Jonah by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

Jonah

Illu m i nat i o n s

C. L. Seow, General Editor Scott C. Jones, Brennan W. Breed, and Susanne Gillmayr-Bucher, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Judith H. Newman, Deuterocanonicals/Apocrypha Loren Stuckenbruck, New Testament

Jonah Introduction and Commentary

Amy Erickson

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company Grand Rapids, Michigan

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 4035 Park East Court SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546 www.eerdmans.com © 2021 Amy Erickson All rights reserved Published 2021 Printed in the United States of America 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ISBN 978-0-8028-6831-2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Erickson, Amy, 1970– author. Title: Jonah : introduction and commentary / Amy Erickson. Description: Grand Rapids, Michigan : William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, [2021] | Series: Illuminations | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “A contextualization, reception history, and exegesis of the biblical book of Jonah”—Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2020051099 | ISBN 9780802868312 (hardcover) Subjects: LCSH: Bible. Jonah—Commentaries. | Bible. Jonah—Introductions. Classification: LCC BS1605.53 .E75 2021 | DDC 224/.9207—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020051099

Contents

List of Illustrations

To the Reader

Acknowledgments

xiii

List of Abbreviations and Sigla

xvi

Introduction

1.0 Texts and Versions 1.1 Hebrew

5 7

1.1.1 Masoretic Text 1.1.2 Qumran Hebrew Texts

7 9

1.2 Greek

1.3 Vulgate 1.4 Aramaic 1.5 Syriac

16 18 19

1.2.1 Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Naḥal Ḥever 1.2.2 The Greek Book of Jonah 1.2.3 Old Latin

12 12 14

2.0 Language 2.1 Vocabulary and Forms 2.2 Late Biblical Hebrew

20 20 22

2.2.1 Semantic Change Indicative of Lateness 2.2.2 Syntactic Features Indicative of Lateness

2.3 Foreignizing or Archaizing Terms

22 24

Contents 3.0 Integrity

4.0 Provenance 4.1 The Scribalization of Prophecy 4.2 The Written Word in Postexilic Yehud

29 30 32

5.0 Setting

6.0 Genre 6.1 Didactic Story about a Prophet 6.2 Satire 6.3 Epic

38 39 40 43

7.0 Artistry 7.1 Humor 7.2 Allusions

49 49 50

8.0 Characters 8.1 Jonah 8.2 YHWH 8.3 The Sailors 8.4 The Ninevites (Nineveh) 8.5 The King of Nineveh

55 55 59 60 62 64

9.0 History of Consequences 9.1 Jewish Consequences

66 70

9.1.1 9.1.2 9.1.3 9.1.4

Second Temple Period Early Rabbinic Period Medieval Period Modern Period

70 75 92 114

9.2 Christian Consequences

122

9.3 Muslim Consequences

194

9.4 Jonah in the Modern World

212

9.2.1 Early Period 9.2.2 Medieval Period 9.2.3 Reformation and the Rise of Biblical Criticism 9.3.1 Qur’an 9.3.2 Hadith Literature 9.3.3 Stories of the Prophets

9.4.1 The Enlightenment and Romanticism 9.4.2 Contemporary Approaches

122 159 185 194 199 199 212 219

Contents Commentary Terror on the Stormy Sea (1:1–16) Interpretation

A Prophet’s Resistance to YHWH’s Commission, Amplified (1:1–3) The Ship and the Sailors React to the Storm, Tarshish-Style (1:4–7) A Topside Dialogue about the Source of “This Evil” (1:8–12) The Sailors Resist and Submit, Mostly (1:13–16)

Retrospect Commentary Bibliography

Swallowed by a Big Fish (2:1–11; Eng. 1:17–2:10) Interpretation

Prose Introduction: Jonah Swallowed (2:1–2) Stanza 1: The Waters of Death and Life (2:3–7b) Stanza 2: From the Depths to the Temple (2:7c–10)

Retrospect Commentary Bibliography

Overturnings (3:1–10) Interpretation

The Overturning of Jonah (3:1–4) Overturning Nineveh (3:5–10)

Retrospect Commentary Bibliography

The Aftermath (4:1–11) Interpretation

Jonah’s Distress (4:1–5) A Plant, a Worm, and a Sirocco (4:6–8a) Jonah’s Resistance, Again, and God’s Explanation of the Parable (4:8b–11)

Retrospect Commentary Bibliography

237 239 240

244 249 253 257

263 264 279 283 284

290 293 300

314 315 343 351 351

355 359

365 367 378 382 383

389 398

404

414 416 427

vii

Contents Subject Index

433

Author Index

448

Scripture Index

453

Ancient Sources Index

465

viii

Illustrations

Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 5 Fig. 6 Fig. 7

Fig. 8

Fig. 9

Fig. 10 Fig. 11 Fig. 12 Fig. 13 Fig. 14 Fig. 15

George Frederick Watts, Jonah, 1894. Jonah sarcophagus, ca. 280–300 CE, Museo Pio Cristiano, Vatican City. Photo by Sailko. Elijah and the widow’s son who, in some rabbinic texts, is identified as Jonah, Dura Europos synagogue, Syria. Hebrew manuscript produced in A Coruña (Spain) during the period of the Spanish Inquisition, 1476. Israeli stamp featuring Jonah in the whale’s belly. Whale memorial, 2003, Acre (Akko), Israel. Photo by Avishai Teicher. Jonah being thrown into the sea, ca. fourth century CE. From the Catacomb of Saint Peter and Saint Marcellino, Rome, Italy. Sculpture of Jonah being spit up by the fish, now in the Cleveland Museum of Art, late Roman, Asia Minor, ca. late third century CE. John L. Severance Fund. Sarcophagus of a child with the story of Jonah, ca. 300 CE. Below, Jonah ejected by the whale; above, Jonah under the castor-oil plant. Psalm 68 from the illuminated Psalter of Eleanor of Aquitaine, now in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, ca. 1185. Lieven van Lathem, The Entombment, ca. 1471. Column of the Duomo of Verona, Italy, ca. 1187. Photo by Anna De Grandis. Michelangelo, Jonah on the Sistine Chapel, 1511. Paul Bril, Jonah and the Whale, ca. 1590. Albrecht Dürer, Saint Jerome in His Study, 1514.

57 62 90 109 119 120

146

149

151 175 177 178 189 191 192

Illustrations Fig. 16 Folio from the Jamiʿ al-Tawārikh (Compendium of Chronicles), ca. 1400. Fig. 17 Jonah and the fish, ʿUzayr (Ezra) awakened after the destruction of Jerusalem, and Jeremiah in the wilderness. In Zubdat al-Tawārīkh, now in the Chester Beatty Library, 1585–1590. Fig. 18 Jonah thrown to the fish, Joseph in the well, and Jesus entombed, from the Pauper’s Bible, ca. 1470. Fig. 19 Pieter Lastman, Jonah and the Whale, 1621. Fig. 20 Gustave Doré, Jonah Preaches to the Ninevites (Jon. 3:1–10), 1866. Fig. 21 Watson Heston, What Moved God to Repent, first appeared in The Truth Seeker, November 3, 1894. Fig. 22 Floor mosaic from the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, Aquileia, Italy, fourth century CE. Photo by Yukio Sanjo. Fig. 23 Jan van de Velde, Jonah under the Wonder Plant, now in the Rijksmuseum, early seventeenth century.

194

209 244 290 355 367

388 415

To the Reader

ILLUMINATIONS is an innovative resource for all who are interested in engaging the Bible in depth. The author of each volume employs the full range of biblical scholarship to illumine the text from a wide variety of perspectives, including the engagement and impact of the text through the centuries. The volumes are designed to be accessible and enjoyable. To that end, discussion of each portion of the text begins with the author’s INTERPRETATION, written in fluid style and with minimal use of foreign languages, technical jargon, reporting of alternative proposals, and citations of secondary literature. Most readers may find it sufficient to read this portion and turn to the following material only for reference. The COMMENTARY that follows the INTERPRETATION provides a thorough accounting of the text in its original language and an engagement of other scholars. The discussions here support the author’s interpretation and serve as a reference work on the individual words and phrases of the text. Modern interpreters have increasingly come to recognize that it is insufficient merely to reconstruct what a biblical text might have meant in its original context or to consider what it might mean in the present. Rather, the Bible is always encountered as it has come to mean. It is a collection of texts with a long history, and every aspect of that history is a part of their meaning. Like a Chinese landscape painting, the value of the work resides not merely in the work of the original “artist,” but also in the ongoing conversation that the “painting” has engendered over time. Part of the aim of this series is to alert the reader to the history of conversation surrounding biblical texts and to invite the reader to join that conversation. Those who explore this history have variously named their enterprise “history of interpretation,” “history of effects,” “history of influence,” or xi

To the Reader “history of reception.” Though often used interchangeably, these labels in fact emphasize different aspects of the evidence scholars evince, including all manner of encounter with the biblical tradition. They include exegesis in commentaries, theological expositions, and homilies, but also the interpretive moves entailed in the introduction of vowel letters and the punctuation to the Hebrew text, translations and paraphrases, and artistic renderings. They also involve works in various genres and media inspired by or reacting to the biblical tradition, appropriations of it in liturgy, explicit and implicit justifications for actions, polemics, conduct arising from encounters with it, and unwitting results—including nefarious consequences—of its use. In recognition of the reality that these texts produced results both witting and unwitting, both actively received and passively endured, this series uses the rubric “history of consequences,” meaning “consequences” in the sense of all that comes after the Bible, as well as “consequences” in the sense of the direct or indirect results of interpretation and reception. C. L. Seow, General Editor Scott C. Jones, Brennan W. Breed, and Susanne Gillmayr-Bucher, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Judith H. Newman, Deuterocanonicals/Apocrypha Loren Stuckenbruck, New Testament

xii

Acknowledgments

In a little article on Jonah and art, James Limburg wrote, “Jonah is everywhere.” I’m certain I have said these words at least a thousand times over the last five years or so—often with excitement, but sometimes with dismay. As I was finishing up the manuscript, I said in a graduate seminar, “If you know of a Jonah reference or allusion, I don’t want to know about it.” I am a little embarrassed to admit it, but I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into when I agreed to write this commentary. It has truly been an adventure, and I feel tremendously fortunate that so many people and institutions have supported and encouraged me along the way. The Iliff School of Theology, with the encouragement of my dean, Albert Hernandez, gave me a research leave to work on this project. Without the time away from my teaching and administrative duties, I would not have had the energy or the motivation to complete this work. I am also indebted to a number of my Iliff colleagues for expressing interest in and showing support for my research, including and especially Mark George, Pam Eisenbaum, Eric Smith, Larry Graham, Katherine Turpin, and Boyung Lee. In the early stages of my research, I taught a class at Iliff titled Jonah and Its Afterlives in two formats (online and on campus). My students happily accepted the challenge to venture into territories beyond my expertise and to learn alongside me about art, rabbinic interpretation, music, medieval literature, and more. During the final session of the residential course, they went so far as to prepare a Jonah-inspired feast to celebrate all that we had explored and discovered together (a watermelon carved in the shape of a whale was particularly memorable). The Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning provided me with a generous fellowship and, even more importantly, a group of supportive colleagues (also known as “The Best Group Ever”): special thanks to Andrew

xiii

Acknowledgments Davis, Garrett Galvin, Eric Barreto, Shauna Hannan, Mindy Sharp, Mariam Kamell, Anjulet Tucker, Rob Muthiah, Miriam Perkins, Paul Myhre, and Ted Hiebert. The scholars at the Social Sciences and the Interpretation of Hebrew Scriptures unit of the SBL and at the Rocky Mountains/Great Plains Region engaged and furthered my work on the provenance of Jonah. The Archaeology of Religion in the Roman World unit of the SBL enabled me to delve into and explore questions about the popularity of Jonah in early Christian art. Rick Hess at Denver Seminary invited me to participate in an exciting conference on biblical metaphor, where I was able to think more deeply and constructively about the metaphors in Jonah 2. At the University of Denver, both Sarah Pessin and Annette Stott invited me to guest-teach classes on Jonah. Bob Kitchen enthusiastically shared his working translations of Syriac texts. Countless churches in the Denver area indulged me by letting me teach not just individual classes but whole series on the tiny book of Jonah. I owe tremendous thanks to Brooke Lester and Sara Koenig, the other two members of Write Club. Our Skype-in writing group has been meeting with shocking regularity for the better part of a decade, and during that time, Brooke and Sara have patiently and cheerfully worked through nearly every paragraph of this commentary. Their unwavering enthusiasm for my work and dogged commitment to Write Club kept me going when—for a time—I thought I couldn’t finish this project. I am grateful to Leong Seow for inviting me to write for this series and lighting a fire of enthusiasm in me for the history of interpretation and to Scott Jones for the editorial care with which he has attended to my manuscript. To say that Leong and Scott went through this manuscript with a flea comb would be an understatement. I benefitted tremendously from their expertise and their careful work. The people at Eerdmans were a true pleasure to work with (my first-rate copy editor, Ryan Davis, is probably aching to change the previous sentence because it ends in a preposition). My parents, Miriam and David Erickson, and my brother, Luke, have consistently encouraged and inspired me. My son, Gus Thorpe, is a great source of joy in my life, always reminding me of what really matters. I am also grateful beyond words for my two nonbiological children, Gideon and Zoë Kinnard. Especially during the final phases of revisions, Zoë’s commitment to our shared puzzle projects helped keep me grounded and laughing.

xiv

Acknowledgments Above all, I wish to express my deep gratitude to my partner in life, love, and fishing, Jacob Kinnard. His mark on this commentary is profound. He talked through the big ideas and the detailed arguments with me, gave me insightful and thoughtful feedback, and inspired me to think and read far beyond the boundaries of my training; he even edited a good-sized chunk of the manuscript. I could not have finished this project without his seemingly endless supply of emotional and intellectual support—not to mention his insistence that I take regular breaks to pursue a different sort of big fish.

Abbreviations and Sigla

Others abbreviations are found in The SBL Handbook of Style, 2nd ed. (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2014). 1QHa–b 4QXIIa–g 8ḤevXII gr ABD abs. act. Acts Paul AHw A. J. AJBI AJSR Akk. Allen Almbladh ANE ANET

ANF AOAT

xvi

Hodayot or Thanksgiving Psalms from Cave 1 at Qumran 4Q Minor Prophets scrolls from Cave 4 at Qumran, also known as 4Q76–82 Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Naḥal Hever Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by David Noel Freedman. 6 vols. New York: Doubleday, 1992. absolute active Acts of Paul Akkadisches Handwörterbuch. W. von Soden. Wiesbaden, 1965–1981. Antiquitates judaicae (Jewish Antiquities), Josephus Annual of the Japanese Biblical Institute Association for Jewish Studies Review Akkadian Allen, L. C. The Books of Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976. Almbladh, K. Studies in the Book of Jonah. Studia Semitica Upsalkinsis 7. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1986. ancient Near Eastern Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. Edited by J. B. Pritchard. 3rd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969. Ante-Nicene Fathers Alter Orient und Altes Testament

Abbreviations and Sigla Aq Arab. Aram. ASV b. B. Bat. BAM Bar BBR BCT BDB BE Ber. Ben Zvi Bewer BH BHS Bib BibInt BibInt Bickerman BIOSCS B. J. BN Bob

Bolin Bowers BR BRev

Aquila Arabic Aramaic American Standard Version Babylonian Talmud Bava Batra Babylonisch-assyrischen Medizin in Texten und Untersuchungen. Edited by R. D. Biggs and M. Stol. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1963–. Baruch Bulletin for Biblical Research Bible and Critical Theory Brown, F., S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs. A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament. The Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania Berakot Ben Zvi, E. Signs of Jonah: Reading and Rereading in Ancient Yehud. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2003. Bewer, J. A. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Jonah. Edinburgh: T&T Clark; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1912. Biblical Hebrew Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia Biblica Biblical Interpretation Biblical Interpretation Series Bickerman, E. J. Four Strange Books of the Bible: Jonah, Daniel, Koheleth, Esther. New York: Schocken Books, 1967. Bulletin of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies Bellum judaicum (Jewish War), Josephus Biblische Notizen Bob, S. M. Go to Nineveh: Medieval Jewish Commentaries on the Book of Jonah Translated and Explained. Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2013. Bolin, T. M. Freedom beyond Forgiveness: The Book of Jonah Re- examined. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997. Bowers, R. H. The Legend of Jonah. The Hague: Martinus Nij hoff, 1971. Biblical Research Bible Review

xvii

Abbreviations and Sigla BSac BZ BZAW ca. CAD

CAL CBQ Cels. Chow

Civ. 1 Clem. comm. cs CTU

d. Dial. DJD DNWSI EBR Eng. ErIsr Eruv. 2 Esd esp. ESV FAT FC fol. frag. fs Fug.

xviii

Bibliotheca Sacra Biblische Zeitschrift Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft circa The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1956–2006. The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Catholic Biblical Quarterly Contra Celsum, Origen Chow, S. The Sign of Jonah Reconsidered: A Study of Its Meaning in the Gospel Traditions. ConBNT 27. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1995. De civitate Dei (The City of God), Augustine 1 Clement commentarius, commentarium, commentariolum common singular The Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts from Ugarit, Ras Ibn Hani, and Other Places. Edited by Manfried Dietrich, Oswald Loretz, and Joaquín Sanmartín. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1995. died Dialogus cum Tryphone (Dialogue with Trypho), Justin Martyr Discoveries in the Judaean Desert Dictionary of the North-West Semitic Inscriptions. J. Hoftijzer and K. Jongeling. 2 vols. Leiden, 1995. Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception. Edited by Hans-Josef Klauck et al. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009–. English Eretz-Israel Eruvin 2 Esdras especially English Standard Version Forschungen zum Alten Testament Fathers of the Church folio fragment feminine singular De fuga in persecutione (Flight in Persecution), Tertullian

Abbreviations and Sigla GELS Git. Gk. gr Haer. HALOT

Handy HAR HB HBT Heb. Ḥev Hiph. Hith. hom. HR HSM Hug IBHS impf. impv. inf. Int IOS Jastrow JB JBL JHebS J-M

JNES

A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint. Takamitsu Muraoka. Louven: Peeters, 2009. Gittin Greek (language) Greek (manuscript) Adversus haereses (Against Heresies), Irenaeus The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. L. Koeh ler, W. Baumgartner, and J. J. Stamm. Translated and edited under the supervision of M. E. J. Richardson. 4 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1994–1999. Handy, L. K. Jonah’s World: Social Science and the Reading of Prophetic Story. London: Equinox, 2007. Hebrew Annual Review Hebrew Bible Horizons in Biblical Theology Hebrew Naḥal Ḥever manuscripts Hiphil Hithpael homiliae History of Religions Harvard Semitic Monographs Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax. B. K. Waltke and M. P. O’Connor. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990. imperfect imperative infinitive Interpretation Israel Oriental Studies Jastrow, M., ed. A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, etc. Brooklyn: Traditional Press, 1903. Jerusalem Bible Journal of Biblical Literature Journal of Hebrew Scriptures Joüon P. A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew. Translated and revised by T. Muraoka. 2 vols. Subsidia Biblica 14. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1991. Journal of Near Eastern Studies

xix

Abbreviations and Sigla JNSL JPS JQR JSJSup JSOTSup Jub. KAR

Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages JPS Tanakh Jewish Quarterly Review Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series Jubilees Keilschrifttexte aus Assur religiösen Inhalts. Edited by Erich Ebeling. Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1919–1969. Keil and Delitzsch Keil, C. F., and F. Delitzsch. The Twelve Minor Prophets. Volume 1. Biblical Commentary to the Old Testament. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1900. KJV King James Version KTU Die keilalphabetischen Texte aus Ugarit. By M. Dietrich, O. Loretz, and J. Sanmartin. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1976. LBH Late Biblical Hebrew Lessing Lessing, R. Jonah. Concordia Commentary: A Theological Exposition of Sacred Scripture. St. Louis: Concordia, 2007. Levine Levine, E. The Aramaic Version of Jonah. 3rd ed. New York: Sepher-Hermon Press, 1981. LHBOTS The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies Limburg Limburg, J. Jonah: A Commentary. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993. Liv. Pro. Lives of the Prophets LSTS Library of Second Temple Studies LW Luther’s Works m. Mishnah 3 Macc. 3 Maccabees Magonet Magonet, J. Form and Meaning: Studies in Literary Techniques in the Book of Jonah. Bern: Lang, 1976. Marc. Adversus Marcionem (Against Marcion), Tertullian Meg. Megillah Mek. Mekhilta De-Rabbi Ishmael: A Critical Edition, Based on the Manuscripts and Early Editions. Edited by J. Z. Lauterbach and D. Stern. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2004. MH Mishnaic Hebrew Midr. Midrash mp masculine plural ms masculine singular

