The Wideness of God’s Mercy: A Call to Repentance
The Jewish reception of Jonah—drawn from the Targum, the Talmud, and rabbinical commentaries—interprets the text as a testimony of God’s ever-present mercy. Everything that happens—indeed everything God does, from allowing Jonah to find a boat in Jaffa (Jewish Tradition Jon 1:3b) to his playful rebukes at the end of the book—is intended to guide Jonah toward repentance. A word from the Wisdom of Solomon seems a fitting summary of the book’s message:
- “But thou [God] art merciful to all, for thou canst do all things, and thou dost overlook men’s sins, that they may repent. For thou lovest all things that exist, and hast loathing for none of the things which thou hast made, for thou wouldst not have made anything if thou hadst hated it. How would anything have endured if thou hadst not willed it? Or how would anything not called forth by thee have been preserved? Thou sparest all things, for they are thine, O Lord who lovest the living” (Ws 11:23–26, RSV).
God rebukes in order to induce repentance, lest he, by reason of justice, must destroy the unrepentant. In the book, this takes place on both a large-scale—God sends Jonah to preach against Nineveh’s sins so that he might spare such a multitude of his handiwork—and on an individual level—God sends the storm and the great fish to bring about Jonah’s repentance. Given a peculiarity in the Hebrew, Jonah may have been swallowed by as many as three fish before being brought to repentance (Jewish Tradition Jon 1:17; 2:1,10). Furthermore, the book shows how God works his mercy through imperfect actors, even when they directly contradict God’s commands: despite himself, Jonah brings about the conversion of the pagan sailors and half-heartedly converts the Ninevites. A midrash handed down by Rabbi Eliezer exposits this theme of repentance to the point of hyperbole: the king of Nineveh was none other than the Pharaoh of the Exodus, whom God had given another chance to repent (Jewish Tradition Jon 3:6a). The episode with the gourd further emphasizes God’s desire to show mercy upon his creation. Thus, the Jewish tradition emphasizes that Jonah is a model of repentance. Indeed, this is why Jonah is read in its entirety on Yom Kippur.
A Foretaste of the Messianic Age
In turn, the Jewish tradition places the story of Jonah within a broader cosmological and eschatological context, looking back to the fifth day of creation and looking forward to the messianic age when Israel will be redeemed and, through God’s rather imperfect servants, “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Is 11:9, RSV). According to Rabbi Eliezer, Jonah flees God on the fifth day of the week, the same day of the creation of sea creatures, including Leviathan and the “great fish” (Jewish Tradition Jon 1:1a). On this day, God makes clear his dominion of the waters, an ancient symbol for chaos, unreality, and death (cf. Jewish Tradition Jon 1:15b; Biblical Intertextuality Jon 2:3a,5a). Looking forward, the Talmud, in a number of places, says that when the Messiah comes, he will slay Leviathan, build a sûkkâ with the sea-monster’s skin, and invite all the nations of the world to feast on Leviathan’s flesh (Jewish Tradition Jon 2:1–10).
Jonah is a precursor of this messianic promise. As is clear from the biblical text itself, he is God’s agent for converting the Gentiles. In addition, the Jewish tradition teaches that while Jonah was in the fish, he saves the fish from certain death at the jaws of Leviathan. When Jonah shows Leviathan “his seal from Abraham,” that is, his circumcision (Jewish Tradition Jon 2:1–10), the monster flees. We may also add here that the saving of the great fish, the settling of the sea, and God’s mercy shown toward Nineveh’s great multitude of cattle, point toward the restoration and redemption of the whole of creation in the messianic age (cf. G-Dn 3:51–90).
Mystagogy
There is also a mystical dimension to the story. The Jewish tradition hands down speculations of what Jonah saw while he was contained in the great fish for three days. After saving the fish from the jaws of Leviathan, the fish agrees to show Jonah profound mysteries, “all that is in the sea and in the depths.” Jonah is shown important sites from biblical history; his journey concludes at the foundations of the Temple, where the fish encourages Jonah to pray. At this point Jonah prays the prayer in Jon 2. That Jonah is restored at the foundation stone of the Temple connects the story’s message of redemption with the liturgy of the Temple. The Temple itself was both a model of the restored cosmos and the means by which God worked to bring order to the cosmos (cf. → 1991, passim).