahweh’s word.[31] But while its use with Abraham is particularly important, saving belief in Yahweh is not the only possible meaning of the phrase, as 2 Chron 20:20 makes clear.[32] But even if the phrase is taken in its most general sense, the fact remains that Nineveh believed in God in such a way that she thoroughly repented from her sin.

Second, the book establishes this far-reaching reaction to God’s word in several ways. The whole city fasts, and everyone dons sackcloth. The king’s reaction by itself describes two series of movements, both of which include contrasts: he arises from his throne to sit down in ashes, and lays aside his royal regalia to dress himself in sackcloth. Further, binding king and people together, he issues a decree whose limits extend still further to include the city’s cattle, a seemingly strange practice that nonetheless is historically well attested.[33] Finally, he enjoins a moral transformation by which the Ninevites will turn from a thoroughly sinful lifestyle (violence in particular characterized Neo-Assyria) to one of probity. God’s evaluation of their repentance in 3:10 as a real “turning from their wicked way” also makes clear that his word had the intended effect.

Even if Nineveh’s response to Jonah’s message included significant repentance but stopped short of full faith in Yahweh, as seems to be the case, it is difficult to imagine an account better calculated to overthrow the assumption that heathens could not or would not respond to God’s word. It simultaneously condemns Israel’s lack of repentance in an unprecedented way: “By their response to a prophetic warning, however ephemeral it may have been, the Ninevites put hard-hearted Israel to shame.”[34] Moreover, even a response so qualified met with a demonstration of God’s mercy that surely would have shocked many Israelites of Jonah’s day. While a similar picture was painted with only a few characters in chapter one, here 120,000 people and their cattle form an immense demonstration of the far-reaching mercy of God. Nineveh, as incredible as it seemed to Jonah, had turned from her wickedness and been spared.

The king’s final words are remarkable in light of what Jonah will reveal about himself in the next chapter. From whatever preaching Jonah did, the king of Nineveh has gathered enough of God’s true identity not only to believe in him and trust his mercy, but to recognize God’s sovereignty despite his own predicament. And, in his sovereign mercy, Yahweh does precisely what the repentant Ninevites hoped, sparing them from destruction.[35]

4. Chapter Four

The first few verses of chapter four put the finishing touches on the book’s characterization of Jonah and Yahweh, with the prophet “extremely angry” or “absolutely furious” for God’s having spared Nineveh.[36] Revealingly, we are told that Jonah’s aversion to non-Israelites, and to seeing God’s mercy extended to them, was already fomenting as soon as the call of 1:1 came to him.

The description Jonah gives of the God whose recent actions he finds offensive first came to expression, biblically speaking, in Exod 34:6–7, a passage preeminent in the OT as a source of ongoing reflection on Yahweh’s character.[37] Its historical context is the blatant fracture of the recently concluded Sinai covenant by Israel’s apostasy and idolatry in constructing and worshiping the golden calf. Yahweh, deeming the covenant relationship terminated (note his distancing of himself from the people by attributing the exodus to Moses, Exod 32:7), threatens to annihilate Israel and to continue his purposes through Moses. Moses intercedes passionately and selflessly on Israel’s behalf, preventing the “immediate and total destruction of the Israelites,” but at that point “we are very far from any kind of resolution at this point in the story.”[38] Subsequently Moses’ intercession deals with the absence of divine presence that is a consequence of Israel’s sin, and Exod 34:6–7 comes just before his final petition that sees the covenant reinstated (and divine presence among Israel once again made possible).[39]

The problems of a broken covenant and rescinded divine presence are thus closely related to this unparalleled description of Yahweh’s character. Notably, the order and selection of divine attributes in Exod 34 exhibits differences with the descriptions of Yahweh earlier in Exodus: there is “a decisive shift from an emphasis on divine jealousy to an emphasis on divine mercy, grace, and loyalty… . [But] divine justice is still a fundamental part of YHWH’s attributes.”[40] Further, this description of Yahweh’s person, as expressed in Exod 34 and later echoed elsewhere in Scripture, does not include “any limiting element which would confine Yahweh’s behavior to Israel.”[41] On the contrary, the contextual reference to the covenant with Abraham suggests otherwise.

When taken up by Jonah, then, the self-revelation of Yahweh in Exod 34 carries with it connotations of his faithfulness to Israel as well as his freedom in choosing the objects of his grace. And if the echo of Exod 32–34 were not sufficient to show the centrality of mercy, grace, patience, and faithfulness in God’s character, Jonah adds the fact (drawing on what he has just seen) that Yahweh “relented concerning the threat” he has made: ונחם על־חרעה. This was exactly what God had done in Exod 32, sparing Israel simply because of his mercy and grace.[42]

It is precisely the exercise of these glorious, life-giving attributes of God toward Nineveh that has a killing effect on Jonah ( Jonah 4:3).[43] As Simon puts it, here “he is praying for death because the Lord’s attributes—so frequently stated to praise him—are loathsome to the prophet, and his unwilling participation in their application has deprived his life of meaning.”[44] The fact that Jonah had felt this way since the word of the Lord came to him is a narrative strand that is raised to prominence here in the closing chapter, and with it the book portrays with immense power the deviant nature of Jonah’s attitudes and beliefs. He is utterly and profoundly opposed not only to Yahweh’s spreading his grace beyond Israel’s borders, but to Yahweh’s character itself. For Jonah, a happy life is not possible with such a God.