Abbreviations and Sigla MS(S) MT MTA MTL Muldoon

Mur 88

NAB NASB NEB Ned. NET NETS

Ni. NIV NJPS NKJV NPNF1 NPNF2 NRSV n.s. OG OGB OGS OL OLA Or OTE OTP OtSt pass.

manuscript(s) Masoretic Text Masoretic Text according to Codex Aleppo Masoretic Text according to Codex Leningradensis Muldoon, C. In Defense of Divine Justice: An Intertextual Approach to the Book of Jonah. CBQ Monograph Series 47. Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 2010. Wadi Murabba‘at scroll of the Minor Prophets (Hebrew). J. T. Milik. “Textes Hébreux et Araméens.” Pages 67–205 in Les Grottes de Murabba’at. DJD 2. Edited by P. Benoit, J. T. Milik, and R. de Vaux. Oxford: Clarendon, 1961. New American Bible New American Standard Bible New English Bible Nedarim New English Translation A New English Translation of the Septuagint. Edited by A. Piet ersma and B. G. Wright. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Niphal New International Version Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures: The New JPS Translation according to the Traditional Hebrew Text New King James Version Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1 Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2 New Revised Standard Version new series Old Greek the Old Greek, Codex Vaticanus the Old Greek, Codex Sinaiticus Old Latin Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta Orientalia Old Testament Essays Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Edited by James H. Charles worth. 2 vols. New York: Doubleday, 1983, 1985. Oudtestamentische Studiën passive

xxi

Abbreviations and Sigla Perry Pesh Pesiq. Rab Kah. PG Pi. Pirqe R. El. pl(s). PN(N) Proof PRSt ps.- ptc. Pu. Q r R. Rab. RB RBC Res. RSV Rudolph Sanh. Sasson SB Gilg. SBH SEÅ Sem Shabb. Sherwood

Sib. Or. Simon Sir SR

xxii

Perry, T. A. The Honeymoon Is Over: Jonah’s Argument with God. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2006. Syriac Peshitta Pesiqta of Rab Kahana Patrologia Graeca. Edited by Jacques-Paul Migne. 162 vols. Paris, 1857–1886. Piel Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer plural, plate(s) Personal Name(s) Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History Perspectives in Religious Studies pseudoparticiple Pual Qur’an recto, front side (of page) Rabbi Rabbah Revue biblique Rosen Babylonian Collection De resurrectione carnis (The Resurrection of the Flesh), Tertullian Revised Standard Version Rudolph, W. Joel, Amos, Obadja, Jona. Gütersloh: Mohn, 1971. Sanhedrin Sasson, Jack M. Jonah. The Anchor Yale Bible 24b. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990. Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh Standard Biblical Hebrew Svensk exegetisk årsbok Semitica Shabbat Sherwood, Y. A Biblical Text and Its Afterlives: The Survival of Jonah in Western Culture. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Sibylline Oracles Simon, U. Jonah. The JPS Bible Commentary. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1999. Sirach Studies in Religion

Abbreviations and Sigla STRev Strom. Stuart Symm t. Ta‘an. TAD

Tanh. Targ TDOT

Theod Tg. Neof. Tg. Onq. Tg. Ps.-J. Tob Trible

Tucker TynBul TZ UT v v(v). var(r). VAT VT VTSup Vulg W Wolff

Sewanee Theological Review Stromateis (Miscellanies), Clement of Alexandria Stuart, D. Hosea–Jonah. Word Biblical Commentary 31. Dallas: Word, 1987. Symmachus Tosefta Ta‘anit Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt. Edited by B. Porten and A. Yardeni. 3 vols. Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1986–1993. Tanhuma Targum Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Edited by G. J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren. Translated by J. T. Willis et al. 8 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974–2006. Theodotion Targum Neofiti Targum Onqelos Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Tobit Trible, P. L. Rhetorical Criticism: Context, Method, and the Book of Jonah. Guides to Biblical Scholarship. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994. Tucker, W. D., Jr. Jonah: A Handbook on the Hebrew Text. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2006. Tyndale Bulletin Theologische Zeitschrift Ugaritic Textbook. C. Gordon. Analecta Orientalia 38. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1965. verso, back side (of page) verse(s) variant(s) Vorderasiatische Abteilung Tontafeln. Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin. Vetus Testamentum Supplements to Vetus Testamentum Vulgate Washington Manuscript V (Freer Twelve Minor Prophets Codex) (Greek) Wolff, H. Obadiah and Jonah. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1986.

xxiii

Abbreviations and Sigla WUNT y. Yal. YBC ZAW Zlotowitz

Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Yerushalmi, Jerusalem Talmud Yalqut Yale Babylonian Collection, New Haven, CT Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Zlotowitz, M. Yonah: A New Translation with a Commentary Anthologized from Talmudic, Midrashic and Rabbinic Sources. Brooklyn: Mesorah, 1978.

Sigla

* >

xxiv

hypothetical form; Hebrew numbering adjusted to English numbering developed to

Introduction

In the modern era, the dominant interpretation of the book of Jonah has gone something like this: Jonah is an obstinate, disobedient prophet of the Lord who does not want to proclaim a message of salvation to non-Jews, especially his enemies. Over the course of the book, God pushes Jonah to see the light—namely, that God’s love and mercy extend to everyone, not only to the Jews. The “gentiles” in Nineveh are incredibly spiritually enlightened and repent of their evil ways after five words from Jonah. Or, alternatively, they repent in an over-the-top way to show up—in fantastic relief—Jonah’s obstinacy, in particular his failure to repent and submit to God. Either way, these gentiles get God (the “true” God) in a way that Jonah does not. The anger Jonah expresses in the final chapter of the book reveals that Jonah has ultimately failed to accept that God could go so far as to forgive Israel’s enemies. In the 1980s and 1990s, many commentators, attentive to the book’s apparent comedic elements, saw the book as a satire. They argued the book lampooned the character Jonah in order to poke fun at xenophobic Israelites, who did not like the idea of sharing God’s favor with the nations (“gentiles”). The assumption behind these readings is that if the text is a satire, it must be rejecting something, showing some position to be funny, as in “funny ludicrous”: what is rejected is Jonah and all that he seems to stand for (e.g., xenophobia, election, particularity, prophecy, “old” ideas about YHWH). The dominant interpretation, along with its satirical spin-off, has had real appeal—especially to Christians who like the idea of a universally loving God who is slow to punish and anger and are a bit uncomfortable with the theological implications of Israel’s election as well as with certain depictions of Israel’s god (as violent, angry, judging). However, as some scholars, in particular Yvonne Sherwood, have re3

Introduction cently pointed out, this dominant interpretation has some disturbing implications. First, casting Jonah as the sole target of the book’s critique plays into and exacerbates a deep-seated and long-felt Christian anxiety about the presence of the Jew. Indeed, as Sherwood has persuasively and disturbingly shown, a rhetoric of anti-Judaism pervades Christian critiques of the character Jonah, who is consistently indicted for being too narrow-minded, too stubborn, too disobedient—in fact, too much like a Christian anti-Judaic stereotype. The dominant reading encourages readers—Christian readers in particular—to chuckle knowingly, perhaps with some pity, at the selfish, obstinate Jonah who must learn a lesson that they (we, really) already know. In this way, Christian identity is shored up over against Jewish identity (Sherwood, 185). Second, this reading takes the Ninevites and, without the slightest bit of irony, turns them into “the gentiles” whom God is determined to save, despite the protests of the small-minded Jew, Jonah. Inherent in this interpretation is a suspicious consistency between the Protestant worldview and God’s “message” in Jonah (it just so happens that the God of Israel espouses the most cherished of mainline Christian values). This is an interpretation that grows up from a secure readerly position, undergirded by the assumption that these readers already know what the book wants to teach—there is an answer at the back of the book that Protestants knew all along. This reinforces a Christian tendency to feel confident that it is God’s will for Christians, at least, to be saved. Third, the prevalence of the dominant reading has the effect of marginalizing other possible interpretations. In the book’s long history of interpretation, quite different readings of the book arose and were nurtured on the margins, away from the power centers of Europe. Unlike mainstream readers, whose interpretations typically confirm and reinforce the status quo, readers from marginalized communities have tended to celebrate the ambiguous and the unsettled (which mirrors their own ambiguous and unsettled existences). Rather than use the text to reinforce the validity and rightness of the current situation, marginal readers have used the text as a forum to air their fears and raise troubling questions, which—not unlike their lives—get played out without resolution. Readers who are politically or economically marginalized cannot so easily assume that God is on their side. Such readings look at God’s salvation of Nineveh, the capital of the empire that destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel, and ask: “Is God siding with our enemies against us?” “Can we trust God to act in our interests?” “Is God a good god?” Where the dominant reading takes the difficult, raw 4

Texts and Versions theological questions raised by Jonah and answers them quickly, coherently, and firmly, marginal interpretations tend to take anxieties about God’s protection and the waywardness of human life and stage them so that readers can wrestle with them (Sherwood 185–88). Finally, the dominant interpretation is simply stale and flat. It takes all of the power, pathos, and subtlety that is characteristic of great literature and processes it down to an easily digested, gluten-f ree kernel. It takes a theologically robust, richly allusive, and provocative biblical book and pitches it as a children’s story designed to deliver a saccharine “moral of the story” (e.g., “you can’t run away from God!” or, even sweeter, “God loves everyone!”). What I hope to offer in this commentary is a reading that is a bit meatier and more savory.

1.0 TEXTS AND VERSIONS In the third century CE, Origen’s monumental project known as the Hexapla marks the beginning of textual criticism of the book of Jonah. The conviction that the establishment of a correct text was a necessary precursor to exegesis motivated Origen to produce the Hexapla. Such a correct text was elusive in Origen’s time because there were a number of rival Greek translations competing with the Septuagint; the variants, along with the many Greek divergences from the Hebrew text, created confusion in the church where leaders wanted to undergird and bolster their authority with the single, true text of Scripture. To determine that true text, Origen constructed a system designed to help him adjudicate among the available variants. Although Origen’s Hexapla is not extant, it likely consisted of six columns containing (1) the Hebrew text in Hebrew square script, (2) a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew, (3) Aquila’s Greek translation, (4) Symmachus’s Greek translation, (5) the so-called Septuagint, which consisted of OG supplemented with material from Theodotion, marked with asterisks, and (6) Theodotion’s translation. Although convinced of the Septuagint’s spiritual and ecclesiastical authority, Origen was partial to the Hebrew because it represented the Old Testament in its original form (Paget 1996, 507). The creation of Polyglots, or multilingual Bibles, marks the next significant moment in text-critical study. Eveline van Staalduine-Sulman compares the intellectual practice that fueled the creation of Polyglots to that of the study of flowers in the seventeenth century: collection, observation, 5

Introduction and comparison. Versions were collected and presented side by side on the same page so that scholars and religious leaders could observe the differences and similarities among them and then study them in comparison to one another (230). The Polyglots reflect the values of the scholars and printers of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, who believed that “there is more to the original text than meets the eye and no translation would ever manage to comprehend the entire meaning of the original text” (Staalduine-Sulman 2017, 230). Because these Polyglot makers also believed that those who lived in closer proximity to the time and culture of the Bible had more accurate and even more intimate information about God, Polyglots accumulated more versions over time. The burgeoning grandeur of these projects has been likened to cathedral building in that the Polyglot was a material and visual expression of devotion that also brought glory to the men and the nations that produced them. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros was dismayed by the state of biblical scholarship in Spain. To ameliorate the situation, he established a university and enlisted a host of experts in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin to collaborate on the Complutensian Polyglot (Alcalá de Henares, Spain, 1514–1517). This aesthetically striking Bible presented the Hebrew, Greek (the ecclesiastical text known as the Septuagint, supplemented with the asterisked material), and Latin (Vulgate) of the book of Jonah on a single page. In the next century, the Antwerp (1569–1572) and Paris (1645) Polyglots followed, adding the text of the Targum at the bottom of each page. The London Polyglot (1655–1657) emerged in the wake of the English Civil War. Its lead creator, Brian Walton, was convinced that an ambitious new Polyglot would be an important way to bring order and unity to the divided nation. In Walton’s Polyglot, the text of Jonah appears in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and Aramaic. While the sought-after order and unity in England remained elusive, the availability of Polyglots and other philological and grammatical resources produced during the same period enabled modern textual criticism on Jonah to develop through the work of scholars including Louis Cappel (1585–1658), Albert Schultens (1686–1750), Charles François Houbigant (1684–1783), and Georg Beer (1865–1946). Major text-critical and philological contributions in the twentieth century were produced by Julius Bewer (1912), Phyllis Trible (1963), and Jack Sasson (1990).

Texts and Versions

1.1 Hebrew 1.1.1 Masoretic Text The primary Hebrew source for my translation of the biblical book of Jonah is the Masoretic Text (MT). The most readily and widely available witness to MT-Jonah is B19A, Codex Leningrad (MTL), which dates to ca. 1009 CE and is housed in St. Petersburg. MTL is the basis of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS), the fourth edition of which was edited by K. Elliger (1967–1968). While Biblia Hebraica Leningradensia (BHL), edited by Aron Dotan (2001), corrects some of the errors in BHS, it does not contain a critical apparatus. For the fifth edition of BHS, Biblia Hebraica Quinta (BHQ), Anthony Gelston prepared the fascicle for the Twelve Prophets (2010). A facsimile edition of MTL, edited by David Noel Freedman, Astrid Beck, and James Sanders, was published in 1997. While Codex Aleppo (MTA) represents the most accurate source for MT, unfortunately the pages containing the book of Jonah are (presumably) among the three pages from the Twelve Prophets (Amos 8:13 to Mic 5:1, including the books of Obadiah and Jonah) that have been lost. The Cairo Codex of the Prophets (Codex Prophetarum Cairensis) contains the complete text of the Nevi’im, including the book of Jonah. While the colophon indicates that the text was pointed in 895 CE by Moses ben Asher in Tiberias, L. Lipschütz observed that the codex is more similar to the Ben Naphtali tradition than that of Ben Asher (1962). M. H. Goshen-Gottstein explained the discrepancy by arguing that Ben Naphtali followed the Ben Asher tradition more scrupulously than Moses ben Asher’s own son (1963, 107). U. Cassutto published the book of Jonah from this manuscript in 1946 (print ed. 1953), and D. Lyons edited a facsimile critical edition of the codex’s Masora (1999). The Petersburg Codex of the Prophets (VP) contains the Major and Minor Prophets, including Jonah. The manuscript was discovered in a synagogue in the Crimea in 1839 and is significant because of its age (it dates to 916 CE) as well as for its preservation of the Babylonian pointing system. Variants: Benjamin Kennicott (1776) published a collection of variants from more than six hundred manuscripts and fifty-two editions of the Hebrew text. Giovanni De Rossi supplemented and corrected Kenni cott’s edition some ten years later (1788). In 1926, C. D. Ginsburg prepared a new edition of the “Later Prophets.” The text was based on Jacob ben

Introduction hayyim’s Second Rabbinic Bible (1524/25) and included variants from more C than seventy manuscripts. The majority of these variants show divergence only on minor grammatical points; few produce potential differences in meaning.

BIBLIOGRAPHY De Rossi, G., ed. 1788. Variae lectiones Veteris Testamenti ex Immensa Mss. 4 vols. Parma: Ex Regio Typographeo. Dotan, A., ed. 2001. Biblia Hebraica Leningradensia. Peabody, MA: Hendrikson. Freedman, D. N., et al., eds. 1998. The Leningrad Codex: A Facsimile Edition. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Gelston, A. 2010. Biblia Hebraica Quinta: The Twelve Minor Prophets. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson. Ginsburg, C. D., ed. 1926. The Old Testament, Diligently Revised According to the Masorah and the Early Editions with Various Readings. 4 vols. London: British Foreign Society. Goshen-Gottstein, M. H. 1963. Pages 79–122 in “The Rise of the Tiberian Bible Text.” In Biblical and Other Studies. Edited by A. Altmann. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kennicott, B., ed. 1776. Vetus Testamentum Hebraicum cum Variis Lectionibus. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon. Lipschütz, L. 1964. “Kitāb Al-Khilaf: Mishael Ben Uzziel’s Treatise on the Differences between Ben Asher and Ben Naphtali.” Textus 4:1–29. Lyons, D., ed. 1999. The Cumulative Masora: Text, Form and Transmission with a Facsimile Critical Edition of the Cumulative Masora in the Cairo Prophets Codex; Heb. title: ha-Masorah ha-metsarefet—derakheha ve-sugeha: al pi ketav-yad Kahir shel ha-Neviim. Beer-Sheva: Ben-Gurion University. Paget, J. N. B. C. 1996. “The Christian Exegesis of the Old Testament in the Alexandrian Tradition.” Pages 478–542 in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, vol. I/1, Antiquity. Edited by M. Sæbø. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Staalduine-Sulman, E. van. 2017. Justifying Christian Aramaism: Editions and Latin Translations of the Targums from the Complutensian to the London Polyglot Bible. Jewish and Christian Perspectives Series, vol. 33. Leiden: Brill. Strack, H. L., ed. 1876. The Hebrew Bible, Latter Prophets; The Babylonian Codex of Petrograd. New York: Ktav, 1971. Translation of Prophetarum posteriorum codex Babylonicus Petropolitanus. Petropoli: Editio Bibliothecae Publicae Imperialis.

Texts and Versions

1.1.2 Qumran Hebrew Texts Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, there are five early manuscripts containing Jonah. In the Masoretic category, by which I mean that they are close to later texts that conform to the Masoretic tradition, are 4Q76 (XIIa), 4Q81 (XIIf ), 4Q82 (XIIg), Mur 88 (XII), and 8Ḥev 1 LXX (8ḤevXII gr; see 1.2). Of the witnesses to the Minor Prophets, and to Jonah in particular, 4Q76 (XIIa) is one of the oldest, dating to the second century BCE (Guillaume 2007). It contains Jonah 1:1–5, 7–8; 1:9–2:1; 2:7; and 3:2 (Fuller 1997, 229–32). Wadi Murabbaʿat (Mur 88/MurXII) is the most complete, covering the entire book of Jonah with only a few lacunae. The differences between MT and the consonantal texts from Qumran are minimal and largely insignificant. Until recently, the scholarly consensus was that the Book of the Twelve existed as a largely completed collection by the first half of the second century BCE. This view is primarily based on the reference to the Twelve in Ben Sira (“May the bones of the Twelve Prophets send forth new life from where they lie, for they comforted the people of Jacob and delivered them with confident hope” [Sir 49:10 NRSV]), which suggests that the Twelve was understood as a collection (Nogalski 1993a, 2–3), and perhaps copied as a unit (Wöhrle 2006), as early as the second century BCE. Thus there was no independent “book of Jonah” or Jonah scroll; Jonah was always part of the Twelve. Ben Sira (in Sir 48:10) also alludes to the final verses of Malachi (Mal 3:23–24 [Eng. 4:5–6]), which, some scholars have argued, were composed late to serve as a conclusion to the Book of the Twelve (Mal 3:22 [Eng. 4:4]; Mal 3:23–24). That Ben Sira knows this material in the context of the Twelve suggests that the collection was complete by the time he referred to it (Nogalski 1993b, 185–86). While Sir 49:10 suggests that the author of Ben Sira conceived of the Twelve as a unit in the second century BCE, that text does not tell us anything about the order of the books; nor does it suggest that the order was stable; nor does it mean Ben Sira’s view was representative. There is also scant evidence to support the view that the books were consistently copied together on a single scroll, rather than as individual books (Weissenberg 2012). Despite early suggestions to the contrary (Fuller 1995), the evidence from Qumran is inconclusive. Lists of preserved copies are not as straightforward as they may appear, in part because the precise number of manuscripts is difficult to determine (Weissenberg 2012). DJD 39 (Tov 2002, 165–83) indicates that the Twelve is preserved in eight or nine manuscripts. The seven manuscripts from Cave 4 are labeled 4QXIIa–g or 4Q76–82. 4QXIIg and a frag9

Introduction mentary manuscript of Amos (5QAmos) were found in Cave 5. The possible ninth manuscript (4Q168) is extremely fragmentary, and while some scholars have suggested it is a copy of Micah or an exegetical interpretation of Micah (a pesher), there is no consensus on the matter. Further, although Fuller has reconstructed a physical join between the end of Malachi and the beginning of Jonah in 4QXIIa and posited a manuscript that contains a unique sequence in which Jonah follows Malachi, the reconstruction is not certain and should not be treated as factual (Brooke 2006, 22). Indeed, it is not at all certain which of the other twelve books, aside from Jonah and Malachi, were represented on 4QXIIa (formerly 4Q76) (Guillaume 2007). The existence of other fragments, some of which remain unpublished, makes it difficult to catalog accurately all the evidence and to determine the order of the books in the earliest collections (Weissenberg 2012). Current assessments of the data indicate that the most complete manuscripts of the Twelve, which date prior to the turn of the millennium (4QXIIg and 8ḤevXII gr), contain only seven or eight of the books. This challenges Fuller’s early claim (1988, 151–52) that the six scrolls containing the Minor Prophets contained all twelve books (Jones 1995, 6). With the evidence from Qumran, Philippe Guillaume argues, “Before the turn of the era, the Twelve constituted no more than an anthology gathered in a somewhat flexible order, which later on became fixed” (2007, 15; see also Ben Zvi 1996; Beck 2006).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Beck, M. 2006. “Das Dodekapropheton als Anthologie.” ZAW 118:558–83. Ben Zvi, E. 1996. Pages 125–56 in “Twelve Prophetic Books or ‘The Twelve’? A Few Preliminary Considerations.” In Forming Prophetic Literature. Edited by J. W. Watts and P. R. House. JSOTSup 235. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic. Benoit, P., ed. 1961. Les grottes de Muraba‘ât. DJD 2. Oxford: Clarendon. Brooke, G. J. 2006. Pages 19–44 in “The Twelve Minor Prophets and the Dead Sea Scrolls.” In Congress Volume Leiden 2004. Edited by A. Lemaire. Leiden: Brill. De Troyer, K., A. Lange, and L. L. Schulte, eds. 2009. Prophecy after the Prophets? The Contribution of the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Understanding of Biblical and Extra-Biblical Prophecy. Leuven: Peeters. Ego, B., A. Lange, H. Lichtenberger, and K. De Troyer, eds. 2005. Biblia Qumranica. Vol. 3B. Leiden: Brill. Jonah: 104–13. Fuller, R. E. 1988. “The Minor Prophets Manuscripts from Qumran, Cave IV.” PhD diss., Harvard University.

