Today, Clint Loveall and Michael Gewecke explore the fascinating story of Jonah’s disobedience and the sailors’ encounter with the power of God. Throughout the discussion, they touch on important themes, including Jonah’s refusal to follow God’s call, the sailors’ conversion and prayers to the Lord, and the concept of salvation.
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00:00:00:10 – 00:00:24:27
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Jonah. Thanks for closing out the week with us. As we continue slowly into chapter one. Here we are in verse four. Here’s a quick recap. A lot happens in the first three verses. Jonah gets a call from God to go to Nineveh and decides instead to go the other way. And we’re left with the words he he ran or he went to Tarshish away from the presence of the Lord.
00:00:24:32 – 00:01:02:17
Clint Loveall
And so we said this yesterday, Michael, one way to think about this book is a kind of battle of wills, a back and forth between God and Jonah. And you could argue Jonah makes the first move in running away. So today we look at God’s response. So we start in verse four here, I think I’ll read through verse six, but the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea and such a mighty storm came upon the sea that the ship threatened to break up when the Mariners were afraid and each cried to his God.
00:01:02:22 – 00:01:26:35
Clint Loveall
Then they threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. Jonah, meanwhile, had gone down to the hold of the ship and laid down and was fast asleep. The captain came and said to him, What are you doing? Sound asleep, Get up and call upon your God. Perhaps the God will spare us a thought so that we do not perish.
00:01:26:40 – 00:01:54:01
Clint Loveall
So a lot of interesting stuff here, as I think we’ll say very often in Jonah. There is some language stuff here today. First of all, God throws or hurls a wind upon the sea. And this is in direct response to what Jonah has done. Jonah’s tried to get away from the presence of the Lord. Now it’s God’s move and God throws a wind that creates a great storm.
00:01:54:01 – 00:02:27:34
Clint Loveall
And I said yesterday, we’ll run into this word a lot. So today there’s a great wind and a mighty storm. It literally might even say something like a great wind and a greater storm came upon the sea. So the ship is threatening to break up. I don’t. One of the things that’s interesting about Jonah in general, Michael, I think, is that because we are dealing with people who primarily are desert people, they’re not a lot of ocean stories in the Old Testament.
00:02:27:34 – 00:02:48:05
Clint Loveall
Surprisingly few. I mean, you you kind of have I mean, you have Noah and the Ark, but it doesn’t really tell us much about the sailing. It just says they were out there. There just isn’t a lot of action in the Old Testament that happens on the water. And Jonah, at least the first chapter, first and second chapter of Jonah are a notable exception to that.
00:02:48:05 – 00:02:57:45
Clint Loveall
And here we have God. You know, the worst thing that you can imagine encountering at sea is a storm. And this is not only a storm, this is a mighty storm.
00:02:57:57 – 00:03:21:45
Michael Gewecke
The commentators make the point that the Phoenicians are likely the ones who are sort of leading this ship. They’re the ones who had the technology and the industry to do sort of international trade. And so it is notable and we should definitely not pass by too quickly that it in this story is a reversal again of our expectations.
00:03:21:45 – 00:03:49:55
Michael Gewecke
And let’s be clear about that. While the seasoned crew who are accustomed to traveling by ship are the ones who are terrified and crying out to their gods, the one who is fast asleep down below the ship, laying down is Jonah, the one who, to your point, is not the people who you would expect to be most comfortable on a boat.
00:03:49:55 – 00:04:13:26
Michael Gewecke
So here you have a real surprise. You have the person who you would be most likely thinking would be terrified. Jonah asleep, and the people who would be in the best position to be secure and confident, the sailors who are literally we get the sense praying to every God that they can. They’re just throwing stuff against the wall to see what’s going to stick.
00:04:13:26 – 00:04:35:49
Michael Gewecke
If they can get a God to notice them, to respond to them, they’re going to be happy with that because they’re in that dire of a situation. So dire that they’re going to be throwing cargo cargo over the side of the ship. But so what you have happening is you have a very quick three verse set up. It wasn’t a lot of text that we had yesterday.