Fittingly, it is Yahweh who has the last word on the issues that Jonah raises, especially on his intolerance of the God who shows mercy to non-Israelites. Jonah had expressed himself in thirty-nine words in 4:2–3, and Yahweh employs precisely the same number of words in 4:10–11 to refute the prophet’s tortured reasoning.[45] Yahweh begins by reminding Jonah of the pity he had for the recently withered gourd, and in 4:11 establishes the propriety of his own pity for Nineveh, whose value far exceeds that of the gourd.[46] The use of the same verbal root-preposition pair (חוס על, “have pity on”) to describe Jonah’s sentiments for the plant and Yahweh’s compassion for Nineveh highlights the absurdity of Jonah’s behavior and belief. In a word, Jonah is not able to accord God the sovereignty to pour out his grace on his creatures without discrimination.[47] This is very closely connected with another fault: 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. Jonah’s theology and practice are both fatally flawed, and as in chapter two only God can save the prophet from the consequences. But the book closes (with great rhetorical effect) without revealing to the reader Jonah’s response to God’s corrective rebuttal.

III. Jonah’s Theology of Mission

From what has been said above, it is sufficiently clear that the book of Jonah shows that God’s saving and transforming grace does, even in the OT period, extend beyond Israel’s national and ethnic borders. The book condemns an attitude of Israelite superiority and even establishes that it is possible for those who number themselves among God’s people to be diametrically opposed to such indiscriminate grace, and thus hardly his followers. Such people are contrasted with the sailors (and, less directly, with the Ninevites) who, as outsiders to Israel’s covenant, nevertheless come to know and worship the God of the covenant.

And what is the book’s illocutive intent, specifically with regard to the posture of its readers toward Gentiles?[48] It is difficult to argue from Jonah’s prophetic call to go to Nineveh that a general call for all Israel as a nation to go to the Gentiles is implied, for this overlooks the specific call and commission that are integral parts of Israelite prophetism. But the divine character which Israel is often commanded to imitate (Lev 19:2; Deut 8:6) clearly drives Yahweh’s sending of the prophet to Nineveh and his response to the city’s repentance. This suggests that this little book sounded an early note of change vis-à-vis Israel’s missionary attitudes and practices. While not expressly commanding national Israel to go among the nations and witness to God’s name, and while showing that Gentile response to God’s word may fall short of a holistic “fear of the LORD” (as was often the case in Israel), it certainly encourages Israelites to include such activity under the concept of imitatio Dei.[49]

A variety of elements show the ethical aspect of the imitatio Dei in Jonah to be central to the book’s message. First, 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. Conversely, Yahweh demonstrates patience and tolerance toward Jonah, and the sailors do all they can to preserve Jonah’s life. In this way both Yahweh and the sailors are sharply contrasted with Jonah, directing the reader away from affinity with Jonah toward appreciation and emulation of the sailors and, especially, of Yahweh. Second, the book’s use of imitatio Dei to apply its message to Israel accords well with the general prophetic manner of addressing Israel: “The prophets saw it as the duty of the people to embody in their daily lives the very character of the God whom they worshipped.”[50] Third, God’s self-description in Exod 34:6–7, which he used to chide Jonah, is made the pattern for human behavior in Ps 112:4, something all the more striking given the way that nearly every divine attribute ascribed to God in Ps 111 is reflected in the God-fearer of Ps 112. Last, the closing comparison between Jonah’s pity for the gourd and Yahweh’s pity for Nineveh is surely critical of Jonah’s misplaced compassion, and gives Nineveh’s size and ignorance as reasons for showing mercy to it.[51] Imitation of God’s character was fundamental to the OT ethic in general, and Jonah (within the limits its genre imposes) makes use of the concept in moving from the characters’ locutions to its own illocutions designed to produce change in the reader, particularly in bringing Yahweh’s word, and showing his compassion, to Gentiles.

IV. Some Objections

The arguments made above can be further refined by considering elements from contemporary discussion of Jonah that see it as advancing something less than centrifugal mission. First, it may be urged that imitatio Dei inculcated Israel’s centripetal mission early in the OT when Yahweh had already shown his commitment to bless Israelites and Gentiles alike (Gen 12; cf. Deut 4:5–8). Thus God’s intention that Israel passively attract other nations to him and his truth was already an expression of his character. In fact, unless God changes his character (or at least his disposition), imitation of him will mean that his followers maintain a centripetal missionary strategy.