Texts and Versions ———. 1996. “The Form and Formation of the Book of the Twelve.” Pages 86–101 in Forming Prophetic Literature. Edited by J. W. Watts and P. R. House. JSOTSup 235. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic. — ——. 1997. “The Twelve.” Pages 221–318 and plates XL–XLIII in Qumran Cave 4. Edited by E. Ulrich, F. M. Cross, R. E. Fuller, J. E. Sanderson, P. W. Skehan, and E. Tov. DJD 15. Oxford: Clarendon. Guillaume, P. 2007. “The Unlikely Malachi-Jonah Sequence (4QXIIa).” JHebS 7:1–10. Jones, B. A. 1995. The Formation of the Book of the Twelve: A Study in Text and Canon. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Lange, A. 2009. “The Genre of the Book of Jonah in Light of Paratextual Literature from the Qumran Library.” Pages 193–202 in Prophecy after the Prophets? The Contribution of the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Understanding of Biblical and Extra- Biblical Prophecy. Edited by K. de Troyer and A. Lange with L. L. Schulte. Leuven: Peeters. Lange, A., and M. Weigold. 2011. Biblical Quotations and Allusions in Second Temple Jewish Literature. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Martínez, G. 2004. “The Text of the XII Prophets at Qumran.” OTE 17:103–19. Milik, J. 1961. “88. Rouleau des Douze Prophètes.” Pages 181–205 in Les grottes de Murabba‘ât. Edited by P. Benoit, J. T. Milik, and R. de Vaux. DJD 2.1. Oxford: Clarendon. — ——. 1962. “4. Amos.” Pages 173–74 in Les ‘petites grottes’ de Qumran: Exploration de la falaise, Les grottes 2Q, 3Q, 5Q, 6Q, 7Q à 10Q, Le rouleau de cuivre. Edited by M. Baillet, J. T. Milik, and R. de Vaux. DJD 3. Oxford: Clarendon. Nogalski, J. A. 1993a. Literary Precursors to the Book of the Twelve. BZAW 217. Berlin: de Gruyter. — ——. 1993b. Redactional Processes in the Book of the Twelve. BZAW 218. Berlin: de Gruyter. — ——. 1996. “Intertextuality and the Twelve.” Pages 102–24 in Forming Prophetic Literature. Edited by J. W. Watts and P. R. House. JSOTSup 235. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic. Steck, O. H. 1996. “Zur Abfolge Maleachi-Jona in 4Q76 (4QXIIa).” ZAW 108:249–53. Tov, E., ed. 2002. The Texts from the Judaean Desert: Indices and an Introduction to the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert Series. DJD 39. Oxford: Clarendon. Jonah: 165–83. Tov, E., and S. J. Pfann, eds. 1997. The Dead Sea Scrolls on Microfiche. Leiden: Brill. Ulrich, E., et al., eds. 1997. Qumran Cave 4, X: The Prophets. DJD 15. Oxford: Clarendon. Washburn, D. L. 2003. A Catalog of Biblical Passages in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.

Introduction Weissenberg, H. von. 2012. “The Twelve Minor Prophets at Qumran and the Canonical Process: Amos as a ‘Case Study.’” Pages 357–77 in The Hebrew Bible in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Edited by N. Dávid, A. Lange, K. De Troyer, and S. Tzoref. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Wöhrle, J. 2006. Die Frühen Sammlungen des Zwölfprophetenbuches: Entstehung und Komposition. BZAW 360. Berlin: de Gruyter.

1.2 Greek 1.2.1 Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Naḥal Ḥever The earliest copy of Jonah in Greek is found in the Greek Minor Prophets scroll from Naḥal Ḥever (8ḤevXII gr), which contains fragments of all the Minor Prophets with the exception of Haggai. Two different scribes copied the scroll, indicating that it might be two separate scrolls (Martínez 2004, 105). Tov raises the possibility that the original scroll contained fifty-five columns (Tov 1990). The Naḥal Ḥever scroll from Qumran is generally thought to be a revision of the OG from the early first century CE (Barthélemy 1963), intended to bring OG into closer conformity with MT. Brock and Jellicoe have argued that the purpose of the Letter of Aristeas was to polemicize against this kind of revision of the OG (Brock 1972, 11–36; Jellicoe 1968, 29–58).

1.2.2 The Greek Book of Jonah The Old Greek (OG) translation of Jonah is regarded by some as the oldest Greek translation of the book, though both the precise form and date of it are difficult to determine. Although there are palimpsests from the Cairo Geniza that provide a witness to Aquila’s translation, the Greek translations of Jonah from the Hebrew by Aquila (ca. 130 CE), Symmachus (ca. 170 CE), and Theodotion (traditionally dated to 190 CE, but now thought to have been carried out by the kaige-group at the end of the first century BCE or the beginning of the first century CE; Jobes and Silva 2000, 284–87) are known to us, for the most part, from Origen’s Hexapla (third century CE). The resulting composite text is commonly referred to as “LXX-Jonah,” which likely reflects the work of

Texts and Versions the same single translator responsible for all of LXX-Twelve—a theory first advanced by Henry St. John Thackeray (1920) and later defended by Joseph Ziegler ([1934] 1971). While George Howard (1970) and C. R. Harrison (1988) questioned the theory, Takamitsu Muraoka’s convincing defense of the unitary hypothesis has led to renewed consensus (1970, 1989). The lack of extensive minuses (deletions) and pluses (additions) in LXX- Twelve suggests that the Greek translator of the Book of the Twelve, whom some have argued is the kaige-group (“Theodotion”) (Barthélemy 1963, 253–60), likely worked from an MT-type text, a Vorlage very similar to the consonantal text of MT. Also in support of this view is the Murabbaʿat scroll (Mur 88), which suggests that a text similar to the MT existed from the late first century BCE. Tov judges that while there are many minor divergences between the two, only a very small proportion of these differences are the result of a disparity between the MT and the translation’s Vorlage (1992, 123; see 1993, 117). Jan Joosten characterizes the translation technique of the Greek Twelve as “creatively faithful” (2005, 217; see also Barr 1979, 281). While LXX- Twelve’s frequent replication of Hebrew word order gives the impression of a very literal translation, at times the translator intentionally diverges from this practice (Glenny 2009, 44–46). In general, while deeply concerned with maintaining the original of the parent text, the translation is not “slavish,” as Origen and others pejoratively claimed (Palmer 2006, 317–20). A host of studies on LXX-Amos indicates that the translator exercised freedom within the boundaries of a faithful word order in an effort to clarify the sense of the parent text (Jones 1995, 83–91). In general, when he perceives his parent text to be ambiguous, the translator tends to supply explicit subjects and objects, insert words and phrases, and give double translations of a single Hebrew word (Arieti 1972, 30; Waard 1978) With regard to Jonah specifically, OG-Jonah reveals that, in spite of a literal translation strategy, minor interpretive insertions and changes result in a different understanding of certain narrative and generic features of the book. In general, the result is that in the Greek Old Testament, Jonah’s character is somewhat enhanced, “reflecting a desire to have Jonah act in a manner more appropriate to the prophetic office,” and the story is rendered more internally consistent (Perkins 1987, 52). In ch. 2, for example, the translator lessens the apparent incompatibility between the poem’s form (a psalm of thanksgiving) and the narrative context (a situation of distress) in MT by construing the psalm more in a mode of lament than thanksgiving. The trans-

Introduction lator transforms four assertions in the psalm into questions, wishes, vows, or requests. In this way, he integrates the psalm into the plot, by turning the poem into an expression of Jonah’s personal experience in the fish’s belly. As a result, the readerly disorientation occasioned by Jonah’s speaking of a psalm of thanksgiving from a place of distress is minimized (Perkins 1987, 48). The translator also strengthens the symmetry of the chapter. For example, in 2:11, instead of translating literally, “And YHWH spoke to the fish,” he matches the verb of 2:1, “And the fish was appointed (prosetaxen).” OG’s concern for enhancing the propriety of the Hebrew is perhaps evident in the way it renders the Hebrew rʿʿ (evil). Different Greek words are used to describe the “evil” of Nineveh versus the evil of which God repents. The word ponēros (evil), which is applied to the Ninevites, has a connotation of immorality (3:8, 10; but cf. 1:2), while the more morally neutral kakos (disaster, calamity) is used to refer to God’s actions (1:7, 8; 3:10; 4:2) and even to Jonah’s feelings (4:6). While the majority of scholars view OG-Jonah as a fairly literal transition of the Hebrew Vorlage, Sasson argues that the grammatical and philological disparities between MT and LXX in Jonah 3 are the result of significantly different interpretations of the Hebrew Vorlage. Sasson concludes that these two readings reflect the fact that in the ancient world, two separate accounts of what happened in Nineveh were in circulation (10, 264–68). Another important Greek translation of Jonah comes from the Freer Minor Prophets codex from the third century CE. De Troyer has recently done a thorough analysis of Jonah in the Freer codex, comparing it to 8ḤevXII gr, OG (Ziegler), and MT. The nature of the twenty-four variants in Jonah (reflecting the corrections of two different scribes) has led her to conclude that the manuscript stands in the tradition of the Old Greek, generally correcting toward OG as opposed to the existing Hebrew texts (De Troyer 2006).

1.2.3 Old Latin Old Latin (OL) or Vetus Latina (VL) refers to a plurality of Latin translations of the Septuagint that were in circulation prior to the completion of Jerome’s Latin translation of the Greek (abbreviated as “Hier”) in 388 CE. There is, then, no single text for OL. Thus, manuscripts have been assembled from various fragments, liturgies, and quotations from early Latin interpreters. Fragments of Jonah exist in the Constance Old Latin fragments of the Prophets (MS 175; Dold 1923), likely written in fifth-century Northern France; Codex Veronensis (MS 300), a Greek and Old Latin Psalter from the 14

Texts and Versions sixth century, which contains Jonah 2:3–10; and Codex Wirceburgiensis (MS 177; Ranke 1871), which dates to ca. 700 CE.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Arieti, J. A. 1972. “A Study in the Septuagint of Amos.” PhD diss., Stanford University. Baars, W. 1968. New Syro-Hexaplaric Texts: Edited, Commented upon, Compared with the Septuagint. Leiden: Brill. Barr, J. 1979. The Typology of Literalism in Ancient Biblical Translations. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Barthélemy, D. 1963. Les devanciers d’Aquila. VTSup 10. Leiden: Brill. Brock, S. P. 1972. “The Phenomenon of the Septuagint.” Oudtestamentische Studiën 17:11–36. De Troyer, K. 2006. “The Freer Twelve Minor Prophets Codex.” Pages 75–85 in The Freer Biblical Manuscripts: Fresh Studies of an American Treasure Trove. Edited by L. W. Hurtado. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Dold, A. 1923. Konstanzer altlateinische Propheten- und Evangelienbruchstücke mit Glossen. Leipzig: Harrassowitz. Field, F., ed. 1871–75. Pages 4–83 in vol. 2 of Origenis Hexaplorum quae supersunt: sive, Veterum interpretum graecorum in totum Vetus Testamentum fragmenta. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon. Glenny, W. E. 2009. Finding Meaning in the Text: Translation Technique and Theology in the Septuagint of Amos. VTSup 126. Leiden: Brill. Harrison, C. R. 1988. “The Unity of the Minor Prophets in the LXX: A Reexamination of the Question.” BIOSCS 21:55–72. Holladay, C. R. 1983. Fragments from Hellenistic Jewish Authors. Society of Biblical Literature Texts and Translations. Chico, CA: Scholars Press. Howard, G. 1970. “Some Notes on the Septuagint of Amos.” VT 20:108–12. Jellicoe, S. 1968. The Septuagint and Modern Study. Oxford: Clarendon. Jobes, K., and M. Silva. 2000. Invitation to the Septuagint. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic. Jones, B. A. 1995. The Formation of the Book of the Twelve: A Study in Text and Canon. Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series 149. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Joosten, J. 2005. “A Septuagintal Translation Technique in the Minor Prophets: The Elimination of Verbal Repetitions.” Pages 217–23 in Interpreting Translation: Studies on the LXX and Ezekiel (FS J. Lust). Edited by G. Martínez and M. Vervenne. Leuven: Peeters.

Introduction Kahle, P. 1959. The Cairo Geniza. 2nd ed. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Martínez, F. G. 2004. “The Text of the XII Prophets at Qumran.” OTE 17:103–19. Muraoka, T. 1970. “Is the Septuagint Amos viii 12 – ix 10 a Separate Unit?” VT 20:496–500. — ——. 1989. “In Defence of the Unity of the Septuagint Minor Prophets.” AJBI 15:25–36. — ——. 2002. “Introduction aux Douze Petits Prophetes.” Pages 1–23 in La Bible d’Alexandrie. 23, 1. Edited by E. Bons, J. Joosten, S. Kessler, and P. Le Moigne. Paris: Cerf. Palmer, J. K. 2006. “‘Not Made with Tracing Paper’: Studies in The Septuagint of Zechariah.” TynBul 57.2:317–20. Perkins, L. 1987. “The Septuagint of Jonah: Aspects of Literary Analysis Applied to Biblical Translation.” BIOSCS 20:43–53. Sanders, H. A., ed. 1927. The Minor Prophets in the Freer Collection. University of Michigan Studies, Humanistic Series 21. New York: Macmillan. Thackeray, H. J. 1920. The Septuagint and Jewish Worship. London: British Academy. Tov, E., ed. 1990. The Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever (8HevXllgr). DJD 8. Oxford: Clarendon. — ——. 1992. Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible. Minneapolis: Fortress. — ——. 1993. “Some Reflections on the Hebrew Texts from Which the Septuagint Was Translated.” JNSL 19:107–22. Waard, J. de. 1978. “Translation Techniques Used by the Greek Translators of the Book of Amos.” Bib 59:339–50. Ziegler, J. [1934] 1971. “Die Einheit der Septuaginta zum Zwölfprophetenbuch.” Pages 29–42 in Sylloge: Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Septuaginta. Mitteilungen des Septuaginta-Unternehmens 10. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Originally published as “Die Einheit der LXX zum Zwölfprophetenbuch.” In Beilage zum Vorlesungsverzeichnis der Staatlichen Akademie zu Braunsberg im WS 1934/35. Braunsberg. — ——. 1967. Septuaginta. Vetus Testamentum Graecum Auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum: Duodecim Prophetae. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Jonah: 244–53.

1.3 Vulgate In 382 CE, Pope Damasus commissioned Jerome to revise the existing Latin versions of the Gospels. That work led Jerome to undertake a more radical translation project of the OT. Instead of working exclusively from the Greek Old Tes16

Texts and Versions tament, which was regarded as the authoritative text by most of his Christian contemporaries, Jerome decided to use the Hebrew as the basis for his Latin translation, which came to be known as the Vulgate (“common edition”). Jerome’s decision to translate the Hebrew instead of the Greek was controversial in part because, in the late fourth century, the Christian church was actively trying to distinguish and distance itself from Judaism. Jerome gained notoriety for prioritizing the Hebrew version of the Old Testament over the Greek as well as for his decision to consult Jewish teachers. Not all were pleased; one Christian opponent declared Jerome’s translations to be “tainted with Judaism” (Apol. 2.32–34). Jerome’s running feud with Augustine, often centered on Jerome’s translational activities, reached vitriolic levels. One letter from Augustine to Jerome told the story of a riot breaking out in Tripoli after the bishop read Jerome’s translation of Jonah (Augustine, Epistles 71.5). For Augustine, altering “the translation of the seventy” was both a theological and pastoral issue. The church had long held that the Old Latin, based on the Greek Old Testament, was inspired by the Holy Spirit, and so the claim that Jerome’s new translation was based on (what amounted to) a different Bible was potentially destabilizing. Jerome himself recognized the issue and often used the OL when he preached. One of the most controversial changes Jerome made in the Vulgate was in Jonah 4:6. Other Latin translations of the Hebrew qyqywn were based on the Old Greek kolokynthē and so rendered with Latin cucurbita (gourd), a word chosen perhaps for its phonetic similarity to qiqayon. Jerome, however, consulted the Hebrew and determined that the underlying Greek of cucurbita was a mistake, so he decided to provide the translation haedera (ivy). He made another change to OL in v. 6; instead of translating hṣ̣yl as “to shelter” (obumbrare), Jerome renders it “to protect” (protegere). In this same verse, Jerome uncharacteristically inserts a gloss at the end of the line: “for Jonah was very distressed” (laboraverat enim). All this suggests that in his translation of ch. 4, Jerome was more explicitly engaged in interpretation than elsewhere in the book of Jonah. Jerome depended heavily on the work of his Greek predecessors, especially Origen and Eusebius. His somewhat limited facility with Hebrew prompted him to look to Origen’s Hexapla, which catalogs the recentiores (the “new” translations of Aq, Symm, and Theod) for help in understanding his text. To reconcile this move with his stated commitment to Hebraica veritas, instead of acknowledging his debt to Origen’s Hexapla, he characterized the “Three” as Jews and semi-Jewish heretics (Williams 2006, 94). There is debate among scholars as to whether Jerome’s translation is essentially a 17

Introduction rendition of the recentiores, relying primarily on Symm (Estin 1984), or a translation of the Hebrew that uses the recentiores to clarify difficult passages (Kedar 1988). In Kamesar’s study of Jerome’s Hebrew Questions on Genesis, he characterizes Jerome’s approach to the text as a “rabbinic-recentiores philology” and concludes that he primarily makes independent use of the recentiores, as well as Jewish exegesis, to support his close study of the Hebrew text (1993, 176–91). In the case of Jonah, for the most part, Jerome’s translation is more similar to MT than LXX-Vorlage (see also Sasson, 11).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Estin, C. 1984. Les psautiers de Jérôme à la lumière des traductions juives antérieures. Rome: San Girolamo. Fischer, B., et al., eds. 1994. Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem. 3rd ed. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft. Kamesar, A. 1993. Jerome, Greek Scholarship, and the Hebrew Bible: A Study of the Quaestiones Hebraicae in Genesim. Oxford: Clarendon. Kedar, B. 1988. “The Latin Translators.” Pages 299–338 in Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading, and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity. Edited by M. J. Mulder and H. Sysling. Assen: Van Gorcum; Philadelphia: Fortress. Sabatier, O., ed. 1943. Bibliorum sacrorum latinae versiones antiquae: seu vetus italica, et caeterae quaecunque in codicibus mss. et antiquorum libris reperiri potuerunt: quae cum vulgata latina, et cum textu graeco comparantur. 3 vols. Reims: Reginaldum Florentain. Williams, M. H. 2006. The Monk and the Book: Jerome and the Making of Christian Scholarship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

1.4 Aramaic The Targums are interpretive translations of the Hebrew version. As the Jewish population transitioned from speaking Hebrew to speaking Aramaic just prior to the turn of the millennium, the need for a version of the Bible in the vernacular arose, in particular for use in the synagogues. The practice of translating the Scripture readings began as an oral practice, with the translator (turgeman) paraphrasing two or three verses of Hebrew into Aramaic for the benefit of the Aramaic-speaking congregation. 18

Texts and Versions Although multiple versions of the Targums existed in antiquity, only a small number of those have survived: the two primary manuscript traditions are the early Palestinian Targum (MS Neofiti 1) and the Babylonian Targum (the Pentateuch in Onkelos and the Prophets in Jonathan), and they are quite distinct from each other. Goshen-Gottstein has compiled an edition of the fragments from the Palestinian Targum, and it includes the book of Jonah (1983, 101–4). The basic Aramaic text of Targum Jonathan in Sperber’s volume (1962) is based on MS Or. 2211 of the British Museum (Codex Reuchlinianus) and includes an extensive critical apparatus. A manuscript from the Vatican (with Tiberian pointing) serves as the basis of Levine’s (1981) translation of and commentary on the Aramaic version of Jonah.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Cathcart, K. J., and R. P. Gordon. 1989. The Targum of the Minor Prophets. Wilmington, DE: Glazier. Dirksen, P. B., and A. van der Kooij, eds. 1995. The Peshitta as a Translation. Leiden: Brill. Gordon, R. P. 1994. Studies in the Targum to the Twelve Prophets, from Nahum to Malachi. VTSup 51. Leiden: Brill. — ——. 2006. Hebrew Bible and Ancient Versions: Selected Essays of Robert P. Gordon. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. Goshen-Gottstein, M. 1983. Fragments of Lost Targumim. Ramat Gan, Israel: Bar Ilan University Press. Jonah: 101–4. Koster, M. D. 1993. “Peshitta Revisited: A Reassessment of Its Value as a Version.” Journal of Semitic Studies 38:235–68. Levine, É. 1981. The Aramaic Version of Jonah. New York: Sepher Hermon Press. Sperber, A., ed. 1962. The Bible in Aramaic. Vol. 3, The Latter Prophets according to Targum Jonathan. Leiden: Brill. Jonah: 436–39.