00:04:35:54 – 00:05:07:39
Michael Gewecke
And then immediately verse four, you have and here law this capitalized. So we have here Yahweh, the God of Jonah is the one who hurls the great wind upon the sea. And it leaves these sailors in a position of scrambling, trying to figure out who they can lobby, whose prayers they can lift up to, what gods in a world view that’s full of many different layers of gods and divine intermediaries, and each person might have their own family, gods, and all of the complexities of this.
00:05:07:39 – 00:05:28:57
Michael Gewecke
You see the sailors are just reaching, but the author of this text makes it clear the West. There’s no question of who’s the one behind this. It is Jonah’s God, who has brought this wind, who’s brought this trouble to these sailors. And it is fascinating. While the sailors respond looking for the answer, Jonah has gone down below ship.
00:05:28:57 – 00:05:34:33
Michael Gewecke
He’s laid down, and he at this point has shown no interest in engaging this at any level.
00:05:34:33 – 00:05:59:49
Clint Loveall
Yeah, we see sort of three fold response here from the sailors. They fear and then they cry and then they throw or actually they hurled. So the the word that is used for they threw cargo is the same word in verse four for what God does to the wind. It’s hurled and I, I wish translations would would use the same word to help us get a flavor for that.
00:05:59:49 – 00:06:39:27
Clint Loveall
But God hurls a wind. Now they hurl cargo. And there’s an interesting idea about this, not not only is it perhaps impractical and we’re not sure that it was common practice, the idea of throwing cargo to lighten the ship is a translation choice. That’s not as clear in the original language. And some suggest that what they are doing is making an offering to the sea or to their various gods, hoping to quiet the sea, that they’re hoping that an offering to an angry God will settle the storm.
00:06:39:32 – 00:07:04:50
Clint Loveall
And if you know what’s coming in the story, the idea of hurling something into the sea to stop the storm by appeasing the God responsible for it is where we’re headed. We won’t get there until next week, but that is exactly where this story is going to take us now. So in contrast, they feared, cried and hurled. Jonah has gone down.
00:07:04:55 – 00:07:35:38
Clint Loveall
He is laid down and he is what’s fast asleep. And interestingly, again, a translation thing here. The word asleep is the same word used in Genesis when God puts Adam to sleep and removes his rib, it’s more than just he was sleeping. It. It is almost like either a trance. Some even would use it as a person who is moving toward death or near death.
00:07:35:38 – 00:08:05:51
Clint Loveall
So he’s again, we have this theme we saw yesterday. God says arise and go up and Jonah goes down. Now he’s down in the ship. Now he lays down. Now he’s down in this this deep, deep sleep. And it’s in that poor part that we think, well, this is odd, but Jonah likely, you know, there is a certain freedom in running.
00:08:05:51 – 00:08:30:23
Clint Loveall
He it doesn’t matter to him. He’s not he doesn’t care. He’s even when you when you’ve done the worst thing, which is run from God’s word, why would a storm bother him so this is a very interesting storytelling here. And then, of course, the captain comes and the captain says, why are you how are you sleeping? How are you so sound?
00:08:30:23 – 00:09:06:51
Clint Loveall
Asleep. Rise up and call on your God. Now, if you remember yesterday we started this story with Rise Up and Go speak. And so here the sailor, almost verbatim, repeats God’s words from the Prolog of the story. Perhaps the God will spare us a thought that we might not perish. So what do we have? We have Jonah being told Rise up and preach, call, speak that some people might be saved.
00:09:06:55 – 00:09:36:12
Clint Loveall
And now again we begin to see some of the foreshadowing that this begins to fill in the gap of the unanswered question of why doesn’t Jonah want to go to Nineveh here? Because we see in the captain’s word, the insinuation that in speaking, you might lead to saving. And we’re a long way from fleshing that out, but just put a pin in that because we’re going to come back to that idea.
00:09:36:12 – 00:09:37:50
Clint Loveall
And it’s extremely important.