This objection contains several valid points: Israel’s original missionary strategy was indeed centripetal, and, consequently, there must be clear grounds for determining that at some point in the OT this strategy was modified or laid aside. But it must be recognized that God’s bringing his word to Nineveh constitutes just such an indication of appreciable advance in the accomplishment of redemption. The seeds for such an advance lie, tellingly, in the progressive pattern for God’s working through Abraham and his seed established in Gen 12. Thus, unless it can be shown that the divine mission to Nineveh was not in tension with a centripetal missiology, the onus lies on those who argue that the prior, restrictive position toward the nations should remain intact. It seems more plausible, particularly in light of the imminent dispersion of Israel by Assyria and the worsening disobedience of Israel that rendered her testimony to the Gentiles increasingly ineffective, that Jonah is presenting an early argument for a shift in Israel’s involvement with the nations around her.[52]

Second, an argument for an exclusively centripetal missiology in the OT may note that from a NT perspective there are a number of redemptive-historical advances that drive the shift from centripetal to centrifugal mission, so that an explicit centrifugal component in Jonah creates no small dissonance in an otherwise clearly established pattern of centripetal mission until Pentecost, and a centrifugal one only later.[53] One could add to this the fact that as late in redemptive history as Jesus’ public ministry, Israel’s privileged status as God’s people meant that the gospel was first brought to her, and only later to the Gentiles (among many other texts, note esp. Matt 15:24 || Mark 7:27).[54]

In responding to this objection, care is necessary to avoid reverting to the dichotomies that this study has surveyed. Schnabel’s nuanced placement of Jonah’s message in the context of the OT points in the right direction: “The Old Testament does not envisage a practical, specific sending of the community of Israel to convert other nations to the worship of YHWH.”[55] But further precision is necessary, and one can deny a full-orbed centrifugal missiology in Jonah (and, indeed, until after Pentecost) without restricting eighth-century Israel to a purely passive centripetal mission. The majority of interpreters of Jonah seem to adopt one or the other of these positions, with the result that their interpretations have remained at loggerheads. This may derive in part from the lack of commonly accepted terminology for a missionary posture in which individual Israelites are to emulate Yahweh in showing his mercy to the surrounding nations in any possible way (including the transmission of his word, the proclamation of his saving deeds, and the presentation of his gracious character) while living within the other categories of the Sinai covenant that made a fully centrifugal missionary strategy impossible (worship centralized in the temple, holiness of the land, restriction of special divine presence to the temple, etc.).

V. Jonah’s Missiology in Biblical Theology

The way forward in the discussion of Jonah’s theology of mission thus requires the use of more precise terminology than the centripetal-centrifugal opposition.[56] If this study’s conclusions are accurate in the main, the need for new terminology derives from the fact that Jonah’s missiology cannot be made to fit neatly into either one of the traditional categories. If scholarly vocabulary can adopt a term like “transitional,” the validity of the centripetal and centrifugal categories is preserved while needed precision is added.

A “transitional” missiology describes how the book of Jonah established, toward the end of Israel’s divided monarchy, the legitimacy and desirability of individual Israelites bringing Yahweh’s word to non-Israelites outside their borders.[57] What is more, the book calls Israel to emulate Yahweh’s display of limitless, gracious compassion in their interaction with Gentiles, in both proclamation and practice. While recognition of a transitional missiology in the OT requires the relinquishing of a biblical-theological missiology neatly delineated by the great redemptive-historical epochs of old and new covenants, I have tried to establish that Jonah gives us sufficient warrant for doing so, as do other parts of the OT.

Looking back on the earlier portions of the OT, Jonah reflects an awareness that Israel’s role among the nations is about to change. This was due principally to the meteoric expansion of Neo-Assyrian power near the end of the eighth century. Assyria first elicited voluntary vassalship on Israel’s part during the reign of Menahem, then took progressively more severe measures with her vassal until Israel was absorbed into Assyria, a process that ended in some sense in 722. By means of several deportations spanning 734–716 B.C., Israelites were placed in a variety of Assyrian provinces and in widely varying social settings (2 Kgs 17:6; 18:11). Extant Assyrian records show that some Israelite deportees were conscripted into Assyria’s army, others were placed in important cities near the empire’s core (Halah and Gozan), and still others were unfortunate enough to find themselves in the recently conquered “cities of the Medes,” effectively an appointment to guard Assyria’s extreme eastern front which had very recently been the site of revolts.[58] In such situations, however, there was evidently no compulsion on the part of the empire for Israelites to adopt Assyrian deities (though there was surely pressure to adapt oneself to the lifestyles of the other deportee communities), so that Israel was free to practice Yahwism as far as that was possible in such circumstances.[59] An Israelite population dispersed far and wide across the Assyrian empire manifestly lacked the political, religious, and corporate dimensions necessary to her role as a centripetal missionary force: indeed, the exile would render centripetal mission impossible. The book of Jonah would have helped prepare Israelites for this radically new situation.

Looking toward the NT, Jonah also anticipated and adumbrated the breaking down of the wall between Jew and Gentile and the commissioning of the church to practice worldwide centrifugal mission. The comprehensive nature of the calling explicitly laid on the church, contrasted with the less clear, less corporate nature of the call sounded by Jonah, establishes the missiological differences between Jonah and the post-Pentecost era. But while the appearance of outgoing mission as a primary corporate obligation of God’s people in the NT is bound up with other redemptive-historical advances, there are (not untypically) hints of such advances in both revelation and the accomplishment of redemption prior to that turning point.