1.5 Syriac The Peshitta (Pesh) is a Syriac translation of a Hebrew consonantal text that likely originated in 150–200 CE. The earliest manuscript of the Peshitta is the Paris Polyglot of 1645 (updated in 1657). The diplomatic edition compiled by L. G. Rignell (1982) is based on Codex Ambrosianus, dating to the seventh 19

Introduction century. That edition’s limitations—namely, that its exemplar contains a fair numbers of readings that are unique to itself—has prompted scholars at the Peshitta Institute at the University of Leiden to publish a new critical text. The volume that contains Jonah, The Peshitta of the Twelve Prophets, was published by Anthony Gelston in 1987. Because the Peshitta of the Twelve Prophets diverges from MT at many points, it is doubtful that the Vorlage is identical to MT’s. That said, because the Syriac translators exercise a good deal of freedom in their idiomatic rendition of the Hebrew and do so inconsistently, there is no way to reconstruct Pesh’s Hebrew Vorlage with any degree of precision or certainty (Gelston 1987, 111–30). Moreover, while Gelston finds that even though the Peshitta of the Twelve has been influenced by Targum Jonathan or those familiar with it, it is closer to MT than to either Targ or LXX (156–57).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Dirksen, P. 1988. “The Old Testament Peshitta.” Pages 255–97 in Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading, and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity. Edited by M. J. Mulder and H. Sysling. Assen: Van Gorcum; Philadelphia: Fortress. Gelston, A. 1987. The Peshitta of the Twelve Prophets. New York: Oxford University Press. Szpek, H. 1998. “On the Influences of the Septuagint on the Peshitta.” CBQ 60:251– 66. Walter, D. M, G. Greenberg, and G. A. Kiraz. 2012. The Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets According to the Syriac Peshitta Version with English Translation. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias. Weitzman, M. P. 1996. “The Interpretative Character of the Syriac Old Testament.” Pages 587–611 in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, vol. I/1, Antiquity. Edited by M. Sæbø. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

2.0 LANGUAGE 2.1 Vocabulary and Forms On its surface the story of Jonah, particularly in chs. 1 and 3, appears to be simple, even artless. The language and style are plain, marked by basic vocabulary and repetition. 20

Commentary

Terror on the Stormy Sea 1:1–16

1 1 The word of YHWH came to Jonah, the son of Amittay: 2 “Go now to Nineveh, that great city, and call out concerning it; for their evil has come up before me.” 3 Then Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish away from YHWH. He went down to Joppa and found a ship coming from Tarshish, so he paid its hire and went down into it to accompany them to Tarshish away from YHWH. 4 Now YHWH hurled a great wind upon the sea so that there was a great storm on the sea, and the ship reckoned to break up. 5 The sailors feared and cried out, each one to his god, and they hurled the vessels that were on the ship into the sea to lighten their burden. Jonah, however, went down into the depths of the vessel, lay down, and fell into a deep sleep. 6 The captain approached him and said to him, “What’s with you, sleeping? Now cry out to your god! Perhaps the god will give us a thought and we won’t die.” 7 They said, one to another, “Come on, let’s cast lots, so that we can figure out who is bringing this evil to us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 They said to him, “Tell us! Why? On whose account has this evil come to us? What is your mission? And where did you come from? What is your land? And what people are you from?” 9 He said to them, “I am a Hebrew, and it is YHWH, God of Heaven, whom I fear—the one who made the sea and the dry ground.” 10 The men feared a great fear, and they said to him, “What on earth have you done?” For the men knew that he was fleeing away from YHWH because he told them. 11 They said to him, “What should we do to you so that the sea will quiet down from upon us, because the sea is getting stormier?” 12 He said to them, “Lift me up and hurl me into the sea so the sea will quiet down from upon you, because I know that it is on account of me that this great storm is upon you.” 13 Then the men desperately rowed to return to dry ground, but they could not, for the sea was getting even stormier against them. 14 So they called out to YHWH and said, “Oh now, YHWH, do not let us die because of this man’s life, and do not impose innocent blood on us. For 239

Terror on the Stormy Sea 1:1–16 you are YHWH—you do what you please.” 15 Then they lifted up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea stopped its raging. 16 The men feared an even greater fear—that is, YHWH—and they sacrificed to YHWH and made vows.

INTERPRETATION The first chapter of the book of Jonah begins in the spirit of a prophetic commission narrative in which YHWH reveals to the prophet that he has chosen him to receive and speak the “word of YHWH.” Jonah’s unexpected response in v. 3 leads the story and the book into uncharted waters—both literally and figuratively. Instead of unfolding along the lines of the prophet’s words, the erratic plot-paths the book of Jonah will follow are driven by Jonah’s resistance to the divine commission to prophesy to Nineveh. Jonah’s unprecedented attempts to flee from YHWH’s presence turn a would-be prophetic book into an adventure story on the high seas. The narrative in Jonah 1:4–16 takes place in the first of the book’s four settings, all of which are outside the land of Israel: on the sea in 1:4–16, in the fish in ch. 2, in Nineveh in ch. 3, and outside the city in ch. 4. The sea story begins with YHWH generating a storm of epic proportions (1:4). YHWH refuses to allow Jonah to thwart his will, but his wind-hurling action affects not only Jonah but also the non-Israelite sailors aboard the ship. The presence of an all-powerful deity insistent on obedience from his prophet creates an expectation that this tale will proceed to a quick and certain conclusion. However, the unnamed sailors emerge as powerful characters in their own right. Through their dialogue and by their own actions, executed both with and without knowledge of what is “really” happening between YHWH and Jonah, they forcibly resist the smooth resolution of the plot. In so doing, the non-Israelite characters not only delay divine gratification but also highlight the tension in the theological claim that the god of Israel is also the god of all the earth.

History of Consequences Early Jewish interpretations of Jonah refer to two traditions about Jonah’s lineage. One identifies Jonah as a member of the tribe of Zebulun on the basis of 2 Kgs 14:25, where Jonah is identified as a prophet from 240

Interpretation Gath-Hepher, which the book of Joshua locates in the territory of Zeb ulun (Josh 19:10–13). In another tradition, Jonah is said to be from the tribe of Asher, which is associated with Sidon (Judg 1:31) and Zarepath, the hometown of the widow who sustained Elijah (1 Kgs 17:9). The two views are harmonized by assigning Jonah’s father to Zebulun and his mother to Asher (y. Sukkah 5:1; Gen. Rab. 98:1; Yal. Shimoni, Jonah, 550). The origins of Jonah in Asher are consistent with traditions that identify him as the child resuscitated by Elijah (Liv. Pro.; Pirqe R. El. 33; Midr. Pss. 26.7). The sages also connected the second part of Jonah’s name, “son of Amittai,” to his resurrection. After Elijah raises him from the dead, Jonah becomes the embodiment of the widow’s proclamation to Elijah, “the word of YHWH in your mouth is truth” (ʾĕmet, 1 Kgs 17:24) and so is called ben ʾămittay, “son of truth” (b. Sanh. 113a). In early Jewish midrashim, as the resurrected widow’s son, Jonah becomes a disciple of Elijah and Elisha. In Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer 10, Jonah’s prophetic career includes a prophecy of destruction to Jerusalem, an oracle that is annulled in the wake of the city’s repentance. Rabbinic interest in establishing an Israelite genealogy for Jonah and situating him within Israel’s history stands in contrast to the majority of early Christian interpretations of Jonah that link events in the book of Jonah to the life, death, and resurrection and the preaching of Jesus by way of allegory and typology. In part, as a reaction against Christian emphasis on the OT as text that contains spiritual, universally applicable truths, early rabbinic interpretation places more emphasis on the embodied, physical, and genealogical aspects of Israel’s identity (Boyarin 1993). Because the narrator provides no explicit motivation for Jonah’s decision “to flee to Tarshish away from YHWH” (1:3) in ch. 1, the question is placed in the hands of the reader. Generations of interpreters, armed with an array of methods and reading practices and formed by their own social, historical, and religious contexts, have speculated about the reason for Jonah’s refusal to carry out the divine command to prophesy to Nineveh. While some early Jewish interpretations condemn Jonah’s flight unequivocally (Sifre Deut. 177:1), the majority seek to understand Jonah’s radical behavior by situating it in the context of Israelite traditions and Israel’s history and to explain it in light of Jonah’s constructed backstories in rabbinic tradition. In Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer, prior to the command to go to Nineveh, God’s decision to annul his announcement 241

Terror on the Stormy Sea 1:1–16 of doom against Jerusalem has already besmirched Jonah’s reputation as prophet (see also Liv. Pro.); although it was Jerusalem’s repentance that led to the overturning of Jonah’s prophecy of judgment, the people called him a false prophet. Fearing further vilification and charges of false prophecy (“the entire Assyrian nation would shout ‘false prophet!’”), Jonah flees from the mission to Nineveh (Pirqe R. El. 10; Saadiah, Beliefs and Opinions 3.5; Rashi; Abravanel). For many Jewish interpreters, it is Jonah’s concern for Israel that leads him to disobey God’s command. As a prophet, he foresaw that Nineveh and/or the nations were ready to repent and that the obedience of the gentiles could result in God’s condemnation of Israel (Mek. Pisḥa I; y. Sanh. 11:5; Tanh. VaYikra 8; Pirqe R. El. 10; cf. Lam. Rab. 31.2). Despairing and unwilling to participate in a divine plan that could lead to Israel’s destruction, Jonah was prepared to give his life for Israel (1:12; Mek. Pisḥa I, 103–5, Rashi, Joseph Kara, Radak [David Kimḥi], Ibn Ezra). Abravanel modifies this interpretation, arguing that Jonah does not fear that Israel will appear stiff-necked compared to Nineveh; instead, his rejection of the mission stems from his knowledge that Assyria will survive only to destroy Israel in 721 BCE. These two explanations predominate in Jewish readings through the medieval period. Some early Christian interpretations also consider the question of why Jonah flees from God. Like their Jewish counterparts, they imagine that Jonah refuses the divine commission because he fears he will be labeled a false prophet (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 2.106) or on account of his concern for Israel’s fate (Jerome, Comm. Jon. 1:3). Also consistent with Jewish interpretations, the impossibility of fleeing God emerges as a key homiletical reading of Jonah 1 (Tertullian, Fug. 10.2; Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 2.106, 108; John Chrysostom, Homilies on Repentance 3.8; Jerome, Comm. Jon. 1:4; cf. Mek. Pisḥa I) However, the majority of early Christian readers used typological and allegorical methods to mine the book for images and themes that enabled them to articulate and testify to the significance of Christ. Jonah’s offer to be cast into the sea to save the sailors (1:12) models Christ’s obedience to death (Jerome, Comm. Jon. 1:15; Augustine, Letter 102, 6). Thrown into the water to die, Jonah also signifies the death of the believer in baptism, which enables the Christian to participate in Jesus’s resurrection (depicted in images of Jonah in repose under a vine loosely based on Jonah 4:5; Irenaeus, Haer. 3.20, 5.31.1–2). A compelling visual testimony to this movement through death to resurrection, Jonah became the most popular OT subject in early Christian art. 242

Interpretation Ironically, it is within the framework of this Jonah-Jesus typology that the originally positive Christian view of Jonah turns increasingly negative as Jonah is cast as a figure antithetical to Christ. Whereas Jonah fled from his mission and suffered as an individual, Jesus complied with God’s wishes and suffered to redeem all humanity (Origen, Cels. 7.53; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 14.7). Ultimately the typology of Jonah and Israel/“the Jews,” whereby Jonah’s anger in the wake of Nineveh’s salvation prefigures the Jews’ resentment over the salvation of the gentiles (Augustine, Letter 102), comes to stand alongside—and ultimately usurp—the Jonah-Jesus typology in Christian interpretations of Jonah. After largely fading from Christian artistic programs after Constantine, Jonah makes a comeback in Romanesque sculpture and becomes a regular in illuminated manuscripts of the twelfth through the fifteenth century. In the historiated initial S in the word salvum of Vulgate Ps 68 (MT Ps 69:2), illustrated in many Psalters, an image of Jonah tossed off the boat by the sailors is explicitly rendered according to the Jesus- Jonah typology. While one curve of the S features an image of Jonah’s death, the other contains an image of Christ. Through the Reformation, Christian readings continue to pull in two directions, toward Jesus and toward “the Jews.” Drawing on Christian as well as Jewish interpretations of Jonah 1:3, John Calvin explains that “Jonah disobeyed the command of God, partly because the weakness of the flesh was a hindrance, partly because of the novelty of the message, and partly because he despaired of fruit, or of success to his teaching.” By way of Jonah’s example, the book intends “to show how great and detestable a sin it is, not to submit to the commands of God, and not to undertake whatever he enjoins, but to evade his authority.” As an anti-example, Jonah shows Christians “the way of salvation” (Comm. Jon.). By the Enlightenment, Christian readings that pair Jonah and Jesus fade away in favor of those that characterize Jonah exclusively as the quintessential “Jew” of Christian imagination. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, the standard Christian interpretation pits the author of Jonah, imagined as a proto-Christian, against the character Jonah and his narrow-minded and selfish religion. This constructed antagonism allows the author/God to retain all the positive, redemptive qualities of “Scripture,” while the character Jonah serves as a container for the negative values and impulses Christians associate with Judaism. Readings that construct God and Scripture as disciplining and 243

Terror on the Stormy Sea 1:1–16 denouncing Jonah and all he represents have lived on in a whole variety of permutations and persisted through the twentieth century because they are “so successful at enabling Christian theology to deal with perennial tensions in its relations with Judaism” (Sherwood, 72). Fig. 18: Joseph in the well, Jesus entombed, and Jonah thrown to the fish, from the Pauper’s Bible, ca. 1470.

A Prophet’s Resistance to YHWH’s Commission, Amplified (1:1–3) On the surface, the opening verse suggests that the book will read like the other prophetic books with which it is grouped canonically. The introduction of the prophetic figure and his receipt of the word of YHWH are intertwined, suggesting that the prophet, whoever he was before this moment of divine address, is now defined according to his role as a prophetic channel who will mediate YHWH’s word to the nation or its leaders. And yet only two prophetic books (Jonah and Ezekiel) begin with the Hebrew phrase wayhî dəbar-YHWH. Also, it is perhaps significant that Jonah is never referred to as a prophet. In this way, the book’s opening line subtly anticipates its interest, not in YHWH’s words of destruction or salvation channeled through the mouth of a prophet, but in the story of Jonah and his interactions with the character God. Jonah’s name (yônâ) means “dove.” In the HB, doves are associated with fickleness (Hos 7:11), fear (Hos 11:11; Ps 55:7 [Eng. 55:6]), and grief (Isa 38:14; 59:11; Ezek 7:16; Nah 2:8 [Eng. 7]) as well as with good tidings (Gen 8:11–12) and terms of endearment (Song 1:15; 2:14). As such, the name “Dove” carries a variety of potentially positive and negative implications (see Hauser 1985). Whether by design or not, some texts featuring doves coincide with themes

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Interpretation 1:1–3 in the book and seem too compelling to dismiss as merely coincidental. One that provides apt thematic and semantic parallels to the opening verses of the book (Jonah 1:1–5) is the fleeing dove in Ps 55:6–9 (Eng. 55:5–8): Fear (yrʾ) and trembling come upon me and horror overwhelms me, And I say, if only I had wings like a dove (yônâ), I would fly away and be at rest. Truly, I would flee far away; I would lodge in the wilderness; I would hurry to find shelter for myself from the raging wind (rûaḥ) and tempest (śaʿar).

Reading Jonah 1 and the psalm together, Jonah like the dove flees from what he fears, seeking shelter and rest (in Tarshish [1:3] and in the hold of the ship [1:5]). However, neither he nor the sailors can escape the wind (rûaḥ, 1:4), the storm (saʿar, 1: 4, 12), or the fear (yrʾ, 1:5, 9, 10, 16). The irony the paired reading yields is that while the psalmist calls on God to deliver him from the enemies who terrify him, the source of Jonah’s terror is God; instead of seeking God like the psalmist, Jonah flees from God. Because the book is densely packed with allusions (Kim 2007; Magonet, 65–84) and deploys a wide range of literary devices such as hyperbole and the literalization of metaphors (Muldoon), it is likely that both the author(s) and readers of the book would have been attuned to—and delighted by—the wide and conflicting range of associations and allusions evoked by Jonah’s name (yônâ) (Ben Zvi, 42). It is also notable that the introductory verse of the book does not provide the reader with an orientation to the time or the location of the narrative. There are no references to kings or years or specific events; nor are there geographical markers. The absence of clear temporal and spatial cues, combined with a style of narration that makes frequent use of imperatives, participles, and questions, serves to create a narrative world focused almost exclusively on the immediate situation. The result is that the reader is beckoned, even ordered, into the center of the action-packed present moment of the narrative (Kamp 2004, 101, 111). After the brief but significant introduction to the book (1:1), God commands Jonah to go to Nineveh, the city that is “great” (gədôlâ), perhaps in size as well as repute, and cry out an unspecified message with regard to it. The preposition (ʿal) may suggest that he is to cry out against the city, but

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Terror on the Stormy Sea 1:1–16 the preposition can also simply mean “concerning, about, on account of.” God does not tell Jonah what to say or what result this prophecy is intended to achieve, matters typically alluded to, if vaguely, in prophetic commissions. However, God does give a reason for his sudden interest in Nineveh: “for their evil has come up before me” (1:2). While not necessarily a full or satisfying explanation for demanding that an Israelite prophet make an unprecedented journey to a notorious imperial capital to tell its inhabitants that YHWH is displeased, YHWH indicates that his command is motivated by their evil, which has “come up” and settled before him. Jonah’s response is both notorious and mysterious. In defiance of God’s order, Jonah flees from the presence of YHWH and goes down (yrd) to Joppa (1:3). This movement downward will continue in the narrative (beginning in Joppa in 1:3, leading to the farthest reaches of the ship in 1:5, and concluding with his plunge into the netherworld in 2:7), thus creating a progressive and increasingly ominous series of descents. Further, highlighting the degree of his defiance, Jonah heads west toward Tarshish instead of east toward Nineveh (1:3). In this way, the author amplifies one of the formal expectations of a prophetic call narrative, in which the prophet resists the command to serve as God’s spokesperson. Moses and Jeremiah protest the divine commission on the basis of their ineffectiveness as speakers (Exod 4:10; Jer 1:6); Isaiah demurs on account of his unclean lips (Isa 6:5). In these accounts of prophetic commissions, the expected moment of resistance to God’s call, which adheres to the traditional literary form, serves to establish the prophet’s authority. The protest communicates to the reader that the word this prophet will speak is God’s rather than his own. In some prophetic literature, submission quickly replaces resistance; however, some prophetic books explore the theme of prophetic protest in more depth. In particular, Jeremiah’s “confessions” lament not only the plight of the prophet who preaches doom but also the limits and even the impossibility of human agency that lie at the heart of the prophetic model (see esp. Jer 20:7–9). Jeremiah’s laments also suggest that YHWH is not above deploying coercive tactics to motivate the prophet to speak what he tells him to speak (see also Amos 7). But what if a prophet flat out refused to do YHWH’s bidding? This is an essential question that the book of Jonah explores. Instead of entering into dialogue with God that inevitably ends with the triumph of the divine will, Jonah makes the dramatic move to flee from the presence of YHWH. As the conventions of the prophetic-commission form inevitably end with the prophet realizing a so-called compulsion to prophesy, whereby a prophet 246