00:09:37:55 – 00:10:07:16
Michael Gewecke
You know, an interesting way to engage with this text from a modern perspective is that we can conceive of the idea of a ism, the idea of not believing in God. That’s a thoroughly modern idea. But the characters of this story, if you look closely, none of them are crying out as if there is no God. They’re all crying out to various gods they’re all seeking for which God might have priority, or which might be the particular God who’s angry.
00:10:07:21 – 00:10:36:23
Michael Gewecke
And that is also true of Jonah. Jonah is not in this story, not believing in God or fighting against the idea of God. No. So Jonah believes very firm, Leigh, in the the Lord Capital L already there’s this is not a story in it’s set up in which we are led into this sort of question of, you know, is there a God at play or does Jonah believe in God or is Jonah fighting against his faith now?
00:10:36:34 – 00:11:07:12
Michael Gewecke
Now, Jonah believes very 100% confidently in God. Jonah’s struggle in this story, as was set up in yesterday’s study, is quite frankly, he doesn’t like what God is going to do. He knowing of his God, is not pleased. And so this sleep then has a different frame. This isn’t just kind of the sleep of depression. This is the sleep of one who is out trying to outrun God’s call, God’s call to speak in this particular instance.
00:11:07:17 – 00:11:39:55
Michael Gewecke
And the idea that he’s going to be roused by a pagan, calling him to cry out to God as if that God is any other God is very insulting to Jewish sensibilities. The idea that a a foreign sailor with all of their, you know, different religious traditions and all of their speculations and all of the ways that that community at large is just superstitious, that they would be the ones to call Jonah to have converts ation with the living God.
00:11:39:55 – 00:11:52:14
Michael Gewecke
That’s an offensive sensibility. And yet that’s exactly how the story writers presenting it that Jonah needed. Nudged by the pagan to cry out to the one true God is a striking turn in the story like this.
00:11:52:19 – 00:12:20:36
Clint Loveall
Well, yeah, the the sort of game of spiritual chicken continues here. Jonah has tried to run. God now hurls the storm and the question unasked by the text. But present to the reader is how far will Jonah let this go? How how far will he take this? Is is he going to turn around or not? And again, we’re not quite to that answer.
00:12:20:36 – 00:12:44:28
Clint Loveall
Next week. We’ll see. Jonah’s actually prepared to follow this path quite a ways. But let’s jump back in verse seven here and just read what I’ll read through ten. The sailors said to one another, Let us cast lots that we might know whose account this calamity has come upon us. So the cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah.
00:12:44:33 – 00:13:19:16
Clint Loveall
Then they said to him, Tell us why this calamity has come upon us. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country and what people are you and of what people are you? He said, I am a Hebrew. I worship the Lord, the God of Heaven who made the sea in the dry land. Then the men were even more afraid and said to them, said to him, What is this that you’ve done for The men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord because he had told them so.
00:13:19:21 – 00:13:40:28
Clint Loveall
So here we have and the sailors are largely caught in the middle in this. They’re kind of the innocent bystanders. But here we have them getting involved. The casting of lots is as a biblical thing. We don’t know a great deal about it, but it was used in times with the idea that it would reveal some spiritual truth or some divine truth.
00:13:40:33 – 00:14:05:19
Clint Loveall
Here that happens. They cast lots, however that’s done, and it falls on Jonah. In other words, this mess has something to do with Jonah. So they begin asking him these questions, You know, who’s responsible? What do you do? Where are you from? Who’s your people? What’s your country? And Jonah’s answer is fascinating. I am a Hebrew notice, not an Israelite, a Hebrew.
00:14:05:24 – 00:14:29:06
Clint Loveall
And he replied, I worship the Lord again, all capitals. And when you see Elordi in caps, you know you’re dealing with the divine name, the personal name of God. I worship the Lord, the God of Heaven, who made the sea in the dry land. And when the men hear this, they’re even more afraid. And they say, What have you done?
00:14:29:11 – 00:15:03:25
Clint Loveall
And then, well, let’s let’s put that on hold for a minute, Michael. Let’s will leave that last sentence for a minute here. But so when when Jonah speaks about a God who created the sea and the dry land, these sailors now realize that they’re in trouble, Right? That they begin to see the scope of this this God that Jonah seems to have angered or seems to have brought upon them in their midst.