VI. Conclusion

From its mediating position between the early OT’s centripetal mission and the NT’s centrifugal strategy, the book of Jonah has a great deal to say concerning missiology and beyond.[60] The global scope of God’s benevolence is clearly evident in the fact that “the book of Jonah ... has a special concern to show God’s love for the outsiders, the people of the world—and even for their cattle!”[61] Christians who approach Jonah in light of God’s definitive act of self-revelation and redemption in Jesus Christ will also find in it a clear testimony to the grace that God has extended to them, a clear anticipation of Christ’s call to bring his gospel to the ends of the earth, and strong encouragement that no one lies outside the reach of God’s grace.

Notes

1. See Bryan D. Estelle, Salvation Through Judgment and Mercy: The Gospel According to Jonah (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2005); Howard Peskett and Vinoth Ramachandra, The Message of Mission (The Bible Speaks Today; Leicester, U.K.: InterVarsity, 2003); Karel Steenbrink, “Jonah: From a Prophetic Mission in Reverse to Inter-Religious Dialogue,” International Review of Mission 91 (2002): 41-51; Michael E. W. Thompson, “The Mission of Jonah,” ExpTim 105 (1994): 233-36; Ajith Fernando, “Should I Not Be Concerned: Exposition of the Book of Jonah,” in Urban Mission: God’s Concern for the City (ed. John E. Kyle; Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1988), 25–68.
2. Andreas J. Köstenberger and Peter T. O’Brien, Salvation to the Ends of the Earth: A Biblical Theology of Mission (New Studies in Biblical Theology 11; Leicester: Apollos; Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity, 2001), 45; Walter C. Kaiser Jr., Mission in the Old Testament: Israel as a Light to the Nations (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 70. Eckhard Schnabel’s monumental new work, Early Christian Mission (2 vols.; Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2004), follows Köstenberger and O’Brien in regard to Jonah (see Early Christian Mission, 86–87). Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2006), lays out a canonical hermeneutic in much the same direction as Kaiser’s thesis.
3. I use the term “redemptive history” to describe the hermeneutical vantage point that explores the progressive accomplishment of God’s redemptive purposes across history. I assume that this progression is organic, and so I use “biblical theology” in a way different from most who consider themselves to be in the line of J. P. Gabler (e.g., Krister Stendahl). See further Brian S. Rosner, “Biblical Theology,” in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology (ed. T. Desmond Alexander and Brian S. Rosner; Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2000), 3–11.
4. For mission elsewhere in the OT, see Christopher J. H. Wright, “The Old Testament and Christian Mission,” Evangel 14 (1996): 37-43; G. O. Abe, “The Community of God and Its Mission in the Old Testament,” Africa Theological Journal 17 (1988): 150-61; Curt Chanda, “His Name is Wonderful: The Significance of God’s Name in the Old Testament for Mission,” International Journal of Frontier Missions 9 (1992): 125-30; Lucien Legrand, Le Dieu qui vient: La mission dans la Bible (Paris: Desclée, 1988). How Jonah and the rest of the OT teaching on mission was interpreted and applied in the post-exilic and intertestamental periods lies outside the scope of this article; see the varied perspectives of Robert Goldenberg, The Nations That Know Thee Not: Ancient Jewish Attitudes toward Other Religions (Reappraisals in Jewish Social and Intellectual History; New York: New York University Press, 1998); Amy-Jill Levine and Richard L. Pervo, eds., Jewish Proselytism (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1997); and Scot McKnight, A Light Among the Gentiles: Jewish Missionary Activity in the Second Temple Period (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991).
5. Patrick D. Miller, “Creation and Covenant,” in Biblical Theology: Problems and Perspectives (ed. Stephen J. Kraftchick, Charles D. Myers, and Ben C. Ollenburger; Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), 155–68. See also the insightful comments of Katharine J. Dell on the covenant with Noah in her “Covenant and Creation in Relationship,” in Covenant as Context: Essays in Honour of E. W. Nicholson (ed. Andrew D. H. Mayes and Robert B. Salters; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 111–33; also Wright, The Mission of God, esp. 191–264, for the role of Gen 12:1–3 in biblical mission
6. Eckhard J. Schnabel, “Israel, the People of God, and the Nations,” JETS 45 (2002): 35-57, esp. 35–36.
7. The way in which it does so is complex, however; see John Arthur Davies, A Royal Priesthood: Literary and Intertextual Perspectives on an Image of Israel in Exodus 19:6 ( JSOTSup 395; London: T&T Clark, 2004), for a thorough treatment of the passage.
8. “The nation of Israel [in the OT] witnesses to the saving purposes of God by experiencing them and living according to them” (Graeme Goldsworthy, “The Great Indicative: An Aspect of a Biblical Theology of Mission,” RTR 55 [1996]: 2-13 [7]).
