On The Names Of God

"Jonah in the Fish" -- David Coker

I was weaned on the King James Version of the Bible (and the language thereof still doth fill my heart and lips upon occasion) and was taught to call God Jehovah which is a good Old Testament sounding name. During my early days at Seminary imagine my naive surprise when I attended chapel and someone read a lesson from scripture that called God -- Yahweh. "What," I thought. But I learned. Actually I learned a lot that my Sunday school over looked namely that God had a few names in Genesis and the other Books of Moses. One writer used Yahweh (or in King James Jehovah). Another writer used Elohim which is actually plural. In addition they are sometimes used together. We find this in Jonah. JWS

The name Lord (YaHWeH) is used 22 times. God (Elohim or El once) 13 times, and the combination Lord God 4 times for a total of 39 references in 48 What do we make of the patterns of these names? What do they say about God? Scholars have as many opinions as
there are scholars.

"However one, Jonathan Magonet has suggested an explanation that is simple and compelling. When the narrator is speaking of divine punishing action, the narrator uses the more general, Elohim or God. ... however, where the emphasis in on divine grace, mercy, and care, the more personal designation Yahweh again appears. The compound form Yahweh Eolhim (Lord God) in 4:6 makes the transition." [JONAH A Commentary pg. 45 -- Limberg]

Again we find and layer upon layer. Jonah is brief in length but not in depth. Like Jonah we go down to the deep and find ourselves, if we dare, and having met ourselves we are found by God in all the complexity, fierce beauty, judgment and grace of the divine presence. JWS

Jonah's Ordeal As Type Of The Resurrection

It likely comes as a surprise to Christians of the Twenty-first Century that Christians of the early Church used Jonah as one of the primary symbols of the resurrection. The image of Jonah and the great fish is very common among burial effigies. Jonah's three days and nights in belly of the great fish and Jesus' burial in the earth for three days caught the imagination of the early church. Above is a third century carving from a Christian tomb.

The literature of the early Church chose Jonah as a "type" of one who escapes from hell portrayed as escaping from a gaping mouth of a fish/cave. The carving above is from a third Century sarcophagus.

Young Man's Jazz Offering in Chicago

http://www.tv.com/users/fgurakid/profile.php?om_


At school, we have started preparing for the play we're going to do:
Jonah Man Jazz! It's a Jazz and we just started the first song. It's based on the Bible story of Jonah, whom God chose to send a message to the sinning people of the city, Ninevah. He refused, went on a ship and sailed away. God saw it and caused a storm. The sailors on the ship drew lots and found Jonah to be jinxed. They threw him overboard where he was swallowed by a whale. After three days in the belly of the whale, it spat him out on the shores of Ninevha, where Jonah carried out his mission.

The lyrics are below:

Ninevah city was a city of sin
The jazzin' and the jivin' made a terrible din
Beat groups playin'! O rock and roll!
And the Lord when He heard it
Said: "Bless my Soul!"


The people wouldn't listen
Danced night and day
No time for work
No time to pray
They went on dancing
By day and by night
Till the Lord he said:
"Well this ain't right!"

The Lord He pondered
A subtle plan
He looked around
For a righteous man
Saw Jonah sittin''
Neath a pineapple tree
And the Lord He said"
That's the man for me!

A righteous man that I can trust
To raise this city
From out the dust
The Man that's sitting
'Neath the pineapple tree,
I'm certain sure, sure, sure.....
Is the man for me!"

Hope you like!

And please wish me luck so I get a good part!

The Storm: Telling Stories in Circles

A chiasm is a literary form common in the ancient world. The writer of the Book of Jonah employs this device in Chapter Two to tell the story of the storm and how Jonah comes to be overboard. A chiasm works toward an idea and works back on the other side reinforcing the ideas arriving back at the beginning with a nod to the beginning idea. "A chiasm is a structuring device that inverts the ordering or words". [from Thinking In Circles: An Essay On Ring Composition --Mary Douglas A brilliant little book published by Yale Press in 2007]

A The Lord (Elohim) hurls storm (1:4)
B Sailors pray, act (1:5ab)
C Jonah acts (lies down, sleeps; 1:5c)
D Captain, sailors question Jonah (1:6-8)
E. Jonah speaks (1:9)
D' Sailors question Jonah (1:10-11)
C' Jonah speaks ("hurl me"; 1:12
B' Sailors act, pray (1:13-14)
A' Sailors hurl Jonah, storm ends (1:15)

Conclusion (1:16)

Jonah: A Commentary by James Limburg

A Chiasm can be as simple as the passage in Jonah Chapter One or as complicated as James Joyce in Finnegan's Wake. The Book of Leviticus in the Old Testament is a Chiasm -- as Mary Douglas makes a compelling case in the book cited above. JWS

Wallowing Passivity -- Unsurpassable Irresponsibility

One of the "Jonah Marbles" Cleveland Museum of Art

Literature is full of discussions of Jonah. Here is an excerpt from an essay by George Orwell entitled, Inside the Whale.

