God’s man said no to God. He was NOT going to preach to Nineveh, the capitol of Assyria. We will find out why later but for now he adamantly said ‘no’ and not only that, he headed in the opposite direction. He paid money to run away from God.
It didn’t work.
A storm hit the seas so bad that even the experienced sailors were crying out to their God. Jonah was sleeping. It’s exhausting running from God.
In a way I understand that. When
They woke him up. Previously he had mentioned to them he was running from God. But now they demanded to know more. What did he do? Was he a criminal? Where is he from?
He said he was running from the God who made the heavens and the earth. The sailors were terrified. You have to give them credit as even though they worshiped other gods, they had great respect for the God of Jonah.
Jonah told them to throw him in the sea and everything would be restored. They refused to do such a terrible thing. So they rowed harder and harder and harder. The storm became worse and worse and worse.
Now why couldn’t Jonah just have jumped in? Spared them all? I don’t know. Maybe it was because he was needing judgment placed upon him.
Eventually the sailors asked mercy from God and threw Jonah into the sea. The storm calmed down.
Perhaps Jonah thought it would all be over now. He would die. It would all be done. But the LORD wasn’t finished with Jonah. More importantly the LORD wasn’t giving up the Assyrians, some of the most treacherous, brutal, barbaric people in all of history.
So the LORD provided a “great fish” to swallow Jonah.
Some say there wasn’t a fish big enough for this. But there were whales that could easily have held a man. Including the megalodon or even very tightly, other whales. And.they do have. air within the as we see when they surface and blow out their air.
Make no mistake though. It would have been miserable. Very, very, very miserable.
But I get why Jonah ran. To a small degree. But that is coming up.
