Nowell's The Book Of Jonah

680 Words2 Pages

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

Show More
Related

  • Religious Allusions in Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle

    1439 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Vonnegut’s novel, readers can notice that there are numerous religious references such as names and terms throughout it. In the opening of the novel it can already be seen. Vonnegut starts his novel off with the narrator introducing himself, “Call me Jonah. My parents did, or nearly did. They called me John.” (Vonnegut 1). From this opening line you can already see a biblical reference, that reference being “Jonah”. The name Jonah derives from the Hebrew bible, it’s known to be the name of a prophet who disobeyed God. Already early on in the novel it can be seen that a parallel between religion and the post-war world which the story take place in are intertwining. It can be assumed that by the author uses of the reference Jonah, a disobedient prophet of god, that the novel also revolves around the theme of deception among people in society. Deception implicated among person to another can lead to creating destruction in society. If one such as a writ...

    Read More

  • The Binding Of Isaac In Abraham By Bruce Feiler

    1398 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Different Interpretations of The Binding of Isaac in Abraham by Bruce Feiler The binding of Isaac, also known as Abraham’s sacrifice of his youngest son Isaac, has been named as one of Abraham’s defining moments next to the call. The sacrifice of Isaac has been talked about and written about for centuries. Also, it has been given various interpretations depending on the religion one follows. Through critical analysis, I will be going through the different interpretations of the binding of Isaac in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

    Read More

  • Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God by Jonathan Edwards

    637 Words  | 2 Pages

    as a loving and gentle God, but in this sermon, He is seen as someone

    Read More

  • And Theoology Of Yahweh: The Theology Of Jonah

    2086 Words  | 5 Pages

    The book begins and ends with Yahweh speaking to Jonah. The book has major divisions, Yahweh commissioned Jonah but he disobeyed, and second Yahweh commissioned Jonah again and he obeyed. More importantly, the book ends with a question not only for Jonah but also for the readers including us. In this paper, I will not discuss the authorship, date and genre. The purpose of this paper is to find out who Yahweh is and how he relates to people.

    Read More

  • Melville shows anger at Christianity through biblical allusions in Moby Dick

    1325 Words  | 3 Pages

    Near the beginning of Moby Dick, Father Mapple reminds Pequod sailors of the biblical prophet Jonah and his unique encounter with a whale. The whale, known as a Leviathan in the Bible, swallows Jonah because Jonah refuses to obey God's command to preach to a wicked group of people. Father Mapple in his sermon says, "If we obey God, we must disobey ourselves; and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists" (47). Once Jonah admits his sinfulness and follows his maker, the whale frees Jonah. Father Mapple says that obeying God can be difficult and might not seem logical to the person listening.

    Read More

  • Comparing The Holy Bible And The Epic Of Gilgamesh

    766 Words  | 2 Pages

    The story in the Bible is that a man named Noah, who is a very holy and religious man, is called upon by God. God tells him that there is much violence and sin

    Read More

  • Nineveh In The Hour Of Jonah

    1322 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the time of the ancient world there was a great city by the name of “Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian realm.” (PK 256) This city soon began to prosper as well as exceed in crime and wickedness. The Lord seeing how downcast this city had become sent word to his prophet Jonah saying “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.” (Jonah 1:2) As Jonah began to think through what the Lord had called him to do from his perspective this commission almost impossible. Instead of putting his trust in God and believing that He would make a way, Jonah hesitated to go. Many times we in the same way are hesitant to act on what God has called us to do with our lives, but we have to remember that

    Read More

  • The Middle Passage

    1234 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Middle Passage (or Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade) was a voyage that took slaves from Africa to the Americas via tightly packed ships. The trade started around the early 1500s, and by 1654 about 8,000-10,000 slaves were being imported from Africa to the Americas every year. This number continued to grow, and by 1750 that figure had climbed to about 60,000-70,000 slaves a year. Because of the lack of necessary documents, it is hard to tell the exact number of Africans taken from their homeland. But based on available clues and data, an estimated 9-15 million were taken on the Middle Passage, and of that about 3-5 million died. While the whole idea seems sick and wrong, many intelligent people and ideas went in to making the slave trade economically successful.