Interpretation 1:1–3 cannot not prophesy, Jonah executes his “free will” in the only literary way possible; he does not speak at all and seeks to escape God entirely. In so doing, he breaks out of the restraint of the prophetic-commission form itself. This kind of play with literary forms—by inversion, amplification, parody, and literalization—will continue throughout the book of Jonah, particularly with forms commonly found in prophetic literature. The question of Jonah’s motivation for disobeying God in such an extravagant way has consistently been a major focus throughout the book’s history of interpretation. Readers’ explanations of and reactions to Jonah’s response have varied widely on account of what is often seen as a crucial gap in ch. 1. For centuries, that empty space, labeled “motive,” has invited speculation and participation from a host of actively engaged readers armed with a variety of reading strategies, methods, assumptions, and concerns. Although the narrator does little to clarify Jonah’s inner world (until Jonah 4:2), he insists that Jonah flees, not specifically the mission to Nineveh, but the presence of YHWH. The phrase “from the face of YHWH,” repeated twice in the space of a single verse, suggests that Jonah’s disobedience may have more to do with his relationship with YHWH than with the nature of the mission. That said, the command to go to Nineveh makes Jonah the only prophet, with the exception of Elisha (2 Kgs 8), sent to a foreign land to prophesy. There is nothing exceptional about a prophet speaking an oracle of judgment against a nation or even multiple nations. The so-called classical prophets (those with books that bear their name) conventionally recite oracles against the nations (OANs). These texts function as oracles of salvation for Israelite peoples oppressed by the nations, whose demise the prophet graphically imagines. In keeping with the form, the prophet performs his message of doom before a particular nation, directly addressing the leader or the collective. Traditionally, however, the prophet performs the OAN in the land of Israel/Judah; it functions as theater for the sake of the domestic inhabitants (no actual foreign kings or nations are present). In Jonah, the OAN is rendered strange when it is removed from the mode of the rhetorical and assumes a literal mode of address. Jonah is not commanded to prophesy against the enemy before an Israelite or Judahite crowd predisposed to applaud the brutal empire’s downfall; rather, he is ordered to get up and go (literally) to Nineveh and tell them directly that their evil has offended Israel’s God (Muldoon, 11–12). In this unfolding story where tropes self-consciously morph into “real” (and so also unreal) elements of the plot, the prophet’s response follows suit. Fleeing without speaking, Jonah’s act of 247

Terror on the Stormy Sea 1:1–16 resistance caricatures the motif of the prophet who protests that he cannot be God’s prophet because he cannot speak (Sherwood, 244). Many commentators have derided Jonah for his decision to flee from God’s command. He has been called “self-centered, lazy, hypocritical” (Holbert 1981, 70), “petulant and peevish” (Craigie 1984, 218), “good-for-nothing” (Wolff, 109), and even “nefarious” (Childs 1986, 106) and “sinister” (Rad 1980, 66). These same readers posit that the character YHWH is wholly justified in commanding Jonah to go to Nineveh, where (they believe) he will preach a message that will lead to the city’s salvation. As Sherwood incisively argues, when these critics describe Jonah as mulish, xenophobic, and exclusivist for refusing to go to Nineveh, they not only load the story with judgments that are simply not in the text, they also unwittingly reinforce stereotypes of Jews that are disturbingly familiar (1998, 57). While it is possible that the author intended to depict Jonah as a buffoon or as a selfish and illegitimate prophet, it is also possible that the author meant to present Jonah’s act of disobedience as a legitimate—if futile—protest against a capricious deity who has just demanded that his prophet risk his life and his reputation to make an unprecedented journey to the notoriously evil city of Nineveh to call out something likely to get him killed. The divine demand is as absurd as Jonah’s response. As a narrative that has so far resisted being grounded in ordinary space or time, Jonah’s flight to Tarshish reinforces the sense that the story is set in a liminal space and in a “zone of sub- (or better supra-) reality” (Sherwood, 240). Tarshish is remembered in biblical literature as a distant and exotic land of extreme wealth (Exod 28:20; 39:13; 1 Kgs 10:22; Isa 23:6–8; Ezek 27). Starting as it does without a starting point, the story touches down briefly when Jonah goes down to Joppa (present-day Jaffa), a port city that was not under Israelite control until the second century BCE (ca. 148; cf. 1 Macc 10:76). As such, Joppa makes for an auspicious place from which to set out on a sea journey away from the Israelite deity. Instead of grounding the opening in the known world, the place-names in 1:3 gesture toward the periphery of the Israelite world to sketch out in bold, bright color the large world that Jonah’s story will inhabit. In Joppa, Jonah finds exactly what he seeks: a ship of Tarshish. For a moment the plot seems to support his act of resistance; however, literarily speaking, boarding a Tarshish ship signals trouble to come, for these great ships are particularly irksome to YHWH, a god known to be jealous of his glory. The “pride” of Tarshish ships (Isa 23:10, 14; cf. Isa 23:6–7) is best humbled with great storms that break (šbr, Ezek 27:26, 34) them to pieces and 248

Interpretation 1:4–7 thereby cause their exotic cargo of gems, apes, and peacocks (cf. 1 Kgs 22:48) to fall (npl, Ezek 27:27, 34). In line with the accumulating spirit of hyperbole, Jonah secures passage to Tarshish. The Hebrew, “he handed over her (the ship’s) hire,” suggests that Jonah makes a payment to hire the entire ship along with its whole crew—an extravagant fee for an extravagant ship. The narrator casts Jonah’s attempt to escape from YHWH’s presence as one as “great” as Nineveh and as bold as a ship of Tarshish. Forebodingly, however, the chiastic or envelope structure of the verse describing his actions suggests their futility by enclosing them with the phrase “from the presence of YHWH.” As Phyllis Trible states, “What the words proclaim, the structure subverts” (Trible, 131). Jonah’s autonomy is merely an illusion.

The Ship and the Sailors React to the Storm, Tarshish- Style (1:4–7) Powerfully reentering the narrative, YHWH hurls “a great wind” on to the sea, which results in a “great storm” (1:4). This is the first and only action attributed directly to YHWH in Jonah 1, and yet this single act propels the crisis that drives the plot and dominates the dialogue, pointing to the overwhelming scope of YHWH’s power. In Gen 1, the wind of God (rûaḥ ʾĕlōhîm) on the waters is all it takes to set creation in motion (Gen 1:2); from there, God’s word is sufficient to shape the entire created order. Similarly, YHWH’s wind (rûaḥ ) in Jonah 1:4—hurled rather than gently fluttering as in Gen 1:2—is the only explicit divine effort required to shape the narrative. This image of YHWH hurling a great wind on the sea recalls the trope of the storm deity’s control of the sea, well established in myth and tradition. In the Psalms, YHWH rides the clouds (Ps 68:4; see also Ps 18:10; 68:33), creates thunder with his voice, and hurls lightning bolts as weapons (Ps 18:13–14). He rules the raging of the sea, stilling its rising waves (Ps 89:9– 10), smashes the heads of Leviathan, a personification of the sea’s force (Ps 74:14), and is ultimately enthroned over the flood (Ps 29:10). In the exodus tradition, YHWH uses the sea to his advantage, splitting it to enable the Israelites to flee from Egypt and then drowning the Egyptian soldiers with it once the Israelites have passed through the walls of water. These texts draw on myths about the Canaanite god Baal, who defeats the god Sea (Yamm) in battle, casting YHWH’s control over Sea as the result of his success in combat. Surely, ancient readers would have anticipated that Jonah’s sea voyage 249

Terror on the Stormy Sea 1:1–16 was doomed as soon as it began. Jonah, a “dove” of a prophet, ironically seeks to escape the victor over the sea on the sea. The first character to react to the storm is the ship, who “reckons to wreck.” Because the personification of Tarshish ships is a trope featured in Oracles against Tyre (Ezek 27; see also Isa 23), it is fitting that a thinking Tarshish ship plays a bit part in this drama where literary devices come to life. Not only has she been personified as a target of YHWH’s wrath in prophetic literature (e.g., Isa 23:1; Ezek 27:34), she has even been threatened with being wrecked (šbr) by wind (rûaḥ, Ezek 27:26; Ps 48:8 [Eng. 7]). Given this character’s “backstory,” her “knowing” reaction anticipates the crisis to come. Next, the sailors react to the storm with fear (1:5). This is the first of four occurrences of the verb “to fear” (yrʾ, 1:5, 9, 10, 16). In this instance, the sailors simply fear. There is no object of their fear, no god on the receiving end of their fear. Thus, there is no suggestion here, as there will be later, that their fear is to be understood as reverence, generated in response to an encounter with an awe-inspiring god. Their initial response to the storm that YHWH has hurled at them is terror. The great storm prompts the sailors to engage in a series of actions described in terms that suggest they are more ritual or religious than practical (nautically speaking). Perhaps illustrating the religious diversity of the crew, the narrator reports that each one cries out to his god. In keeping with common practices known from other sea-storm narratives, they hurl the cargo overboard to lighten the weight of the ship (see Herodotus, Xer xes 8.118–19; Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Clitophon 3.1; Bolin, 79). Although the comparison implies a practical function to this act of dispensing with nonessential weight on the ship, the construction of the Hebrew allows for another motivation based on the idea that sacrifices can mollify angry gods. If for the sailors, who are constructed as “pagans,” the storming sea is a manifestation of a god’s wrath, then it may be that the sailors hurl the ship’s vessels to the sea in hopes that such offerings will “lighten” (ləhāqēl) or appease the sea, perhaps as a manifestation of a god associated with the sea (e.g., the Canaanite deity Yamm), instead of the ship (Trible, 210–11). Three storm gods, Baʿal Šamêm, Baʿal Malagê, and Baʿal Ṣapôn, mentioned in the treaty of Esarhaddon and Baʾal of Tyre were believed to be the cause of the dangerous winds and violent waves that menaced the ships of ancient mariners (Brody 1998, 10–11). The sailors may not know the name of YHWH, but they are depicted as practiced in the art of pacifying storm deities. The phrase “lighten their burden,” more literally rendered “lighten from upon them,” also plays on a motif in the Oracles against Tyre in which God 250

Interpretation 1:4–7 brings shame to Tyre, personified as a proud ship (Isa 23; Ezek 27–28). The verb “to lighten” (qll) also means “to show contempt, diminish.” In comparable fashion, its opposite, “to be heavy” (kbd), can mean “to be honored/prideful.” Tarshish ships are “very heavy” (tikbədî məʾōd, Ezek 27:25) with gold and jewels, and Tarshish traders are among the “proud of the earth” (nikbaddê-ʾāreṣ, Isa 23:9). Angered by their glory, YHWH plans “to shame” (ləhāqēl) these paragons of arrogance (literally, to lighten them of their heaviness/pride) by sinking them in the sea (Ezek 27:27) and destroying the strength of the ships of Tarshish (Isa 23:1, 14). Against all logic and so to comic effect, the non-Israelite sailors hurl their cargo to the sea to “lighten” (ləhāqēl) the ship’s heavy and prideful cargo/burden “from upon them,” performing a perfect antidote to the divine intention “to shame/ lighten” (ləhāqēl) ships of Tarshish. The description of the sailors’ actions is best likened to an inside joke, in which non-Israelite characters perform (by way of allusion) a perfectly fitting response to the language of these prophetic oracles. Jonah’s reaction stands in stark contrast. He goes down (yrd) to the farthest reaches of the ship, lies down, and falls into a deep, snoring sleep (wayyērādam; note the soundplay with yrd). Based on the capacity of the verb rdm to denote a trancelike state in which individuals receive communications from God (Dan 8:18; 10:9; cf. the noun tardēmâ in Gen 2:21; 15:12; 1 Sam 26:12; Isa 29:10; Job 4:13; 33:15), Jonah’s deep sleep may signify God’s attempt to reiterate the divine message—deep sleeps often being divinely imposed (Snaith 1945, 14)—and perhaps even Jonah’s readiness to receive it (Sasson, 102). On the other hand, the verb (rdm) also suggests a state of deep sleep comparable to death (Judg 4:21; Ps 76:6). In light of Jonah’s explicitly articulated death wishes in Jonah 4:3 and 4:8, some have interpreted Jonah’s actions as indicative of his desire to die (Perry, 5–7). In support of this view, the word for “farthest reaches” (yarkətê) is never used elsewhere to refer to a space on a ship, but it does appear in conjunction with the pit, a designation for the underworld (Isa 14:15; Ezek 32:23). As such, it also anticipates the end point of Jonah’s descent in 2:7 (Eng. 2:6), where we encounter the final yrd in the book, when Jonah reaches the netherworld (ʾereṣ). Jonah’s fall into a deathlike sleep in the depths may echo the desires of Job, who fantasizes about being in Sheol as a way to escape from God (Job 3). Job imagines that, hidden from God’s sight, which only brings him suffering, he will find rest and quiet in Sheol (see Job 3:13, 26; Vawter 1983, 99–102). The search for security and rest is further suggested by the full phrase, 251

Terror on the Stormy Sea 1:1–16 “the farthest reaches of the ship” (yarkətê hassəpînâ), which is even odder in its entirety because it uses a word for ship (səpînâ) that appears nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. As such, it is likely a play on the term “the farthest reaches of Zaphon” (yarkətê ṣāpôn, Ackerman 229–31), the farthest, most remote reaches of God’s holy mountain. As the most secure point of refuge within Zion, yarkətê ṣāpôn is the quintessential place of refuge within refuge itself (Ps 48:3). And yet, in the poetry of the prophets, this space in the depths of Zion is not so distant from the far reaches of the Pit. The enclosure associated with the divine inner sanctum has the capacity to morph into an imprisoning pit. In Isaiah’s taunt song about the arrogant king of Assyria (Isa 14), the king takes his place in the farthest reaches of the mountain of Zaphon (yarkətê ṣāpôn, Isa 14:13), but he will be brought down (tûrād) to Sheol, “to the farthest reaches of the Pit” (ʾel-yarkətê bôr, Isa 14:15; cf. Ezek 32:23). The poem turns the same coin from one side to the other to gloat over the extent of the reversal. And yet the poetry also reveals the ironic similarities between the farthest reaches of the sanctuary, made secure by the intensity of God’s presence there, and the nether reaches of Sheol. Job exploits this spatial parallel by depicting the depths of Sheol as a refuge made safe on account of God’s absence. The narrative’s description of Jonah’s actions positions him boldly but precariously on the knife’s edge of heaven and hell and anticipates the dialectical aspects of the big fish, a metaphor that draws simultaneously on images of the womb and the tomb (Jonah 2:1–3). Jonah’s attempts to find rest and to elude God, however, are unsuccessful. Recalling Job’s complaints that God invades his dreams (Job 7:13–14), Jonah’s sleep is interrupted by a voice reminiscent of God’s in 1:2 as the captain yells, “What’s with you, sleeping? Now cry out to your god!” The captain adds the motivation clause “Perhaps, the god/God will give us a thought and we won’t die.” The irony for Jonah is he believes that it is only by escaping God’s thought that he has a chance to live. It also becomes apparent over the course of the book that, in Jonah’s case, death may be preferable to divine consideration (Jonah 4:3, 9). However, the more disturbing irony in the captain’s words “perhaps God will give us a thought” is that, in his pursuit of Jonah, God appears not to have given a thought to the other human beings on the ship. The raging storm intended to force Jonah to submit to his will also puts the sailors in danger. The captain’s “perhaps,” while potentially humorous, also reveals an undercurrent of anxiety running through the book about God’s uncertain concern for humanity (Bolin, 81) and sporadic execution of justice (Levine 1984, 236–41). 252

Interpretation 1:8–12 Jonah responds to the captain with silence, just as he did when faced with God’s command (1:2). Indeed, Jonah has not spoken a single word since the narrative began. The sailors, however, devise another strategy to quiet the raging storm. Instead of each man calling to his god, they say to each other (lit., “each to his mate”), “Come on, let’s cast lots” (1:7). They engage in this form of divination, common throughout the ancient world, so that they might determine the source of the evil they are experiencing (see 1:8). When the lot falls (npl) on Jonah, it foreshadows his fate in a literal way, as the same verb (npl) can also mean “to sink (in the sea)” (Ezek 27:27, 34). Most commentators assume that when the lot falls on Jonah, it indicates to the sailors that Jonah is the source of “this evil.” This is certainly a plausible interpretation, and one the narrative invokes by making use of the motif of the guilty passenger who is responsible for bringing a storm (Antiphon, On the Murder of Herodes 82; Cicero, De natura deorum 3.89; Bolin, 82; Sasson, 91). However, these same commentators who assume the lots reveal Jonah’s guilt are baffled by the subsequent questions the sailors pose to Jonah (1:8). Why do they ask where he comes from and what his “work” or “mission” is? And why, if they have just determined him to be the source of “the evil,” do they ask for a second time, in only slightly modified form, “On whose account has this evil come to us?” Further, why do they not toss Jonah overboard immediately if they have just learned that he is the source of their troubles?

A Topside Dialogue about the Source of “This Evil” (1:8–12) The sailors approach Jonah with a barrage of questions, the first of which presses the question “Who is bringing this evil to us?” which they posed once already in 1:7. Based on its repetition in 1:8, it is evident that the lot falling on Jonah has not provided a definitive answer to this question. The interrogation that follows suggests that the lot has identified Jonah, not (only?) as accountable for the evil, but as one able to speak on behalf of the gods or to make sense of their mysterious ways. Rashi and Joseph Qara both argued that the lottery was designed to determine not which passenger but which god was responsible for the storm (see also Landes 1999b, 279–80). Although the reader knows that YHWH hurled the wind onto the sea and thus is the divine originator of “this evil,” many commentators are quick to place the entire burden of evil on Jonah. The sailors, however, are not satisfied that Jonah is the sole cause of the crisis. YHWH easily identified evil and 253

Terror on the Stormy Sea 1:1–16 Nineveh in 1:2, but now the sailors ask a good question: how and on account of whom has evil ended up coming to them. Is it only on Jonah’s account? Or is it also on God’s account? Underneath the humor, the sailors force a question for the reader as well: Is it “evil” to write off these sailors, even these nameless bit players, in the name of divine sovereignty? In the interest of preserving God’s honor, do the lives of these sailors, caught in the crossfire and desperate “not to die,” amount to acceptable collateral damage? The sailors’ next question about Jonah’s “work” (1:8) is puzzling on the surface. Why, in the midst of a raging storm, do the sailors inquire about Jonah’s career? The feminine noun “work” or “mission” (məlāʾkâ) generates wordplay with the masculine form of the same noun malʾak, “messenger” (Halpern and Freedman 1980, 87). In this way, Jonah’s profession as a messenger or prophet is “riddlingly half-concealed” (Sherwood, 249). However, it may also be that the sailors inquire specifically about his work because they suspect he is a divine messenger and therefore capable of shedding light on their questions about who (that is, which god) has brought this evil and why. Although the question about Jonah’s origins (“Where did you come from?”) has a mundane sense, it may also wonder if Jonah “comes from” heaven. Is he a man or some sort of divine being or spirit (Bolin, 83n68)? Does his power stem from his connection to a strange and powerful foreign god? Or from his wealth (if he was indeed rich enough to hire an entire ship)? If Jonah has or has had access to heaven, he is well suited to tell them who has sent this evil and why, so that they might respond appropriately. The sailors’ final two questions about Jonah’s land and people may indicate that they are interested in his personal background. However, this line of inquiry may also seek to identify Jonah’s god on the basis of his homeland and his ethnicity. Jonah’s response (1:9) suggests that either he is mostly ignoring their questions about his identity or is providing them with the knowledge (1:7) they seek—not about him but about his god. Jonah speaks for the first time in the book in 1:9, beginning with a response to the sailors’ last inquiry about his people: “I am a Hebrew.” As a term typically used by non-Israelites to refer to Israelites (“Hebrew,” ʿibrî), it is fitting that Jonah uses language that would be considered comprehensible to foreign peoples. Not surprisingly by now, this enables yet another wordplay based on the root ʿbr, “to cross over.” The Israelites “crossed over” the Jordan River into the land of Israel (e.g., Deut 4:14; 6:1; 9:1; Josh 1:2; 3:17; 4:1). Jonah, by contrast, is crossing over to Tarshish, just as Isaiah sarcastically exhorts the doomed people of Tyre to do: “Cross over [ʿibrû] to Tar 254