9. Pss 9:11; 18:49; 33:8; 46:10; 49:1; 57:10; 66:1–4; 67:1–7; 72:8, 11, 17; 83:18; 96:3, 10( || 1 Chr 16:24); 105:1; 108:3; 117:1; 119:46; 145:6, 12, 21. Isaiah likewise contains noteworthy statements to the same effect; see, among others, Isa 56:3–8; 66:18–24. It is surprising that Köstenberger and O’Brien dispense with the entire Psalter in fewer than three pages, having treated none of the passages listed here as potentially contributing to missiology (Salvation, 50–52); Schnabel likewise is very brief (Mission, 75–76).
10. These categories are used by W. Creighton Marlowe, “Music of Missions: Themes of Cross-Cultural Outreach in the Psalms,” Missiology 26 (1998): 445-56. He identifies Pss 33:8; 102:15; 106:8; 148:7–12; 150:6 as containing “passive outreach terminology,” and also notes that Pss 2, 33, 67, 96, 98, 117, and 145 deal in substantial measure with direct or indirect outreach in various ways. See further on Pss Michael Landon, “The Psalms as Mission,” ResQ 44 (2002): 165-75; William Richey Hogg, “Psalm 22 and Christian Mission: A Reflection,” International Review of Mission 77 (1988): 238-46.
11. See Stephen G. Dempster, Dominion and Dynasty: A Theology of the Hebrew Bible (New Studies in Biblical Theology 15; Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2003), 127, for Israel’s role as God’s instrument to punish the evil of the Canaanites.
12. See Schnabel, “Israel,” 36–38.
13. As suggested by C. Hassell Bullock, Introduction to the Old Testament Prophetic Books (Chicago: Moody, 1986), 41. John Stek demonstrates the relevance and coherence of the historical setting of Jonah in this period (“The Message of the Book of Jonah,” CTJ 4 [1969]: 23-50, esp. 23–35). While the book does not identify its author, the prophet himself seems the most natural candidate; although, against monochromatic presentations of Jonah as a “nationalistic” prophet based on his declarations regarding Jeroboam II in 2 Kgs 14:25, one must allow his mission to Nineveh to add other colors to his portrait. The view that the book of Jonah was a polemic against exclusivist groups in post-exilic Yehud remains the majority position in OT scholarship, but Ehud Ben Zvi charges that “this position does not have any support from the narrative itself”(Signs of Jonah: Reading and Rereading in Ancient Yehud [JSOTSup 367; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003], 101). Ben Zvi himself suggests a post-exilic setting for the book on other grounds.
14. A widespread revolt near the end of the reign of Shalmaneser III (858–824 B.C.) is generally held to have initiated a period of decline in Assyrian power that lasted until Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 B.C.). Cf. Amélie Kuhrt, The Ancient Near East c. 3000–330 B.C. (2 vols.; London: Rout-ledge, 1995), 2:490–92; Siegfried H. Horn, “The Divided Monarchy: The Kingdoms of Judah and Israel,” revised by P. Kyle McCarter Jr., in Ancient Israel: From Abraham to the Roman Destruction of the Temple (ed. Hershel Shanks; Washington, D.C.: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1999), 129–99.
15. See further the discussion of the book’s historicity in O. Palmer Robertson, The Christ of the Prophets (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2004), 250–53. Thomas M. Bolin points out several elements that bind the prophet’s book and ministry together, Freedom Beyond Forgiveness: The Book of Jonah Re-Examined, (Copenhagen International Seminar 3; JSOTSup 236; Sheffield, Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 151. The literary coherence of the book alone is sufficient to dispel skepticism regarding its unity; see, among many others, the illuminating work of Jonathan Magonet, Form and Meaning: Studies in Literary Techniques in the Book of Jonah (BBET 2; Bern: Herbert Lang, 1976). Lastly, the genre of didactic history certainly can, as it does here, include a strong satirical element, as Raymond F. Person Jr. points out, In Conversation with Jonah: Conversation Analysis, Literary Criticism, and the Book of Jonah ( JSOTSup 220; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 152.
16. As Stek, “Message,” 39; Phyllis Trible, Rhetorical Criticism: Context, Method, and the Book of Jonah (GBS Old Testament Series; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 135; Janet Howe Gaines, Forgiveness in a Wounded World: Jonah’s Dilemma (SBL Studies in Biblical Literature 5; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 46; and others have noted. Pace Uriel Simon, who rejects the representative roles of the sailors as heathens and of Jonah as an Israelite on the basis that “the gentiles’ compliance with the will of the Lord is so spontaneous and unproblematic, and the vacillations of the insubordinate prophet so severe and multifaceted, that it is perfectly clear that the former cannot be the lynchpin of the story” (The JPS Bible Commentary: Jonah [trans. Lenn J. Schramm; adapted by Uriel Simon; Philadelphia: JPS, 1999], xxxii). Simon finds the Gentiles “too good to be true” (xxxiii). But this seems to be precisely the reality that ch. 1 establishes!
17. The frequency with which עברי, “Hebrew,” distinguishes Israelites from non-Israelites (Abram, Gen 14:13; the Israelites vis-à-vis Egyptians throughout the first half of Exod) underlines the contrast the term establishes between Jonah and the sailors.
18. As noted by Rüdiger Lux, Jona Prophet zwischen “Verweigerung” und “Gehorsam”: Eine erzählanaly-tische Studie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994), 109–11.