    Read More

  • Research Paper On The Beatitudes

    1551 Words  | 4 Pages

    The scripture reading from Micah reminds me of a court room setting. That God is suing Israel for breaking their covenant with him. Israel has complained that God is responsible for all the disasters that are happening. Israel sounds like many of us today when something has gone wrong in our personal life isn’t God the first one we blame, and when we realized how many things we have such as a home, car, bank account, vacations our answer is our answer is that we are bless from God, no it isn’t, it is because of our all the hard work we have done, God, he has nothing to do with that! You can imagine God asking everyone present, what have I your God done? Look at all of creation isn’t it beautiful,

    Read More

  • Obadiah Jonah Commentary

    634 Words  | 2 Pages

    An interesting concept that appeared to me while reading the Book of Jonah, was that the concept of the story was universally understood, so simple that they made a children's book from it. While reading “Obadiah, Jonah, Micah : A Theological Commentary” by Philip Peter Jenson, he brought up the question of the message of the story. My initial perception of the story was that Jonah was an unwilling prophet, that did not believe that God would actually do harm to the people of NININ and he chose to ignore the word of the Lord. After the Lord punishes him to a wicked storm and a bit of solitary confinement for three days and three nights, Jonah repents to God and decides to listen to his God. Jenson brought up the point that “The message of Jonah is notoriously difficult to identify. The main objections to the standard proposals is that they do not do justice to all parts of the book, and that the key to the meaning is imported from outside the story without sufficient evidence” (Jenson 36). With examples such as prophecy, universalism, theodicy it started to make me question my initial interpretation of the message being

    Read More

  • Bible: The Story Of Jonah And The Whale

    568 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Story of Jonah in the whale is one of the most incredible stories to ever take place in the Bible. It is arguably the most well-known stories in the Bible, alongside: The Ark, David and Goliath, Adam and Eve, and David and the Lion’s Den. The question is though, Did Jonah and the whale really happen? Did Jonah really get swallowed up by a big fish and spit out? Some scholars say that Jonah and the Whale was just simply a parable, and that it never actually happen. If this is the case does it take anything away from the story, and does it have the same importance?

    Read More

  • Promised Land Bible

    960 Words  | 2 Pages

    Today, the promised land is a symbol of prosperity and great blessings. Perhaps, the meaning of prosperity has a different meaning to the people who lived over three thousand years ago. The first time, when the promised land was mentioned in the Bible it was in Genesis as the promise to Abraham that his descendants will inherit the land, where they will prosper and will be free to live and worship their God (Gen.28:15, NASB). After many years, descendants of Abraham, which grew big in number, were longing for the promise of Abraham—a chance to be free and prosperous at the promised land (Ex.1:9-10). After Israelites were set free from the exile, their mission was clear—to reach “a land flowing with milk and honey” (Ex.3:8). However, God made

    Read More

  • Still Citizen Sparrow

    444 Words  | 1 Pages

    Noah who’s “saw Soured the song of birds… gnaw,” (15) conveying that the birds or people who thought him mad he continues on his project to set the earth a new. Noah on his journey “Forget that he could bear To see the towns like…under the keel,” (17-18) Noah found it hard to see the earth and people die but accepted that the people had to die “He rocked his only world, and everyone’s.” (21) The hero Noah like the vulture having to eat rotten meat had to let it happen because death has to happen to reset the natural circle and cleanse the

    Read More

  • Bondage In Israel

    1654 Words  | 4 Pages

    The scripture reading from Micah reminds me of a courtroom setting. That God is suing Israel for breaking their covenant with him. Israel has complained that God is responsible for all the disasters. Israel sounds like many of us today when something has gone wrong in our personal life isn’t God the first one we blame? When we realized how many things we have such as a home, car, bank account, vacations our answer is our answer is that we are blessed from God, no it isn’t. It is because of our all the hard work we have done, God, he has nothing to do with that! You can imagine God asking everyone present, what have I, your God done? Look at all of creation isn’t it beautiful, the sunrise, the sunset. What about the time Israel was in bondage in Egypt? God not only passed the house of Hebrews, (which can be found in Exodus) and your people were not only saved from death, but also led out of Egypt to freedom. They

    Read More

  • Reflection Of Ecclesiastes

    1581 Words  | 4 Pages

    Jonah tells his shipmates to toss him overboard, resulting in the halt to the harsh tides. They do so and Jonah is swallowed by a whale, and then stays inside of the whale for three days and three nights before God gets the whale to vomit him up. Jonah gets frustrated at God and tells him he’d rather die than live so Jonah goes out and stays outside of the city in the sun, where God makes a vine grow to shade Jonah while he sleeps, and when Jonah awakes to the hottest day, the vine has

    Read More

More about Nowell's The Book Of Jonah

Open Document