00:15:03:30 – 00:15:05:26
Clint Loveall
And and it terrifies them.
00:15:05:31 – 00:15:33:21
Michael Gewecke
So this is one of those stories that maybe if you heard as a kid, your temptation is to rush past sections like this. Let’s get to the big fish. Let’s get to the whale stuff. I want to make the point here. This is a a really earthy, a very personal encounter with Jonah is running from God because here we have these these sailors and as you’ve already said, they’re sort of just wrapped up into this story.
00:15:33:21 – 00:15:59:42
Michael Gewecke
They didn’t choose this, but they become, for us, real human examples of the cost that Jonah appears willing to pay to get out of the call that God has given them to do. In other words, to say differently, Jonah so hates the people of Nineveh. He has such an intense hatred for them. The idea of going to that place and speaking God’s word to them is so repulsive.
00:15:59:47 – 00:16:18:10
Michael Gewecke
He’s willing to get into a boat. He seems willing to sleep through a storm, happy to just see where that’s going to take him and all of the lives of the people in that boat and the lot to the credit of the writer, it’s clear in their own words that they understand the cost that he’s willing to pay.
00:16:18:10 – 00:16:40:40
Michael Gewecke
Verse ten, they were even more afraid. What is it that you have done? What have you done to this God? The God who you say created the sea in the dry land, which, by the way, it is the sea that is presently threatening the lives of everyone on board. Their point being, that is Jonah’s running. It is Jonah’s activity that is putting all of them at peril.
00:16:40:40 – 00:17:07:10
Michael Gewecke
They make that direct connection and it’s crazy. It’s striking. We should not miss that. Once again, it’s the pagan superstitious people who are under standing. What’s happening in this story and repulsed by it. They’re afraid of it. Whereas Jonah is cool cucumber. He’s collected, he’s fine with it and that is supposed to be a kind of ironic non-sequitur for us, the reader.
00:17:07:15 – 00:17:13:26
Michael Gewecke
This should not make sense to us. These this is completely reverse from what we should be looking for.
00:17:13:28 – 00:17:50:44
Clint Loveall
Yeah, we won’t get there until Monday. But Jonah seems willing to trade his life in order to disobey. But the question that’s going to get pushed to the front and we hear it in the fear full voices of the sailors. Is he willing to sacrifice them right along with himself and, you know, and and then so just a just a heads up here is this I don’t know if this is a very practical point, but then we hit this last line for the men knew he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord because he had told them so.
00:17:50:49 – 00:18:19:25
Clint Loveall
So this is a really interesting storytelling technique where they’re just throw in, by the way, they had this background conversation session where Jonah mentioned this. But but what this also does thematically, what this does in terms of the story is that we don’t have to hear it yet from Jonah’s mouth. We have not heard Jonah admit anything yet.
00:18:19:30 – 00:18:42:30
Clint Loveall
So rather than have to go into the whole conversation, the storyteller or the author says, well, they knew he was running from the Lord, but now they begin to know what that means. Now they begin to say, Well, this Lord you referred to is the God who made the sea and the earth and can hurl mighty storms.
00:18:42:43 – 00:19:37:19
Clint Loveall
And the best of our abilities have zero chance of surviving. What have you done that the this is a matter of scope. The sailors begin to see the massiveness and the grandeur of this God that they don’t yet know in even the words of Jonah. And so I’ll come back to this near the end of the study. But one of the fascinating one of the fascinating realities of the book of Jonah is that everybody that Jonah runs in to learn something about God through him, though he’s not trying at all, like almost in spite of himself, he has now taught these sailors something about that the person that he worships, the God that he serves
00:19:37:24 – 00:20:12:57
Clint Loveall
well, I should say the God that he is supposed to serve. So an interesting translation here, too. In Hebrew, the word worship is the word fear. And so what Jonah says is, I fear the Lord, the God of heaven. Well, we we don’t yet know that that’s true. Even if you want to take and say that worship is the proper choice there of translation, it’s not clear that that’s true, because if worship at any level means to obey, we’ve not seen any of that from Jonah at this point.