"In Max and the White Phagocytes there is one of those revealing passages in which a writer tells you a great deal about himself while talking about somebody else. The book includes a long essay on the diaries of Anais Nin, which I have never read, except for a few fragments, and which I believe have not been published. Miller claims that they are the only true feminine writing that has ever appeared, whatever that may mean. But the interesting passage is one in which he compares Anais Nin—evidently a completely subjective, introverted writer—to Jonah in the whale’s belly. In passing he refers to an essay that Aldous Huxley wrote some years ago about El Greco’s picture, The Dream of Philip the Second. Huxley remarks that the people in El Greco’s pictures always look as though they were in the bellies of whales, and professes to find something peculiarly horrible in the idea of being in a ‘visceral prison’. Miller retorts that, on the contrary, there are many worse things than being swallowed by whales, and the passage makes it dear that he himself finds the idea rather attractive. Here he is touching upon what is probably a very widespread fantasy. It is perhaps worth noticing that everyone, at least every English-speaking person, invariably speaks of Jonah and the whale. Of course the creature that swallowed Jonah was a fish, and was so described in the Bible (Jonah i. 17), but children naturally confuse it with a whale, and this fragment of baby-talk is habitually carried into later life—a sign, perhaps, of the hold that the Jonah myth has upon our imaginations. For the fact is that being inside a whale is a very comfortable, cosy, homelike thought. The historical Jonah, if he can be so called, was glad enough to escape, but in imagination, in day-dream, countless people have envied him. It is, of course, quite obvious why. The whale’s belly is simply a womb big enough for an adult. There you are, in the dark, cushioned space that exactly fits you, with yards of blubber between yourself and reality, able to keep up an attitude of the completest indifference, no matter what happens. A storm that would sink all the battleships in the world would hardly reach you as an echo. Even the whale’s own movements would probably be imperceptible to you. He might be wallowing among the surface waves or shooting down into the blackness of the middle seas (a mile deep, according to Herman Melville), but you would never notice the difference. Short of being dead, it is the final, unsurpassable stage of irresponsibility.

ww.netcharles.com/orwell/essays/inside-the-whale3.htm

The Sign of Jonah

"Lifeline Jonah" Wayne Forte 2002

Matthew 12:38-42 38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to him, "Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you." 39 But he answered them, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign; but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41The men of Nineveh will arise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for the repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. 32 The queen of the South will arise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.

Differences between Jonah and Jesus

Chrysostom: "For Jonah was a servant, but I am the Master; and he came forth from the great fish, but I rose from death. He proclaimed destruction, but I rose from death. He proclaimed destruction, but I am come preaching the good tidings of the kingdom. The Ninevites indeed believed without a sign, but I have exhibited many signs. They heard nothing more than those worlds, but I have made it impossible to deny the truth. The Ninevites came to be ministered to, but I, the very Master and Lord of all, have come not threatening, not demanding an account, but bringing pardon. They were barbarians, but these -- the faithful -- have conversed with unnumbered prophets. And of Jonah nothing had been prophesied in advance, but of me everything was foretold, and all the facts have agreed with their words. And Jonah indeed, when he was to go forth, instead ran away that he m;giht not be ridiculed. but I , knowing that I am both to be crucified and mocked, have come nonetheless. While Jonah did not endure so much as to be reproached for those who were saved, I underwent even death, and that the most shameful death, and after this I sent others again. And Jonah was a strange sort of person and an alien to the Ninevites, and unknown; but I a kinsman after the flesh and of the same forefathers." The Gospel of Matthew, Homily 43.2

Three has always been considered a mystical, magical number.

Three is also the number of the superlative (as in good, better, best). In the TANAKH three days are sometimes required to complete a journey. In Hosea three days is the length of time required for divine salvation/restoration:

Come, let us turn back to the Lord:

He attacked, and He can heal us;
He wounded, and He can bind us up.
In two days He will make us whole again;
One the third day He will raise us up,
And we shall be whole by His favor. Hosea 6:1-2

Forgiveness In A Wounded World: Jonah’s Dilemma
Janet Howe Gaines

Psalm 139:1-12 God is Everywhere

Jonah in the Whale

1	O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.
2	Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising; thou understandest my thought afar off.
3	Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.
4	For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.
5	Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.
6	Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.
7	Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
8	If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
9	If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
10	even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
11	If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.
12	Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; the night is as bright as the day; darkness and light to you are both alike.

A psalm of comfort and accountability! It is a good vehicle of worship while reading Jonah. We are all called to leave the comfort of our parochial vision and like the pioneers of our faith Abraham and Jesus follow the call of God wherever we are to go. JWS