19. Wolff has rightly noted that the sailors’ terrified, “What have you done?” is “a cry of terror springing from knowledge” (Hans Wolter Wolff, Obadiah and Jonah: A Commentary [trans. Margaret Kohl; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1986], 116), followed by Lux, Jona, 112. It seems that the sailors have some understanding of Yahweh’s character even though the source of their understanding is not identified in the text.
20. Cf. the shorter descriptions of the storm in 1:4, 11.
21. This element, not to mention others, makes it impossible to see the sailors as polytheists who have simply added Yahweh to their pantheon; pace H. Gervarhahu, “The Universalism of the Book of Jonah,” Dor le Dor 10 (1981): 20-27. The monotheism of Jonah also casts doubt on Steenbrink’s comparative approach to the message of Jonah (“Jonah: From a Prophetic Mission”).
22. On the various meanings of fear in Jonah 1, see Lux, Jona, 101 n. 37, 112 n. 88. Magonet has noted polysemy with other lexemes in Jonah (Form and Meaning, 22–28).
23. Wolff, Obadiah and Jonah, 121. An insightful and comprehensive survey of the OT and NT aspects of the fear of Yahweh is offered by John Murray who concludes that it remains “the soul of godliness”(Principles of Conduct: Aspects of Biblical Ethics [with a foreword by J. I. Packer; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999], 229–42). Roland E. Murphy similarly describes the content of the phrase as “the equivalent of biblical religion and piety” (The Tree of Life: An Exploration of Biblical Wisdom Literature [3d ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002], 16).
24. To note but one practical point, in all likelihood the sacrifices were offered after their voyage ended, since the recently lightened ship had surely lost whatever animals it might have carried. Several intertextual connections make these verses very significant in this context. First, Ps 50 stresses the propriety of vows and sacrifices provided that the worshiper’s life is likewise in accord with God’s revealed will. It is also striking that the psalm addresses Israelites who have taken the covenant upon their lips but whose hearts disdain God’s word (50:17). Likewise Isa 19:21, taken from a context of Yahweh’s making himself known to Gentiles, shows them to be fulfilling the normal cultic duties of vows and sacrifices. It is difficult not to contrast the sailors’ authenticity with Jonah’s promised acts of piety ( Jonah 2:10). However, if Jonah wrote the book that bears his name we are safe in assuming that he later made good on his word.
25. Lux, Jona, 121 (“The narrator places the Hebrew prophet, who closes himself to the word of God, in contrast to the non-Israelites, who confide in the God of Israel, make his legal and cultic terminology their own, and in the end participate in cultic observances”).
26. In Solomon’s dedicatory prayer (1 Kgs 8:41–43) Gentiles are said to come “from a far country” and pray to Yahweh at the temple. It is clear that the Jerusalem temple (rather than God in his heavenly abode) is in view here; cf. the arguments brought by Wolff, Obadiah and Jonah, 135.
27. The construction הבלי־שׁוא is very strong, meaning “utterly worthless gods.”
28. On the change from על in 1:2 toאל in 3:2 (well attested in MT), cf. Ehud Ben Zvi, Signs, 34–39. It is difficult to be dogmatic about the significance of the shift, if any.
29. See esp. Donald J. Wiseman, “Jonah’s Nineveh,” TynBul 30 (1979) 29-51; Paul Ferguson, “Who Was the ‘King of Nineveh’ in Jonah 3:6?,” TynBul 47 (1996): 301-14.
30. See A. L. Oppenheim, “Divination and Celestial Observations in the Late Assyrian Empire,” Centaurus 4 (1969): 97-135; S. W. Cole and P. Machinist, Letters from Priests to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal (SAA 13; Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1998); and the extensive bibliography at http://www.orientalisti.net/na_magic.htm, esp. the works of F. M. Fales, G. B. Lafranchi, J. Pecírková, B. Pongratz-Leisten, and P. Villard.
31. For response to divine miracles, see Exod 14:31; Num 14:11; 20:12; Deut 1:32; Ps 78:22. For response to the divine word, see Gen 15:6; Deut 9:23; 2 Kgs 17:14; 2 Chr 20:20; Ps 106:12.
32. There belief in God has the result that the Judahites would “be established” (Nifal of אמן) against the threat posed by a composite force of Moabites, Ammonites, and others. The following, parallel phrase promises that “belief in Yahweh’s prophets” (again with the Hifil of אמן with ב) will see Judah “delivered” (Hifil of צלח).
33. Bolin notes that it occurs from the Assyrian through the Roman periods (Freedom, 128); see Douglas Stuart, Hosea–Jonah (WBC 31; Dallas: Word, 1987), 493–94, for Assyrian material contemporaneous with Jonah’s ministry.
34. Stek, “Message,” 43 n. 35. Stuart’s reflection is similar: “The pagan Assyrians of Nineveh repent as fully and heartily as any Israelites ever did! The chosen people had not yet in their history (i.e., to the mid-eighth century B.C.) repented so sincerely. Only later, in the days of Ezra (Ezra 10:1–7) and Nehemiah (Neh 9:1–3) do we read of appeals for mercy quite so self-abnegating” (Hosea–Jonah, 496). These comparisons are helpful in understanding God’s evaluation of Nineveh’s change in Jonah 3:10 and Jesus’ use of Nineveh’s repentance to condemn his hearers for their lack of response to his message (Matt 12:41 || Luke 11:32).