Interpretation 1:8–12 shish” (Isa 23:6; cf. 23:10, 12). Isaiah also commands the ships of Tarshish to wail (Isa 23:1) because their crossing is destined to end in disaster. After declaring his ethnicity, Jonah shifts resolutely to speaking of his god: “it is YHWH, God of Heaven, whom I fear [yārēʾ].” Although the phrase typically refers to reverence (i.e., “I worship YHWH”), the same verb (yrʾ) is used to refer to the sailors’ fearfulness, which escalates with the storm’s level of violence in 1:5 and 1:10 (culminating in the sailors’ “fear of YHWH” in 1:16). In this way, the narrative forges a connection between reverence for YHWH and terror (see Gruber 1990). Informed by the use of the verb “fear” to capture the white-knuckled state of alarm rising palpably on the ship, when Jonah supplies the object YHWH to the verb “I fear,” the sense of dread from the sailors’ fear adheres to his words. Further, Jonah’s use of the word takes the sailors’ experience of fright from the realm of a generalized emotional reaction to the storm and links it specifically to YHWH. Knowing the cause of the danger (evil), Jonah fears not the storm but YHWH. His words, which focus on YHWH by positioning the noun before the verb (“YHWH, God of Heaven, I fear”), imply an answer to the sailors’ repeated question about the “who” that brought this evil to them (Malbim; Zlotowitz, 96). There is, of course, also irony in the chapter’s use of the term “fear.” Jonah, the Israelite prophet, is expected to be the one who truly fears, as in reveres, YHWH. And yet he is in this predicament because he has tried to evade the God of Heaven. While Jonah here confesses to being a YHWH fearer, his arguably insouciant actions stand in contrast to those of the sailors, who at the end of the story offer sacrifices and vow vows to the god YHWH out of their “fear” (1:16) with avidity (Magonet, 100–101; Trible, 190). Jonah refers to YHWH as God of Heaven, “who made the sea and the dry ground [yabbāšâ].” This is not a common way to refer to YHWH and his deeds (a comparable phrase occurs only in Ps 95:5). In the context of the narrative, it highlights the opposition between the dangerous place where Jonah and the sailors are (the sea) and the hoped-for destination (dry ground), and perhaps humorously gives the deity a hint about which realm they would all prefer to inhabit right now. Elsewhere in the HB, the terms “sea” and “dry ground” cluster around the exodus event at the Red Sea. Of the eleven occurrences of yabbāšâ in the HB outside Jonah, seven refer or allude to the exodus/Red Sea event (Exod 14:16, 22, 29; 15:19; Josh 4:22; Neh 9:11; Ps 66:6; cf. Gen 1:9, 10), in which the Israelites enter “into the sea on dry ground” (bətôk hayyām bayyabbāšâ, Exod 14:16, 21, 22). And at the end of the chapter, Jonah will go into the sea and, eventually, reach dry land 255

Terror on the Stormy Sea 1:1–16 by way of a vomiting fish—a strange exodus crossing, to be sure, and one that also recalls the fate of Pharaoh and his chariots, who were tossed into the sea (Exod 14:27; 15:1). In the movement of the narrative, Jonah’s fear of YHWH (1:9) leads to the sailors’ escalating fear, expressed without an object (“the men feared a great fear”), explicitly coloring their fear with a sense of terror rather than reverence. Continuing in the interrogative vein, they ask, “What on earth have you done?” (1:10). Elsewhere in the HB, the question, “What is this you have done?” (mah-zzōʾt ʿāśîtā) occurs in situations when a person’s deception is discovered (Gen 3:13; 29:25) or suspected (Exod 14:11). In several instances, the perception is that failure to disclose information has endangered the questioner (Gen 12:18; 26:10; Exod 14:11; Judg 15:11). In light of these uses of the phrase, the sailors’ question would make far more sense without the narrator’s explanation that follows. If the implication of the “what” question is typical, then the sailors are saying, in effect, “We just found out that you have done something wrong and you withheld that information and put us at risk.” However, in three clauses that begin with “for, because, that” or “surely” (kî), the narrator informs the reader that Jonah has withheld no information. The sailors know that (kî) Jonah is fleeing away from YHWH’s presence, “for he fully informed them” (kî higgîd lāhem). While the wording of the question could lead to the impression that the sailors have cause to be incredulous that Jonah has withheld crucial details from them, the narrator indicates that their question arises because (kî) they know what Jonah has done. This “bump” in the story results from the uncertain relationship between the sailors’ discourse and the narrator’s explanation as well as from the sequence of the narration overriding the temporal succession of events (Wolff, 117; see also Jonah 4:2, 5). Like a spotlight that swings unexpectedly to reveal the director just offstage from the performance, the jarring effect of 1:10 reminds the reader that the narrator has chosen to reveal and to conceal certain information. While omniscient, the narrator plays a part constructed by the author and, in a sense, functions as a character in the story whose credibility cannot be merely assumed. At any rate, by 1:10 the sailors know that Jonah’s god, together with what Jonah has done, has set this entire drama in motion. It is YHWH who controls Jonah’s fate, as well as the sailors’, since he is the god in control of the danger (the sea and the storm) as well as their salvation (dry ground). Still assuming Jonah’s privileged role as divine channel, they ask him, rather than each other (contrast 1:5, 7), “What should we do to you so that the 256

Interpretation 1:13–16 sea will quiet down from upon us?” (1:11). Now that they know that YHWH has brought evil to them on account of what Jonah has done, they seek a Jonah-focused remedy. One could take the question as an indicator that they are amenable to the idea of drowning him or that they have in mind a less drastic plan, like bringing him to shore. Jonah tells them to lift him up and hurl him into the sea, assuring them that hurling him will cause the sea to “quiet down from upon you” (1:12), something hurling the cargo did not accomplish. Just as the sailors now know that Jonah is fleeing from God, so Jonah also knows that God will not be satisfied until all manner of creation agrees to participate in his wrangling. While some readers have been impressed by Jonah’s willingness to sacrifice himself to save the sailors, others have seen this statement as a reflection of his self-interest in that Jonah identifies death as another potential means to escape God. Even more unfavorable is the view that Jonah desired death from the beginning and now identifies a convenient means to die that does not require suicide. Indeed, the imperative “lift me up and hurl me” insists that the men participate in his death. And yet the verb “to lift up” (nāśāʾ) may allude to cultic terminology in which the phrase nāśāʾ ʿāwōn means “to bear guilt or punishment” or “to take away guilt.” After this request to be thrown overboard, Jonah concludes with a reference that refers back to the sailors’ question, repeated in 1:7 and 1:8: “It is on account of me that this great storm is upon you.” While Jonah accepts responsibility for the storm, designed to force him into compliance, he does not claim to be the source of “this evil.” Jonah’s “confession of faith” in 1:9 has provided an indirect response to that question. In this way, the essential, twice-articulated question, “On whose account has this evil come to us?” points to both of the book’s central characters—Jonah and YHWH.

The Sailors Resist and Submit, Mostly (1:13–16) The sailors ignore Jonah’s command to toss him and furiously row toward dry ground (1:13). By way of the verb “to dig,” which is used to characterize their rowing, the scene recalls those who try to escape YHWH’s wrath by “digging” to Sheol (Amos 9:2). Perhaps Sheol suggests itself as a viable option for a hiding place since Jonah did not include a downward realm or a fourth compass point when he listed (only three) spheres of the cosmos when referring to YHWH’s domain (heaven, sea, dry ground). By their actions, the sailors ally themselves with Jonah as they replicate Jonah’s attempts to flee, hide, and 257

Terror on the Stormy Sea 1:1–16 even burrow down (yrd) away from YHWH. On Sherwood’s interpretation, “the sailors refuse to submit to the inexorable divine current . . . and protest their role as plot-pawns” by rowing against it (246–47). In this penultimate scene of ch. 1, the image of facing off against God’s inexorable will captures something good and redemptive about the human condition. Like an unlikely band of flawed but brave characters in a fantasy novel, the sailors and Jonah overcome their differences and pull together to battle valiantly against evil. For a narrative moment, the characters together resist the forces of human oppression: the storm and the storm-sender as well as the demand to participate in the evil. But the narrator informs us that it is to no avail (“they could not”). The (not so) invisible hand on the dial controlling the storm’s volume turns it up another notch (1:13b). However, while the phrase is a repetition of v. 11 (the storm got stormier), there is a variation in the formulation here. In the sailors’ attempt to return to dry ground, the storm gets stormier “upon them” (ʿălêhem, 1:13). While the narrator tracked the power of the storm increasing in general in v. 11, in light of the sailors’ resistance to YHWH’s will (ironically, spoken through his prophet in v. 12), the storm threatens them directly. The sailors’ prayer in 1:14 resonates with YHWH’s directive to Jonah to call out (qrʾ) because of the evil of Nineveh (1:2). Aware now that YHWH is the god who has brought this evil (1:7, 8) and who is in control of this scene, the sailors call out (wayyiqrəʾû) to YHWH for the first time. Their petition is: “Do not let us die because of this man’s life, and do not impose innocent blood on us.” The sailors clearly articulate what they believe to be the choices before them, and in so doing highlight the ethical problems associated with the solution that YHWH, through his natural and human agents, is pushing them to accept. The prayer implies their anxiety that enacting Jonah’s request to kill him will lead to their own deaths. More generally, however, the first petition may also reflect an attempt to place distance between Jonah’s will to flee from YHWH and the sailors’ own fate, which they hope will not be death. Because nepeš refers to the breath, life, and vitality that animates a body, the sailors’ reference to Jonah’s nepeš (translated here as “life”) may also highlight the gravity of the action they must contemplate. And yet, at the same time, the phrase bənepeš hāʾîš also emphasizes that it is on account of this one man that the sailors face the threat of death. One individual, enacting his will to escape YHWH, has prompted God to arrest Jonah’s flight by way of a high-speed, guns-blazing pursuit undertaken without regard for the lives of these bystanders. 258

Interpretation 1:13–16 The second part of the prayer contains the petition: “and do not impose innocent blood on us.” The phrase “innocent blood” can refer both to the blood of an innocent person and to “unjustly shed blood” (Wolff, 120). The first meaning is evident in Jeremiah’s use of the phrase to refer to punishment that Jerusalem will incur if the leaders shed (his!) innocent blood. In light of the second meaning, “unjustly shed blood,” the sailors articulate the concern that if they do what is necessary to survive, they will be guilty of murder. The wording in 1:14 (wěʾal-tittēn ʿālênû dām nāqîʾ) most precisely recalls Deut 21:8 (wěʾal-tittēn dām nāqî), the literary context of which clarifies what is at stake if the sailors consent to toss Jonah into the sea. Deuteronomy 21:1–9 presents a situation in which a body has been discovered and the identity of the murderer is unknown. The inability to identify the murderer means the crime goes unpunished and the bloodguilt threatens to persist within the community. To purge (kpr) the residual guilt from all the people of Israel (Deut 21:1–9), the elders perform a ritual in which they declare that they did not shed the blood; then they pray that innocent blood will not be imposed in the midst of the people and that they will be absolved (nikkappēr, Deut 21:8) of the blood (haddām). The parallel suggests that if the sailors consent to murder Jonah, his blood will adhere to them and stain their own lives. The sailors’ prayer gives voice to the idea that the murder of a human being will have consequences for them, not just legally, but ritually because spilled human blood that goes unpunished has the power to contaminate all who encounter it, even innocent bystanders (see also Jer 26:14–15). Few commentators pause to consider the theological problem raised by the fact that the sailors are compelled to commit murder if they want YHWH to spare them. YHWH, using the powers of the cosmos at his command, is at least partly responsible for putting them in a position in which they must drown a man to save themselves. Under threat of death, the sailors are coerced into participating in the “evil” in order to still it. The sailors’ question, “On whose account has this evil come to us?” (1:7, 8) takes on new meaning as they themselves are compelled to enact evil—to be stained by blood—on account of the impasse between God and Jonah. To avoid assigning moral responsibility to God, one could translate rāʿâ more neutrally—as “disaster” rather than “evil.” However, the fact that rāʿâ is used in reference to Nineveh, where it clearly means “evil” (1:2), invites the reader to consider the possibility that God’s actions here are morally questionable. The sailors’ prayer concludes, “You are YHWH—you do what you please.” In three of the four texts that feature a version of this phrase (Pss 115:3; 259

Terror on the Stormy Sea 1:1–16 135:6; Isa 46:10), the affirmation that YHWH does what he pleases refers to his freedom and power to act (ʿśh), in contrast to idols, which are powerless because they are the work (maʿăśeh) of men’s hands (Sasson, 136). The men’s implicit acknowledgment of other gods as powerless to act, at least in this situation, testifies to YHWH’s power. However, the four instances of ʿśh (to do, make) in Jonah 1 draw a contrast not between the work of other gods and YHWH but between the “doing” of the humans in the story and YHWH. Upon rereading, the sailors’ questions about what Jonah has done (ʿśh, 1:10) and what they should do to him (ʿśh, 1:11) reveal the extent to which none of them has a choice about what they will do. The God who has made (ʿśh, 1:9) the sea and the dry land will do (ʿśh, 1:14) what he pleases. In light of this depiction of human agency and divine sovereignty, it may be that the less praiseworthy use of the phrase (“all that he pleases he does”) in Eccl 8:1–9 is in view. Qoheleth speaks of a king who, like YHWH, can do what he pleases (v. 3). Because the word of the king is powerful (šlṭ), who can say to him, “What are you doing?” (v. 4; cf. Jonah 1:10). Therefore, Qoheleth counsels his reader, to save your life, do as he commands but get away from his presence as quickly as you can (v. 3). Qoheleth’s conclusion is that “one man dominates [šlṭ] another and (does) evil to him” (v. 9). Sherwood also concludes that the sailors’ recitation of this “creed” implies that the God of Jonah “may share something with Qoheleth’s dark, all-powerful deity, particularly when seen from the vantage point of men who feel themselves ‘snared’ or trapped in tangled plot-lines ‘like fish caught in an evil net’ (cf. Ecclesiastes 9.12)” (248). Finally, the sailors consent to hurl Jonah into the sea, and in so doing, they mimic God’s hurling of the storm onto the sea. The repetition of the word “hurl” invites the reader to revisit the divine action in light of the sailors’ hurling of Jonah, which they have connected with shedding innocent blood. Such a retrospective reading suggests that God’s hurling of the storm has endangered the sailors’ lives—their innocent blood. The sea quiets in the wake of spilled innocent blood, and the sailors’ fear rises again (1:5, 10). The Hebrew in v. 16 repeats the phrase from v. 10 that, rendered literally, reads “the men feared a great fear,” but this time the verb “fear” (yārēʾ) acquires an unprecedented second direct object: “the men feared an ever greater fear—that is, YHWH” (Magonet, 92). As many commentators have pointed out, there is irony in the depiction of non-Israelite sailors fearing YHWH while Jonah refuses to act on his fear of YHWH (1:10) in an appropriately pious way. The sailors are seen as the “true believers,” the ones who show Jonah what true reverence and obedi260

Interpretation 1:13–16 ence look like. Certainly, in the ancient Near East, a God-fearing posture involved terror, reverence, and obedience (see, e.g., Gen 31:42 where YHWH is called “Fear of Isaac”), so fearing God is not traditionally viewed as problematic (in Proverbs, see the multiple references to the “fear of YHWH”). And yet there is the possibility that the postexilic book of Jonah questions this kind of submissive piety by highlighting the god’s tendency to terrorize and impose his power and will on humans capriciously. “By playing on the double meaning of yārēʾ as ‘fear’ and ‘worship,’ the author’s point is clear: the worst of storms or dangers is a small thing compared to the fierce power and unlimited freedom of the god Yahweh. This is a thing to be feared more than anything else” (Bolin, 96). For Thomas Bolin, divine freedom means human impotence in the face of a god who indiscriminately terrorizes and menaces Israelites and non-Israelites alike. Alan Cooper also sees divine freedom as the theme of the book; “God’s actions are uncanny and inexplicable; he is absolutely free to do whatever he chooses” (150). However, unlike Bolin, Cooper celebrates the all-powerful and radically free God of Heaven, for a truly free god is “a worthless people’s only hope for survival” (1993, 152). He argues that the presentation of divine freedom in Jonah is far preferable to the image of YHWH restricted and bound by the terms of a conditional covenant. The book of Jonah suggests that deliverance is possible not through adherence to a covenant but rather through fear of YHWH’s wrath and hope for his mercy. While the God-fearing sailors scramble to figure out what, precisely, will make the storm cease, Jonah resists bowing to YHWH’s inexplicable will, even if it means he must die. When the narrator reports that the sailors sacrifice and make vows, it appears that YHWH’s will has prevailed, and everyone has finally submitted. Two issues complicate the story’s “happy ending,” however. The first arises from the sailors’ offering of vows. If the reader is to understand the sailors’ activities as expressing thanksgiving and gratitude, then the vowing of vows is strange. Though not unprecedented as an expression of gratitude (1 Sam 1:21–22), the taking of vows occurs more typically when people are experiencing danger as imminent, when they are under duress (Sasson, 140). Vows, which often include promises to perform (or cease from performing) certain actions, are offered to God in exchange for divine deliverance from danger. Uttered in the wake of the description of the sailors’ terror of and reverence for YHWH, it may be that the quieting of the sea has not assured the sailors that the divinely initiated crisis has passed. The sea has relented from its raging (1:15), but with regard to the god who controls the sea . . . as the king of Nineveh will say, “Who knows?” 261

Terror on the Stormy Sea 1:1–16 The second complication in the story’s resolution arises in what, on the surface, appears to be a depiction of the sailors’ submission to YHWH. Tucked into the language used to describe the sailors’ acts of YHWH worship, a final instance of soundplay may hint that a grain of resistance remains. The sailors’ vowing of vows (wayyiddərû nədārîm) recalls Jonah’s defiant “going down” (yrd, 1:3, two times) to Joppa and onto the ship. The sounds also evoke his (possible) attempt to escape God by going down (yārad) further into the ship and falling into a deep sleep (wayyērādēm), inciting the captain to refer to him as nirdām (sleeping). The sailors’ vows to YHWH may signal “a reversal of the cluster (y)rd following Jonah’s descent—into the sea—and the resultant buoying of the ships’ fortunes” (Halpern and Freedman 1980, 84–85). However, it is more likely that the repetition of this sound results not in a reversal of its connotations but in an underscoring of these connotations. Shifting the narrative onto a smooth, upward trajectory could be achieved neatly with a verb like ʿlh (“to go up”) or nśʾ (“to lift up”), both of which would fit seamlessly into a depiction of sacrificial acts. Instead, the chapter concludes by reinforcing the sound of yrd, which is decisively associated with Jonah’s resistance. Just as the sailors’ “digging” (as if to Sheol) mimicked Jonah’s downward trajectory of flight away from YHWH’s presence, the sound of Jonah’s yrd persists and echoes through their vowing of vows. The paronomasia may work like a hidden transcript that marks the sailors’ outward acts of submission with a shade of resistance that hides a sign of solidarity with Jonah boldly in plain sight. Most commentators are quick to blame Jonah for the predicament in which both Jonah and the sailors find themselves in ch. 1. They do not see Jonah’s resistance as legitimate or his willingness to sacrifice himself to save the sailors (1:12) as noble. Thus, YHWH’s role in the narrative goes unquestioned, his goodness assumed. The buffoon Jonah is simply reaping what he has sown. Certainly, this is one way to interpret ch. 1. And yet, as Serge Frolov points out, “indisputable villains hardly ever play pivotal roles in biblical narratives” (1999, 87). Further, anti-Jewish stereotypes and Christian theological assumptions have long permeated interpretations that are quick to sacrifice Jonah and exonerate God (see 6.1). Although Jonah is clearly not depicted as a traditional Israelite prophet-hero in the opening chapter of the book, it is possible to read the narrative as expressive of a more skeptical attitude toward Israel’s terrifying, omnipotent, and arguably capricious god, on whom humans, Israelites as well as non-Israelites, are utterly dependent (Bolin, 95–96). It also possible to read the story, as Cooper does, as one told in praise of divine caprice, for “divine freedom manifests the only 262

Retrospect tolerable alternative to the failed conditional covenant—the covenant that had literally compelled God to destroy Israel” (1993, 150).