00:20:12:57 – 00:20:21:24
Clint Loveall
And so when he says this, I worship up there, I think we’re supposed to hear some of the irony in it.
00:20:21:28 – 00:20:54:30
Michael Gewecke
So in the wording here, at least in our English translation, I think it’s really interesting that you have here in verse ten that Jonah is fleeing from the presence of the Lord. This is what he’s told these other sailors. He’s fleeing from the presence of the Lord, and any even casual reader of the Psalms is going to know that there is no fleeing the presence of the Lord, that the idea that one could escape the creator of all things by traveling to the other side of the thing that that creator made is is foolishness.
00:20:54:30 – 00:21:21:36
Michael Gewecke
There’s a kind of rank, intellectual, just inconsistency in what Jonah’s doing here. The idea that in Jonah’s stubbornness, I’m going to use the word will, because I think that you were right to set us up with that word up. Jonah’s not doing this because he’s out thinking, God, Jonah’s is not doing this because he’s got a secret plan that God couldn’t anticipate when it says that he’s fleeing God’s presence.
00:21:21:41 – 00:21:44:38
Michael Gewecke
He he’s just stubbornly resisting what God has called him to do. And he’s going to go as far away in the opposite direction as possible. And the affront of that in an ancient world context, the idea that you’re going to get on a boat from these sailors perspective, that you’re going to get on a boat running from the God who made the water that that boat is skimming across is the other definition of foolishness.
00:21:44:38 – 00:22:05:47
Michael Gewecke
And Jonah, he doesn’t come across as a guy who’s flummoxed by that in the least. He’s downstairs sleeping. No, for him, he simply willfully resists what God is calling him to do. There’s no crisis of faith here, whether it’s the actual God who told him to do it or not. This is simply a man who’s heard the saying and refuses to do the thing.
00:22:05:47 – 00:22:29:40
Michael Gewecke
And it casts for us, Clint, a character which is essential to the telling of the story. We have to be wondering from the start what is motivating Jonah and how far is he willing to go in this resistance to God. And we’re just literally ten verses in, and we’ve begun to see how deep the vein of that willful disobedience goes.
00:22:29:40 – 00:22:34:10
Michael Gewecke
And and it’s only going to flourish and go deeper as the story continues.
00:22:34:15 – 00:23:00:47
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think, you know, if you were a stubborn child or if you parents had a stubborn child or know a stubborn child, this is this is that back and forth. Right. This is who’s going to blink first? This is eat your breakfast. No. Then you will sit there until you do. And and it’s it’s the standoff. Jonah has initiated it.
00:23:00:52 – 00:23:31:10
Clint Loveall
God has now responded at the end of round one. It’s kind of it’s too close to call. I mean, there’s no indication yet. Certainly God could sink the boat. It may be headed there. But at the at the end of this first round of the battle, it’s it still appears to be kind of a dead heat, or at least we don’t yet know the outcome.
00:23:31:10 – 00:24:03:33
Clint Loveall
Maybe that’s a better way to say it, but I think that’s a helpful this is this is spiritual chicken. This is who’s going to flinch. And Jonah doesn’t seem yet ready and God certainly is noticed and is going to respond. So at the end of the first go round here in this, in ten verses go, I’m not going I’m not letting you get to Tarshish.
00:24:03:37 – 00:24:11:51
Clint Loveall
And we’ll put it on hold there and pick up the story. From that moment, it gets even more interesting, As you know.
00:24:11:56 – 00:24:28:42
Michael Gewecke
If you don’t want to miss out on that, we’d love to see you as we continue the study next Monday. I hope you’ll join us here. We it’s live streamed every 2:00 Central Standard Time and then it’s also released after. Whereas in most places where you can find these things. So we’d love to see you there. I hope that you are blessed and would love to see you next week.
00:24:28:53 – 00:24:29:36
Clint Loveall
Thanks everybody.