35. Thomas B. Dozeman has shown that the king echoes the words of Exod 32:12b, “turn from … burning anger …” (“Inner-Biblical Interpretation of Yahweh’s Gracious and Compassionate Character,” JBL 108 [1989]: 207-23 [223]). Dozeman also shows that the narrator in Jonah echoes Exod 32:14 in stating that God “relented from the calamity which he had said he would do” (223).
36. Cf. James Limburg, Jonah: A Commentary (London: SCM, 1993), 89. The description is another verb-cognate pair (this time with an adverbial cognate, since the verb is denominative) with an additional adjective: וירע אל־יונה רעה גדולה (“and it was terribly bad for Jonah”). Trible draws attention to the contrast between the cognate accusative description of the sailors, who sacrificed sacrifices and vowed vows, and that of Jonah, who “ ‘eviled’ evil” (Rhetorical Criticism, 197).
37. Limburg and others rightly point out that the closest parallel to Jonah 4:2 is Joel 2:13 ( Jonah, 90). The difficulty of dating Joel greatly hinders any conclusions on the description’s use there, however. Dozeman (“Interpretation”) explores how the Jonah and Joel texts illuminate each other, and how both together throw light on Exod 32–34. The primacy of Exod 34:6–7 in the biblical storyline gives it priority, and in fact later uses intend to capitalize on its connotations. See J. Carl Laney, “God’s Self-Revelation in Exodus 34:6–8, ” BSac 158 (2001): 36-51.
38. Christine E. Hayes, “Golden Calf Stories: The Relationship of Exodus 32 and Deuteronomy 9–10, ” in The Idea of Biblical Interpretation: Essays in Honor of James L. Kugel (ed. Hindy Najma and Judith H. Newman; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2004), 45–93 (56).
39. See Michael Widmer, Moses, God, and the Dynamics of Intercessory Prayer: A Study of Exodus 32–34 and Numbers 13–14 (FAT 2/8; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), esp. 169–211; D. Timmer, “Small Lexemes, Large Semantics: Prepositions and Theology in the Golden Calf Episode (Exodus 32–34),” Bib 88 (2007): 92-99.
40. Widmer, Moses, 202.
41. Wolff, Obadiah and Jonah, 167.
42. As Dozeman points out: “The expansion of the formula of Yahweh’s gracious character [in Jonah 4:2] … is, itself, anchored in the same narrative context in which the formula is introduced in Torah” (“Interpretation,” 221).
43. In a more general sense Yahweh had also just heard Jonah’s own prayer for (unmerited) deliverance, saving him from death in ch. 2. Magonet notes the semantic overlap of the two passages (Form and Meaning, 52).
44. Simon, Exodus, 34.
45. See Bolin, Freedom, 149. Pace Bolin, this numeric equality should not be understood as signifying rhetorical equality. In the OT Yahweh’s wisdom is routinely shown to be superior to humanity’s. Further, such a conclusion overlooks both the rationale and ultimate position of Yahweh’s closing words in the argument, as well as the fact that this question of Yahweh goes unanswered (as Trible points out, Rhetorical Criticism, 216).
46. John H. Walton explores the plant’s role in making Jonah subjectively aware of the difference between receiving grace and having it taken away (“The Object Lesson of Jonah 4:5–7 and the Purpose of the Book of Jonah,” BBR 2 [1992]: 47-57).
47. Lux properly identifies the creator-creature relationship that inheres in Yahweh’s compassion for Nineveh, both humans and animals (Jona, 157, 203–8).
48. Here and below I draw on John L. Austin’s speech-act theory, in which there are locutionary acts (saying something), illocutionary acts (what one does in saying something, e.g., bless), and per-locutionary acts (what one brings about by saying something: encouraging, disappointing, etc.). See Austin, How to Do Things with Words (2d ed.; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975).
49. Jonah’s use of the imitatio Dei concept rather than an apodictic command for inculcating a specific posture toward Gentiles may in fact facilitate its message’s reception. “An ethic based on the notion of imitatio Dei was designed to inspire individuals to ever greater and nobler acts of compassion and love, for it spoke in the most eloquent terms of a morality of aspiration rather than a morality of duty, of what was intrinsically desirable rather than what was legally obligatory” (Eryl W. Davies, “Walking in God’s Ways: The Concept of Imitatio Dei in the Old Testament,” in In Search of True Wisdom: Essays in Old Testament Interpretation in Honour of Ronald E. Clements [ed. Edward Ball; JSOTSup 300; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999], 99–115 [112]). For more on the imitatio Dei as an ethical motive, see Christopher J. H. Wright, Walking in the Ways of the Lord: The Ethical Authority of the Old Testament (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1995), 139–40; Waldemar Janzen, Old Testament Ethics: A Paradigmatic Approach (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1994), 115, 119, 130, 154. The different responses of the sailors and the Ninevites to Jonah’s testimony do not attenuate the call that the book sounds for Israelites to imitate Yahweh’s character and to testify to his word and works among the Gentiles, even if the precise soteriology of these responses, and the concomitant clarity of the missionary message, await further development in the NT.