RETROSPECT On the surface, Jonah 1 reads as a simple story and, not unlike the prologue of the book of Job (chs. 1–2), even has “the appearance of artlessness” (Clines 1985, 127). The use of basic vocabulary, repetition, and tight structuring devices characterize the literary style of the narrative. However, this deceptively straightforward tale generates a high degree of ambiguity with regard to its meaning and raises subtle and complex theological questions; therefore, the style is perhaps best described as “pseudo-naive.” An important keyword in Jonah 1 is “evil” (vv. 2, 7, 8). In the encounter between God and Jonah in vv. 1–3, it is easy to assume that evil lies far away in Nineveh, “that great city” (1:2). However, as the story builds, it becomes clear that the evil of Nineveh that came up before God has come to threaten not just Jonah, presumably the target of YHWH’s disciplinary storm, but also the characters aboard the ship. The sailors’ questions about how, why, and on whose account evil has come to them (vv. 7, 8) reverberate through the story, pushing readers to consider not only the origin of evil but also the theological problems raised by God’s part in bringing evil to innocent bystanders. Readers who rush to blame Jonah alone, assuming their role is to passively receive the moral of the story (e.g., “it just goes to show you that you can’t run away from God”), miss an opportunity to wrestle with deeper questions raised by and through the ambiguities, gaps, allusions, and double meanings that riddle the narrative. In the book’s history of interpretation, readers have wondered: Does a human being have the right to say no to God? Is God’s plan for humanity predetermined? What kind of agency and autonomy do humans in relationship with God have? Is it acceptable for God to terrify humans into doing God’s will? In whose interests is God working? As the god of the universe and the god of Israel, how does God balance loyalties among so many competing commitments? How does God punish one evil without perpetuating another? While such questions may seem excessively (post)modern, there is evidence that scholarly writers and readers of texts in Judah (Yehud) in the Persian period preferred books that had the capacity to produce multiple meanings. These readers sought out and wrote books marked by ambiguity 263

Terror on the Stormy Sea 1:1–16 and filled with sophisticated wordplays and obscure allusions because they created opportunities for them to engage in rich scholarly dialogue about a work’s meanings and theological implications (Ben Zvi, 1–13). As the story proceeds from the sea to the belly of the big fish in Jonah 2, the potential meanings of the book will only multiply.

COMMENTARY 1:1 The word of YHWH came. As an opening to a prophetic book, the phrase wayhî dəbar-YHWH is atypical. Prophetic books more commonly open with hyh in the perfect with dəbar-YHWH as the subject (dəbar-YHWH ʾăšer hāyâ ʾel + PN in Hosea, Joel, Micah, Zephaniah; cf. Jer 1:2; TIME + hāyâ dəbar-YHWH ʾel + PN in Haggai, Zechariah; cf. Ezek 1:3; Sasson, 66–68). However, wayhî appears in Ezek 1:1 and is common in introductions to narrative books (Josh 1:1; Judg 1:1; 1 Sam 1:1; 2 Sam 1:1; Ruth 1:1; Esth 1:1) and historical narratives in the Deuteronomistic History, in which the verb functions as a stative with the implied subject being the narrative that ensues (i.e., “and it happened that . . .”; J-M §111.h; e.g., 1 Kgs 17:2, 8; 21:17, 28; cf 18:1; Limburg, 37–38). The formula in Jonah 1:1 (wayhî dəbar-YHWH) is typically used to describe the subsequent words of YHWH coming to the prophet after he has been compelled to accept YHWH’s commission (e.g., 1 Kgs 17:2; 21:17; Jer 2:1). Further, dəbar-YHWH is the technical terminology used to introduce an oracle (Grether 1934, 63–76). The rare instances of the phrase dəbar-YHWH that do not precede a prophetic oracle occur in the stories of Samuel (1 Sam 15:10) and Elijah (1 Kgs 17:2, 8; 18:1; 21:17; Limburg, 37–38). As the opening of the book of Jonah, this formula places the narrative’s focus on the character Jonah and the word of YHWH addressed to him, as opposed to the word of YHWH that comes to the prophet in order for it to be communicated to the people (Sasson, 67–68). Targ’s rendering shifts the emphasis from Jonah to the message itself, expanding 1:1 to whwh p(y)tgm nbwʾh mn qdm YY ʿm ywnh br ʾmty lmymr, “A prophetic message from God came to be with Jonah as follows” (Levine, 55). Jonah. Yônâ means “dove.” Although other etymologies have been proposed (see Rudolph, 335), there is no reason to dispute the appropriateness of a name meaning “dove,” as other names in Hebrew derive from animal names, and specifically from bird names, including Jemima, Gozal, and Tor (TDOT 6:32–35). While Jonah’s name replicates the nominal form of “dove,” some read264

Commentary 1:1 ers, ancient and modern, have proposed alternative etymologies. One in particular highlights the name’s apparent connection with the root ynh, “to oppress.” In the Zohar, Jonah is called “the aggrieved one” (Zeph 3:1; cf. Lam. Rab. 31.2). “Why is Jonah aggrieved? Because as soon as (the soul) becomes partner with the body in this world she finds herself full of vexation. Man, then, is in this world as in a ship that is traversing the great ocean and is like to be broken, as it says ‘so that the ship was like to be broken’ (Jon 1:4)” (Sperling, Simon, and Abelson 1934, 4:172–76). If it were formed on the root ynh, “to oppress,” yônâ could be analyzed as a fs act. ptc., meaning “oppressor” or “oppressing.” Rather than Jonah being the oppressor, however, one would more naturally expect Jonah to be the “one who is oppressed,” in which case it would likely take the form of a pass. ptc. (yānûy). Kraeling argued that yônâ should be considered a shortened form of ywnhyh, meaning “YHWH oppresses” (1971, 305n1), but the argument for the name’s etymology as a form constructed from the verb ynh is grammatically problematic and unnecessary. The connotation of “oppression” need not be related to the word’s scientific etymology but is activated instead on a literary level. The name’s technical etymology as a nominal form that means “dove” does not preclude the possibility of relevant folk etymologies or a double entendre, especially in the consonantal script. Jerome recognized the interpretive possibilities that arise from each of these two meanings—“dove” and “oppressed one”—and noted that each supports the typological link between Jesus and Jonah (Duval 1973, 171). In Zeph 3:1, the prophet laments the oppressing city (hāʿîr hayyônâ), and Jeremiah announces the futility of attempts to escape mippənê ḥereb / ḥărôn hayyônâ, “from the presence of the oppressing sword/anger” (Jer 25:38; 46:16; 50:16). These parallels suggest that the name is a double entendre that recalls attempts to escape God’s “oppressive” anger. son of Amittay. The patronymic ʾămittay is based on the word ʾĕmet (“truth, steadfastness, reliability,” probably from the root ʾmn plus a hypocoristic ending, y). The presence of the word ʾĕmet in the designation of a prophet suggests that ʾămittay may not be Jonah’s father’s name but an implicit assertion of the prophet’s authority to speak “truth” (affirmed in 2 Kgs 14:25). At least two narratives in prophetic literature explore how the reliability (ʾĕmet) of the divine word manifests itself (or does not manifest itself) in prophetic speech (e.g., Jer 28; 1 Kgs 22, esp. v. 16). The word ʾĕmet, often paired with dābār in the HB, appears frequently in prophetic literature but only beginning with Jeremiah (TDOT 1:309–14). Given the book’s 265

Terror on the Stormy Sea 1:1–16 deconstruction of the reliability of the prophetic word, the meaning of the name, intended or not, alludes to a key theme in the book. A number of early Jewish interpretations identify Jonah as the widow’s son whom Elijah resurrected, connecting the name (“son of truth”) and the widow’s statement to Elijah, “the word of YHWH in your mouth is truth” (ʾĕmet; 1 Kgs 17:24; Pirqe R. El. 33; Liv. Pro.). Another midrashic interpretation explains that Jonah was known as a “son of truth” on account of the explicit fulfillment of his prophecies about the expansion of Israel’s borders under Jeroboam (2 Kgs 14:25; Radal, cited in Zlotowitz, 79). 1:2 Go now. The imperative lēk is the active verb, and the second imperative, qûm, functions as an auxiliary verb (GKC §120g). In this case, the first imperative marks the clause as an exclamation and functions as a hortatory participle (Tucker, 13) or as a type of interjection (IBHS 574). OG and Vulg insert “and” (kai, et) between the two imperatives, rendering them as two primary verbs. Nineveh, that great city. The reference to Nineveh as the great city (hāʿîr haggədôlâ) recalls Gen 10:11–12 (hāʿîr haggədōlâ). With the exception of Jerusalem (Jer 22:8, in the context of a judgment oracle) and Gibeon (Josh 10:2), the adjective “great” is not used to describe other cities in the HB. The purpose is not a historically accurate designation of Nineveh as “great,” suggesting its function as Assyria’s capital; rather, this designation presents Nineveh as “a far-off, sprawling metropolis of ancient times” (Limburg, 39). Such an image of Nineveh is consistent with the depiction of the city in chs. 3 and 4 as well. call out concerning it. When the verb qrʾ (“to cry out”) takes its object with the preposition ʿal (thus: “summon against”), it more commonly occurs in the Ni. stem. In the Qal stem, qrʾ regularly takes its objects with the preposition ʾel, as in Jonah 1:6, 14; 2:3; 3:1, 8. By contrast, here we have ûqərāʾ ʿālêhā. When it does appear, qrʾ + ʿal refers to a message about the imposition of negative consequences on someone or something (Deut 15:9; 1 Kgs 13:2; Jer 25:29; 49:29; Lam 1:15; Ps 105:16) (Sasson, 72–75; Sasson translates “declare doom upon it”). That said, it does not clearly and consistently mean “denounce.” While denunciation may be implied, the more open-ended translation “concerning” is preferred. Because there is no specificity to the message, Alshich took “against her/ it” as an indication of the prophecy’s implicit denouncement of Israel on account of “God’s anger over Israel’s consistent obdurate refusal to repent despite many exhortations by numerous prophets” (Zlotowitz, 79). 266

Commentary 1:3 their evil. In rāʿātām, the 3 mp possessive pronominal suffix -ām refers to the people of Nineveh rather than to the city. All Hebrew manuscripts, Targ, Pesh, and a few Greek manuscripts have a plural suffix. While Vulg and OG have a singular suffix, this does not point to a different Vorlage; rather, this arises from a decision to prioritize grammatical consistency (the city and its evil). OG construes the sentence differently, making the allusion to Gen 18:20 more explicit: “for the cry of its wickedness [kraugē tēs kakias autēs] has come up to me.” 1:3 Then Jonah. Although the syntax suggests that the conjunction wa- in wayyāqom signals progression in the narrative, most translations have “however” or “but” (e.g., NRSV, JPS, NASB, ASV, NET). Sasson notes that wayyāqom serves to emphasize Jonah’s contradictory act, functioning to contrast what was stated previously (77; see also Tucker, 15). Trible appreciates the ambiguity of the form, noting that the wa- conjunction “at first projects continuity with the imperative ‘arise’ and so encourages the translation ‘and.’ Viewed from the end of the clause, however, wa- signals discontinuity and so encourages the translation ‘but’” (1994, 128). Preserving the reader’s initial sense of the wayyiqṭōl as communicating continuity between God’s command and Jonah’s response (“then”) highlights the dissonance between what the reader expects and Jonah’s response. Again Trible’s comments are insightful: “The ambiguity of wa- leads and misleads (or misleads and leads) the reader from command to disobedient response” (128). Tarshish. The geographical location of Tarshish is difficult to pinpoint; however, there is no reason to doubt that it was an actual place (as opposed to a mythological or invented one). Tarshish was known to be far away; it seems even to have functioned literarily as a quintessential faraway place. As a result, the ancient sources do not agree on its precise location, nor are they consistent on the spelling (see Kooij 1998, 44–45). Josephus equated Tarshish with “Thrassos in Cilicia” in southeastern Asia Minor, likely on the basis of the phonetic similarity between the Hebrew and Greek place-names (A. J. 9.208 [9.10.2]; see also 1.127 [1.6.1]). Both OG and Vulg transliterate the Hebrew taršîš. However, Targ replaces taršîš consistently with “sea” (ymʾ) (Levine, 57). In light of Targ, Rashi understands Tarshish to refer to the “sea of Tarshish.” Citing Mek. Pisḥa I, Rashi explains that Jonah is seeking to “flee to the sea since the Shechinah does not rest [i.e., reveal itself to prophets] outside of the land.” Therefore, Jonah’s goal was the sea rather than the city, since he believed prophecy was not given at sea. 267

Terror on the Stormy Sea 1:1–16 Some scholars argue that Tarshish refers to the city of Tarsus of Cilicia in Greece (Asia Minor). The case for Greece is supported by the inclusion of Tarshish in the list of countries in Gen 10:2–4, which are all in the vicinity of Greece (cf. Isa 66:19; Ezek 27:12–15; Lemaire 2000) as well as by the city’s location in the Taurus Mountains, which were known as a source of metals and minerals (Lessing, 72–73). Other scholars, however, place the port city’s location in southwestern Spain in the Phoenician colony of Tartessus, which lay at the far western end of the maritime trade route and was known for its silver mines (Saadiah; Ibn Ezra; ABD 6:333). The actual location of Tarshish is of little consequence in the narrative. Indeed, it may be that the uncertainty about the city’s precise geographical location figures into its function in the story. In the HB, Tarshish is a faraway place associated with wealth. Taršîš can also refer to a precious stone (Exod 28:20; Ezek 28:13; Song 5:14) owing to the association between the toponym and the mining and export of valuable gems. The word taršîš is also closely associated with ships that bring luxury items from exotic lands. As such, Tarshish obtains the meaning of a “distant paradise” (Gordon 1962). As a far-off place of luxury and security, the destination Tarshish accords with the book’s depiction of Jonah’s flight as a search for a place of rest and refuge that is not associated with the presence of YHWH. Because the word taršîš occurs three times in this verse, the first and third with the locative he (taršîšâ), some Greek manuscripts have omitted phrases between instances of the word taršîš(â) (homoioteleuton) (W, from first occurrence through second; and OGS, from second occurrence through third) (Trible 1963, 15–16). away from YHWH. The phrase mippənê YHWH (or the deity) is more common than millipnê YHWH. The prepositions min + lə clearly indicate direction away from YHWH (Gen 4:14). Echoing ləpānāy in v. 2 but adding min (“away from”), the preposition itself (millipnê) is consistent with the construction of contrast between v. 2, “their evil has come up (ʿlh) before me (ləpānāy),” and v. 3, “he went down (yrd) . . . from before (millipnê) YHWH.” Ibn Ezra argued that unlike the psalmist’s flight from the presence of (mippənê) YHWH (Ps 139:7), Jonah’s flight millipnê YHWH is an attempt to escape the intimate encounter of YHWH’s prophetic call rather than YHWH’s presence (Bob, 20–21). This reading appears to be a consequence of Targ’s “he paid the fare and went on board to go with them in the sea before he would prophesy in the name of YHWH (mn qdm dʾtnby bšmʾ dYY).” Joppa. In MT, Joppa is an accusative of place (J-M §125 n) following the verb yārad. Joppa (modern Jaffa) was a Mediterranean port, cited as the 268

Commentary 1:3 place of import for luxury items, such as cedar from Lebanon (2 Chr 2:16; Ezra 3:7) and gold from Ophir (listed in the Tel Qasîle inscriptions), used in the construction of both temples. Although allotted to the tribe of Dan in the book of Joshua (19:40, 46–47), the region of Joppa lay outside the boundaries of Israel’s territory for most of its history. According to the Sennacherib prism, the town was controlled by the Philistines (ANET, 287). Lowell Handy argues that the description of finding and purchasing passage on a ship in v. 3 is historically inaccurate as ships bound for long trips to the west, where Tarshish was likely located, would not have departed from Joppa (2004, 33; Horden and Purcell 2000, 606–21; see also Casson, who claims that the eastern Mediterranean ports for long-voyage western shipping were Antioch, Caesarea, and Alexandria [1974, 149, 152–53]). And yet in a literary- mythological sense, Joppa is an auspicious point of departure. The location was known as the site of the Perseus-Andromeda legend, which dates from the fourth century BCE, though it was likely to have been circulating orally far earlier (Pseudo-Skylax, Geographi Graeci Minores 1 [1855] 79; Wolff, 102). Josephus (B. J. 3.420), Strabo (Geography 16.2.28), and Pliny (Natural History 5.69, 9.11) also refer to Joppa as the location of the sea monster’s demise at the hand of Perseus. a ship. MT has the feminine form of the noun (ʾǒnîyâ), often used to refer to a single ship as opposed to a fleet (nomen unitatis), the latter of which typically takes the form of a ms noun denoting a collective (GKC §122t). coming from Tarshish. bāʾâ, as pointed in MT, with the accent on the last syllable, normally indicates a participle. The phrase bāʾâ taršîš is typically taken to be a “future predicate participle” (futurum instans; Arnold and Choi 2003, 81; see David Kimḥi in Bob, 47), meaning that Jonah encounters a ship heading toward Tarshish. However, to indicate what most commentators assume is meant (i.e., that Jonah is looking to go in the opposite direction of Nineveh, or that the ship is about to go away from the direction of the reader), Hebrew would normally use hlk. For regular movement back and forth between ports, one would expect the construction hlk + bôʾ (so 2 Chr 9:21). To get around this apparent difficulty, Sasson notes that the participle often conveys the past tense. Therefore the ship has recently returned from Tarshish, creating the sense that Jonah is fortunate to find (mṣʾ) this ship that has just come from and is about to return to Tarshish, a faraway place “that has not heard of [YHWH’s] reputation” (Isa 66:19; Sasson, 82–83). The fact that the ship has just arrived and Jonah hires it to sail again immediately communicates his haste to escape. In light of this reading, however, the participle rendered in the typical way (“coming”) serves to further highlight 269

Terror on the Stormy Sea 1:1–16 the urgency of Jonah’s situation; Jonah finds a ship still in the process of coming from Nineveh (as in, it has not even docked yet). Jonah’s apparent good fortune also sets up readers to experience the disaster that ensues as a reversal of expectations in v. 3. In other words, fate appears to be on Jonah’s side, but God’s demands will not be thwarted by fate; indeed, the lot-casting incident that follows implies that God controls the fates as well as the wind and the storm. Further, the use of the verb bôʾ instead of hlk maintains the contrast between semantic opposites in v. 2 and v. 3. God tells Jonah to go (lēk) in v. 2. Since bôʾ often functions as the opposite of hlk, it is fitting that the ship itself does not “go to Nineveh” in accordance with God’s words in v. 2, but “comes from Tarshish” in v. 3. its hire. The noun śəkārāh in MT means “her wages” or “her payment.” A word for “fare,” as a price paid for an individual to travel on a ship, is not attested until Roman times (Sasson, 84). The word in Jonah indicates that he pays the ship’s “hire” or “wages,” a payment to secure not merely a ticket but the ship along with the crew (b. Ned. 4:3; Rashi). The unexpected image generated by the Hebrew led most of the vrss to rephrase. OG (kai edōke to naulon autou) and Vulg (naulum eius) interpret “his fare” (so also Ibn Ezra). Pesh drops the suffix altogether. Targ, however, supports MT, which has the feminine pronominal suffix “its/her wages” (ʾgrh) (Levine, 58). 1:4 hurled. The verb ṭwl appears four times in ch. 1 (1:4, 5, 12 [2×]). Instead of using a verb meaning “to throw,” mimicking MT’s ṭwl, OG and Targ both use words that mean “raise up” (OG, eksēgeire; Targ, ʾrym). Almbladh suggests that OG reads hiṭṭil (from nṭl) rather than hēṭîl (from ṭwl) (18). However, nāṭal is unattested in the Hiph., and OG renders the subsequent three instances of the verb ṭwl (in 1:5, 12, 15) with the verbs from the root ballō (ekballō, “to throw out,” in vv. 5, 15; emballō, “to throw into,” in v. 12), casting doubt on the idea that the word choice in 1:4 resulted from a lack of familiarity with the verb. It is more likely that OG is interpretive, influenced by images of YHWH lifting up the stormy wind, as in Ps 107:25 (wayyaʿămēd rûaḥ səʿārâ; cf. wayyaʿămōd in 1:15; note, however, that OG uses the verb histēmi in Ps 107:25). The Hiph. of ʿmd in v. 15 could have reinforced the interpretive impulse in v. 4. a great wind. OG omits the adjective “great, big” (gdlh) modifying the noun wind, which may represent a failure to keep track of the numerous instances (four) of the word in ch. 1. Symm restores the adjective (pneuma mega). The ship reckoned to break up. This translation repeats the sound k in the 270

Commentary 1:5 spirit of the alliteration in the Hebrew, which repeats the sounds sh and b (ḥiššəbâ ləhiššābēr). With the exception of Targ, the vrss do not retain the ship as the subject of the verb, and therefore eliminate the personification of the ship in Heb. For example, OG has ekindyneue syntribēnai, “was in danger of breaking up”; Vulg has periclitabatur conteri, “was in danger of being destroyed”; and Pesh has “was at the point of being broken.” By contrast, Targ emphasizes the personality of the ship: “the ship wanted (bʿyʾ) to break up.” Extending the personification, Pirqe R. El. 10 and Tanh. VaYikra 96 depict the ship as animate by having the sailors communicate with it (Levine, 69). A number of readers have attempted to deal with the perceived problem of the ship—an inanimate object—engaged in the typically human act of mental reckoning. David Kimḥi wrote, “It means to say that the sailors on the ship thought the ship would break apart” (Bob, 48). Freedman, insistent that ships do not think, argued for prioritizing the Vorlage of OG, which he proposed was ḥbh, over MT’s ḥšbh (1958, 162). Most commentators now accept the line as it stands in MT (see Trible, 17–18); the personification of the ship is a literary device also used in the Oracles of Tyre (e.g., Isa 23:1; Ibn Ezra calls attention to a comparable poetic use of language in Ezek 14:13 [Bob, 24]). The syntax is notable in that the subject precedes the verb. In 1:4–5, the subject precedes the predicate three times: waYHWH hēṭîl . . . wəhāʾŏnîyyâ ḥiššəbâ . . . wəyônâ yārad. With both YHWH and Jonah fronted as subjects in these verses, the parallel syntax depicts these two characters as asserting themselves in opposition to one another, which is consistent with the depiction of YHWH’s command and Jonah’s response in vv. 2 and 3. However, the syntax that places the ship as a subject preceding the verb is more difficult to explain. In the grammatical construction that results, the oppositional actions of the two primary characters in this drama surround the ship, trapping it structurally in the crossfire. The ship occupies the space between God hurling and Jonah withdrawing and, as a result, threatens to break up. 1:5 cried out, each one to his god. Targ has wbʿw gbr mn dḥltyh (“each man petitioned his idol/fear”) and adds wḥzw ʾry lyt bhwn ṣrwk (“but they saw that they were useless”). To avoid attributing divinity to other gods, Targ employs a common circumlocution (dḥltʾ, “idols”) and relates these false gods to the verbal construction “they were afraid” (dḥylw) (cf. Jer 2:11; anticipates Jonah 2:9 [Eng. 2:8]). to lighten their burden. The absence of a direct object for ləhāqēl is consistent with uses of qll + min + ʿal + object preposition in Exod 18:22 271

Terror on the Stormy Sea 1:1–16 (hāqēl mēʿālêkā) and 1 Kgs 12:10 (hāqēl mēʿālênû). The phrase is idiomatic for “lighten the burden from on x.” The vrss’ assumption that this line is concerned with idol worship leads them to interpret this prepositional phrase with a different nuance. Upon acknowledging their idols’ uselessness, the sailors hurl them into the sea to lighten the ship of the idols (lʾqlʾ mnhwn; similarly OG, Vulg, and Pesh, all of which imply Hebrew mhm rather than mʿlyhm). Targ is consistent with the midrashic expansion in Mek. Pisḥa I (see also Pirqe R. El. 10), which conflates Jonah 1:5 and Mic 4:5 and reinforces the “midrashic motif of the competition on board, with the shift constituting a microcosm of idolatrous humanity” (Levine, 60). the depths of the vessel. The term for “depths” here (yarkətê) refers to a far distant realm (Judg 19:1, 18; Jer 25:32; 31:8; 50:41) or an area located deep within a particular space, such as the “rear” of the tabernacle (Exod 26:22; 36:27) or the temple (1 Kgs 6:16) or the farthest reaches of a cave (1 Sam 24:3) or house (Amos 6:10). The term yarkětê is not used elsewhere to refer to a space on a ship. Combined with the hapax legomenon səpînâ (cf. the more common ʾŏnîyâ in 1:3), the phrase yarkətê hassəpînâ reflects the literary artistry of the narrative. It also recalls yarkětê ṣāpôn, the farthest reaches of the holy mountain (Ps 48:3 [Eng. 48:2]; Isa 14:13). The noun səpînâ generates wordplay with the verb spn, “to cover,” and perhaps also with ṣpn, “to hide” by way of the association with ṣāpôn (Ackerman 229–30; Halpern and Freedman 1980, 84n11). At the same time, the verbs škb and rdm at the end of v. 5 (both of which can imply death) recall the phrase yarkətê-bôr, the depths of the pit (Isa 14:15; Ezek 32:23). The use of language and metaphors with opposing implications is consistent with the dialectical aspects of the spaces Jonah inhabits in the first two chapters of the book. Just as the fish functions as a metaphor for a womb as well as a tomb, the ship’s depths represent an inner sanctum and simultaneously a realm of death. fell into a deep sleep. The verb rdm can imply a deep trancelike sleep associated with revelation (Job 4:13; 33:15; Dan 10:8) as well as the deep sleep associated with death (Judg 4:21; Ps 76:6) (Magonet, 68). OG adds kai errenchen (“and snored”), possibly in an attempt to increase the potential humor or absurdity inherent in the image, but it is also a potentially authentic variant (also in Pseudo-Philo; Sasson, 101). Vulg emphasizes the depth of the sleep: et dormiebat sopore gravi, “he slept a deep heavy sleep.” Instead of two verbs, Pesh has only the first verb (wdmk, “he lay down”). 1:6 the captain. rab haḥōbēl means literally, “chief of the ropes.” While the noun ḥōbēl is a singular form, it functions in a collective sense (see similarly 272

Commentary 1:7 Jonah 3:10; 4:11), particularly when in a phrase as part of a title (nomen agentis). Although the term indicates that this mariner has a leadership role on the ship, precisely what his role and duties entail is unclear (cf. Ezek 27:29). The narrative singles him out as a leader who acts as a spokesman for the crew, consistent with the role of a ship’s captain, but it is not interested in the specifics of his job or where exactly he figures in the crew’s hierarchy (Handy 2004, 37). The vrss all maintain the Hebrew phrase’s designation of authority but variously construe his position. In OG, he is a prōreus, “first mate”; while in other Greek manuscripts and in the Vulg, he is the captain (Aq, Symm, Theod, kybernētēs; Vulg, gubernator). In Targ (= Pesh), he is the owner of the ship (rb spnyʾ; Levine, 51). the god. It is difficult to settle on the best single translation for hāʾĕlōhîm, as the narrative plays with the ambiguity inherent in the term. Although the singular verb suggests that a single deity is in view, it is not clear whether the reference is to the god of the Israelites. The designation hāʾĕlōhîm could refer to Jonah’s god in particular, in which case the article has a demonstrative sense (“that god” or “god of yours”), but it may also refer elliptically to the god who brought the storm, still unknown to the sailors, where it would designate an unknown deity: “the god.” give us a thought. The verb yitʿaššēt ultimately derives from the Aramaic root ʿšt, which means “to think, consider.” The phrase yitʿaššēt l- is roughly synonymous with hšb l- (Ps 40:18) and zkr l- (Neh 13:14, 22) and means “to have a favorable thought towards someone; to be gracious to someone” (Landes 1982, 155–56). This is the only occurrence of the verb in the Hith. in the HB. While the word appears in the Sefire inscription II B5, the positive sense of the verb is attested only in texts dated after the fifth century, as in the Elephantine papyri (Landes 1982, 155). That an Aramaic loanword appears in the speech of the sailors suggests that the word choice was intended to give their speech a “foreign” flavor (Rendsburg 1995). The vrss attempt to render the sense of the verb according to context. Vulg’s recogitet (“think, consider”) is closest to MT. OG and Targ choose more explicitly theological terms. OG has diasōsē, “save” (= Pesh), while Targ has ytrḥym, “will have mercy.” Targ’s rendering relating to “mercy” likely stems from and fuels its liturgical function, particularly the reading of Jonah on Yom Kippur. 1:7 who is bringing. The phrase bəšelləmî (lit., “on whose account”), a combination of four words (b- + š- + l- + mî), is more common in Aramaic, including Syriac (Trible, 21–22). As such, it may be another foreign-sounding word, appropriate for rendering the speech of non-Israelite sailors. When 273

Terror on the Stormy Sea 1:1–16 the sailors speak with one another, the particle š, as opposed to the relative pronoun ʾăšer, appears in their direct speech, which accords with the constructed identity of the sailors as foreigners (Holmstedt 2006, 16–18). The variation may also be the result of diglossia, with š reflecting vernacular usage and ʾăšer belonging to a higher register of communication (Muraoka 2012). Although š comes to replace ʾăšer in MH, š is used in SBH and so does not constitute evidence for the book’s late date (contra Rudolph, 340). 1:8 Why? On whose account. The phrase baʾăšer ləmî is an alternative form of bəšelləmî from v. 7. Because of the near-repetition of the phrase from v. 7 (bəšelləmî hārāʿâ hazzōʾt lānû) in v. 8 (baʾăšer ləmî-hārāʿâ hazzōʾt lānû), OGS and OGB, as well as two Hebrew manuscripts (De Rossi 1788, 3:194), omit the phrase in v. 8. Some have identified the line in v. 8 as a gloss (Keil and Delitzsch, 394–95; Bewer, 37; Wolff, 107) or the result of homoioteleuton (Jenson 2009, 51). However, the two phrases are not identical. Further, given the narrative’s frequent use of repetition, it is arbitrary to delete words and phrases on this basis. It is possible to construe baʾăšer ləmî as introducing an object clause. The whole sentence would then read: “Tell us, you who are responsible for this calamity upon us” (Sasson, 107; cf. NJPS). However, this has the sailors prematurely identifying Jonah as the guilty party. The continuation of their interrogation suggests that their questions about the source of and reason for “this evil” have not been definitively answered. Although the phrases bəšelləmî in 1:7 and baʾăšer ləmî in 1:8 have comparable meaning, from a literary perspective the shift to baʾăšer ləmî accomplishes two things. First, it is consistent with the story’s depiction of the sailors as foreign. When the sailors speak among themselves, they do so in their own tongue and so use š- (v. 7), but when they address Jonah, they use his language and so use ʾăšer (in comparable fashion, Jonah uses š- when he addresses the sailors in 1:12) (cf. 2 Kgs 6:11; Holmstedt 16–17). Second, the integrated construction in 1:7 becomes two words in 1:8, effectively dividing the sailors’ concerns into two categories, and so provides clarification about the specific information they seek. With regard to the evil that has come to them, the sailors demand to know: (1) baʾăšer, “on account of what, for what reason” (Gen 39:9, 23; Eccl 3:9; 7:2; 8:4) and (2) ləmî, “on account of whom.” 1:9 I am a Hebrew. The identifier ʿibrî is typically, though not exclusively, used by non-Israelites to refer to Israelites (e.g., Gen 39:14, 17; 41:12; Exod 274

Commentary 1:10 2:11, 13; 1 Sam 4:6, 9; 13:19). However, in the Exodus stories about Israel’s oppression in Egypt, Israelites use the term to refer to themselves obsequiously or in self-derogation when communicating with Pharaoh (Exod 3:18; 5:3; 7:16; 9:1, 13; 10:3). The term, which appears in the Pentateuch and 1 Samuel, is used primarily as an archaic designation for the people of Judah and Israel (cf. the younger terms “Israelite” and “Judean”). As an anachronism, it adds to the impression that the events the book narrates took place in a former time. The term ʿibrî refers backward historically to “the Abraham story and its emphasis on identity through both genealogical and theological lines” and distinguishes Jonah from the sailors along religious-ethnic lines rather than geographical or national lines (Handy, 66–67). OG’s “I am YHWH’s servant” (doulos kyriou egō eimi) suggests Heb *ʿbd y (with the yod as an abbreviated form of the Tetragrammaton; Tov 2001, 257). It is possible that it is the result of an error stemming from bet/resh confusion in paleo-Hebrew (thus ʿbry > ʿbd y). Or OG may be influenced by 2 Kgs 14:25: “YHWH spoke through his servant Jonah (ʿabdô yônâ).” It is also possible, although there are no extant Hebrew manuscripts to support it, that there were copies of Jonah circulating with both readings (“servant” and “Hebrew”) and OG’s copy had *ʿbdy (Sasson, 116). Targ has yhwdʾh ʾnʾ, “I am a Jew,” assuming the conflation of religion and nationality (Levine, 65–66). God of Heaven. The divine epithet ʾlhy hšmym is likely related to the Aramaic phrase ʾlh šmyʾ. The title appears in Hebrew in Ezra 1:2 and Neh 1:5 and in Aramaic in Ezra 5:11, 6:9, and 7:12 (Landes 1982, 155) as well as in the Elephantine papyri (Cowley 1923, e.g., 30:2, 28 [= TAD A4.7]; 31:27 [= TAD A4.8]; Wolff, 115). Although the epithet does not appear exclusively in late texts (e.g., Gen 24:3), its distribution is denser in late texts. who made. The relative particle ʾăšer in Jonah’s response identifies YHWH as the one who (ʾăšer) made the sea and dry ground, but it also links his statement directly to the sailors’ first question in v. 8, “On whose account (baʾăšer ləmî) has this evil come to us?” and only slightly more indirectly to bəšelləmî in v. 7. YHWH’s dominion over the sea and the dry ground further emphasizes that God is the one who has brought the calamity on the sea to them and as such is their only hope for reaching dry ground. God is the source of the evil and of their salvation. 1:10 For the men knew. The narrator’s strange timing on this disclosure of information, in three kî clauses, did not go unnoticed by Jewish interpreters. Pirqe R. El. places the moment of Jonah’s revelation prior to the lot-casting 275

Terror on the Stormy Sea 1:1–16 in v. 7. Radak places the offstage conversation between Jonah and the sailors between v. 9 and v. 10. R. Bachya posits that there was no actual disclosure by Jonah; the sailors deduced the chain of events (similarly Metzudos). 1:11 quiet. The verb štq is widely attested in Aramaic, but this does not mean it is late or even an Aramaic loanword (Sasson, 122). It is just as likely that it was chosen for stylistic reasons consistent with the Aramaic verb attributed to the sailors in v. 6. The atypical grammatical construction of the sentence, in which an indicative verb precedes a jussive (GKC §166a), may also attempt to achieve the effect of coloring the sailors’ direct speech with foreign-sounding language. because the sea is getting stormier. It is not clear whether it is the narrator or the sailors who speak the final phrase of v. 11, “because the sea is/was getting stormier.” In v. 13b, the narrator says much the same thing (“for the sea was getting even stormier against them”), but that fact could lend support for either reading. Grammatically, the ambiguity is irresolvable. The vrss, with exception of Pesh, do nothing to clarify the matter. By including the prepositional phrase in v. 13 in v. 11 as well, Pesh attributes the clause to the narrator: “for the sea was becoming increasingly boisterous and it became boisterous over them.” 1:12 Lift me up. The verb śāʾûnî is unusual in this context, as it is rarely used to refer to the (physical) lifting up of a person. Although the verb nśʾ is a common word with a wide semantic range, it is a verb common in cultic terminology to refer to the “bearing” of a sin (ʿāwōn, e.g., Lev 5:17; 16:22) or the “carrying away, lifting” of sin (“forgive,” Num 14:18). In Gen 18:24, 26, the verb takes no object, and the phrasing there may be elliptical (“to spare”). If this usage is in play, it may be that Jonah’s command indicates that he intends to “bear” (accept) punishment or that he implicitly asks for their forgiveness. If such cultic implications are operative in śāʾûnî, the vrss do not make them explicit. OG, Vulg, and Targ render nśʾ as “to take.” 1:13 desperately rowed. The verb ḥtr is not used elsewhere to refer to rowing or other maritime actions. Instead, it refers to burrowing holes (Ezek 8:8; 12:5) or perhaps to breaking into homes (cf. maḥteret, “break in,” Jer 2:34). In Amos 9:2, the verb is used metaphorically to refer to the futile actions of people attempting to flee from God by climbing to heaven or by digging to

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Commentary 1:14 Sheol. If they try to hide from God’s sight “at the bottom of the sea” (bəqarqaʿ hayyām), God will command a serpent (nāḥāš) to bite them (9:3) (Meredith 2014). The image of the sailors futilely or desperately digging, along with a number of images in Jonah 2, allude to, and perhaps even literalize, Amos 9:2–3. The metaphorical use of the verb wayyaḥtərû, in which the sailors’ actions are implicitly likened to digging to Sheol (Sasson, 130), is reinforced by the inf. “to return” (ləhāšîb), since the verb šûb is elsewhere paired with Sheol and its equivalents; the realm of death is the place to which one “returns” (Job 1:21). The vrss capture the meaning of the Heb. in a practical rather than a metaphorical sense. Targ (šyyṭyn) and Vulg (remigabant) have “they rowed.” OG reads “they used force, tried hard” (parebiazonto) = Pesh (tʾtkltyh). With the exception of OG, which has here gēn (“earth, land”) as opposed to xēros (1:9), the vrss translate hayyabbāšâ with the same word they used in v. 9. 1:14 they called out to YHWH. MT distinguishes between the sailors’ crying out (wayyizʿaqû) to their gods and their calling out (wayyiqrəʾû) to YHWH. OG and Vulg do not indicate the difference in the Heb. verbs; in both v. 5 and v. 14, OG has anaboaō and Vulg has clamo (“to cry”; cf., however, v. 6). because of this man’s life. The linking of nepeš with blood in the next clause recalls the connection between life (nepeš) and blood (Gen 9:4; Lev 17:11, 14). In the phrase bənepeš hāʾîš, it is possible to understand bə as “together with” (e.g., Jer 41:15) or as a causal preposition, “because of, on account of ” (e.g., Gen 18:28). While the second petition suggests the meaning “on account of,” the sailors’ petition may also seek to decouple their fate from Jonah’s. In light of the reaction of the storm growing stormier, not merely in general, but “on them,” they may feel it prudent to ask not to die “together with” Jonah. The vrss reveal the range of possibilities of Hebrew bənepeš. OG has heneken (“for the sake of ”); Vulg has in anima (“for the life/soul of ”). Targ is interpretive; instead of bnpš, it has bḥwbt npšh (“for the guilt of this man’s life”), specifying that the request is for absolution from murder with a “ritual disclaimer of blood guilt” (Levine, 68). innocent blood. In the HB, the adjective is spelled with an aleph (nāqîʾ) rather than a yod only here and in Joel 4:19 (Eng. 3:19). Many Hebrew manuscripts, including Mur 88, reflect the typical spelling nqy (Trible, 29). MT may reflect a scribal error resulting from confusion with the Aramaic spelling (něqēʾ, Dan

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Terror on the Stormy Sea 1:1–16 7:9). The use of the aleph to indicate that the preceding y should be understood as a vowel is frequently attested at Qumran (see nāqîʾ in IQIsaa at 59:7). Targ’s ḥwbt dm zkyy (“the sin of innocent blood”) is interpretive, extending the explanation from the first clause to indicate that considering their murder of Jonah to be a sin would constitute a punishment unjustly imposed on the innocent (Levine, 68–69). you do what you please. kʾšr ḥpṣt ʿśyt reflects a late expression (post-500 BCE) in contrast to the earlier SBH phrase, lʿśwt hṭwb bʿyny (“to do what is good in one’s own eyes”). Hurvitz has made the convincing case that the later phrase, which reflects the supreme authority of the omnipotent god or king, is “the adoption of a legal formula whose Sitz im Leben is to be sought in the domain of jurisprudence” (1982, 258). OG’s hon tropon eboulou pepoiēkas, “as you were wishing, you have done,” suggests that God has done as God has pleased (regarding Jonah) in the past. Pesh is similar with mṭl dʾnt hw mryʾ wʾyk dṣbʾ ʾnt ʿbd ʾnt, “For you are the Lord and you have done as it has pleased you.” Sasson notes that these vrss attribute God’s anger to Jonah’s actions in the past, avoiding “the implication that God enjoys tormenting blameless sailors” (135). Targ has ʾry ʾt YY kmʾ drʿwʾ qdmk ʿbdtʾ, “For you, Lord, have done it as it is pleasing before you.” 1:16 they feared a great fear—that is, YHWH. Here yrʾ takes two direct objects, leaving ʾet-YHWH dangling at the end of the sentence for narrative effect. While some older commentators deleted ʾet-YHWH (e.g., Bewer, 40), most modern commentators recognize that it is an aspect of the narrative’s art. The rhetoric is an attempt to make the sailors into fearers not just of “the god” (1:6) but of YHWH in particular, who was introduced to them by Jonah in 1:9. As many commentators have noted, the phrases that have “fear” in this chapter increase in length, intensity, and specificity from v. 5 (wayyîrəʾû hammallāḥîm) to v. 10 (wayyîrəʾû hāʾanāšîm yirʾâ gədôlâ) to v. 16 (wayyîrəʾû hāʾanāšîm yirʾâ gədôlâ ʾet-YHWH) (Magonet, 92). The narrative culminates in the sailors’ full recognition of YHWH’s fearsomeness. OG and Vulg make YHWH into the first object of the verb, with the repetition of the root “fear” in the Hebrew rendered as an adverb (“they feared the Lord very greatly”). Pesh and Targ place YHWH in a prepositional phrase, “the men were greatly terrified from before YHWH.” In keeping with the assumption that legitimate sacrifices to YHWH could take place only in the temple, Targ has “they promised to offer sacrifices before YHWH” (wʾmrw ldbḥʾ dbḥ-qdm YY; Levine, 70). made vows. OG interprets “they vowed vows” as “they prayed prayers.” 278

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