50. Davies, “Walking,” 105; see, e.g., Jer 9:24; 22:3; Hos 4:1. Davies’ comments on biblical narrative’s ethical function are likewise illuminating in view of the book’s “didactic history” genre: “The character and actions of God were not presented as morally neutral observations; rather, they were designed to inculcate a sense of duty and moral responsibility in the people and to provide them with a model of the type of behaviour that should be mirrored in their own lives” (109). See further Ernest J. Tinsley, The Imitation of God in Christ (London: SCM, 1960), 50–64; Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics (London: SCM, 1984), 76–81.
51. See Walter Moberly, “Jonah, God’s Objectionable Mercy, and the Way of Wisdom,” in Reading Texts, Seeking Wisdom (ed. David F. Ford and Graham Stanton; London: SCM, 2003), 154–68, whose illumination of the book’s wisdom elements confirms the relevance of imitatio Dei for understanding and applying the book.
52. Compare Oswalt’s description of the divine warrior’s eschatological mission in Isaiah: “[T]o defeat the persistent sinning that makes it impossible for the chosen servants to be a light to the nations … He intends to realize the promises of purity and holiness of 4:2–6 in order that the predictions of a mission to the world in 2:1–4 may become a reality” ( John N. Oswalt, “The Book of Isaiah: A Short Course on Biblical Theology,” CTJ 39 [2004]: 54-71 [57-58]). This development of the divine warrior motif also explains why the “push” aspect of Israel’s relation to the nations noted in her early history, especially the conquest, characterized her only briefly: the long-term, growing power of sin in the nations of Israel and Judah both disqualified them from being God’s agent of judgment against other nations and saw God draw his people’s attention more to his own mission to conquer sin through his suffering servant, who manifestly lacks any martial aspect. Additionally, God began very early in Israel’s history (even in the later “clean-up” phase of the conquest) to use other nations as goads to inculcate obedience in Israel, so that the roles were reversed from a very early point, a movement the two exiles brought to completion.
53. Köstenberger and O’Brien raise this objection, often by distinguishing between “historical” and “eschatological” aspects of Israel’s mission to the nations (Salvation, 34–36).
54. I. Howard Marshall notes this characteristic of Jesus’ mission, but also points out that in Matt (for example) the general openness to Gentiles prevents the conclusion that Jesus’ practice was normative for the early church (not to mention 28:16–20; see his New Testament Theology: Many Witnesses, One Gospel [Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2004], 101). A similar distinction between Jesus’ public ministry and the post-Pentecost church can be seen in the other synoptics. Classic proofs for this distinction are found in Luke’s double work (Luke 24:49 and Acts 1:4).
55. Schnabel, Mission, 90. Goldsworthy makes his biblical-theological reasoning more explicit in stating, “For [OT] Israel to be an outgoing missionary message its message would have to be one of inviting the nations to pre-empt the great ingathering of the eschaton, or else she would have to preach another message which did not center on [her] temple cult” (“The Great Indicative,” 9).
56. Wright notes this problem briefly (The Mission of God, 523–24).
57. Note Ralph W. Kline, “Israel/Today’s Believers and the Nations: Three Test Cases,” CurTM 24 (1997): 232-37.
58. On this point I am indebted to K. Lawson Younger Jr., “The Deportations of the Israelites,” JBL 117 (1998): 201-27, esp. 215–27; and Younger, “Recent Study of Sargon II, King of Assyria: Implications for Biblical Studies,” in Mesopotamia and the Bible (ed. Mark W. Chavalas and K. Lawson Younger Jr.; JSOTSup 341; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), 288–329, esp. 296–301.
59. Despite the recent revival of the view that Assyrian imperial policy demanded fidelity to Assyrian gods on the part of conquered peoples, the older consensus against such a view has again proven its value. See Mordechai Cogan, “Judah Under Assyrian Hegemony: A Reexamination of Imperialism and Religion,” JBL 112 (1993): 403-14; Bustenay Oded, Mass Deportation and Deportees in the Neo-Assyrian Empire (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1979), esp. 46–74; and esp. Mordechai Cogan, Imperialism and Religion: Assyria, Judah, and Israel in the Eighth and Seventh Centuries B.C.E. (Missoula, Mont.: SBL, 1974); and Steven W. Holloway, Assur is King! Assur is King! Religion in the Exercise of Power in the Neo-Assyrian Empire (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2002), both of which show that while vassal states enjoyed a level of insulation from Assyrian religion, even in annexed provinces Assyria’s general practice was simply to consider the conquered people’s god(s) as having submitted to Ashur (cf. Assyria’s interpretation of her assault on Judah in 2 Kgs 18:25) and on that basis to permit the continuation of the god’s cult. Assyria’s rebuilding of a quasi-indigenous cult in 2 Kgs 17:25–28 (in what was then a newly annexed province) is noteworthy in this context.
60. See also the more extended comments of Stek, “Message,” 49–50 and passim; Willem VanGemeren, Interpreting the Prophetic Word (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990), 149.
61. Limburg, Jonah, 98.