Yhwh's Surprising Covenant Hesed in Jonah

Abstract

This article, essentially a “part two” of my earlier article, “Jonah's Peculiar Re-Creation,” continues to explore narrative readings of the story of Jonah. Whereas the former article focused on the intertextual connections and thematic parallels between the story of Jonah and the creation account of Genesis 1–3, as well as the flood account of Genesis 6–9, this current article focuses specifically on the full or partial citations in Jonah of Exodus 32:14, Exodus 34:6, 1 Kings 19:4–6, and Jeremiah 8:7–8, as well as the implicit allusion to Jeremiah 36, and argues that along with the strong “re-creation theme” found in Jonah, there is a clear “covenant theme” in Jonah as well. The covenant language found in the story's citations and allusions would serve to challenge its postexilic audience, not only to reconsider the implications of the Abrahamic Covenant for their current situation, but also to re-evaluate the significance of the Mosaic Covenant in light of the expectations of a prophesied New Covenant. As with the previous article, this article is also an exercise in synchronic readings and intertextuality set within the historical parameters of the postexilic Jewish community.

Over the past thirty years there has been a growing recognition within biblical studies of the need to read the Bible as literature. While not discounting the insights regarding the biblical text provided to us by various historical-critical methods, proponents of narrative criticism emphasize that the text before the reader is still, nevertheless, a unified text, and should therefore be read that way. By analogy, one might be able to research the original sources that Shakespeare used for his writing of Romeo and Juliet, and if perchance a first draft of the play was found, Shakespeare scholars would have a field day looking at how the final draft differs from the first draft. As interesting as all that may be, that wouldn't change the fact that if one is to read and appreciate Romeo and Juliet the way Shakespeare intended, one would have to read the final draft and appreciate the themes, motifs, and imagery as put forth in that final draft. The same holds true for the biblical text. Historical-critical methods might provide insightful background information and help us gain a good frame of reference for any given biblical text, but it is still the text in its final form that stands before us and that needs to be read, studied, and appreciated.

Now, one of the ways a biblical story is to be appreciated is by looking at the places where that story alludes to or cites earlier biblical works. This literary technique, commonly referred to as “intertextuality,” often provides vital clues regarding the message and purpose of any given biblical text. Simply put, whenever the author of a biblical work makes explicit, or maybe more implicit, reference to an earlier biblical work, the reader must assume that the author did it for a reason. It is the reader's responsibility, therefore, to read that earlier text and then consider what impact that earlier text has on the meaning of the present text being read.

Perhaps the two best explanations of this use of intertextuality can be found in Michael Fishbane's Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel and Richard Hays' Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul. Although Fishbane's work deals specifically with how the later works in the Old Testament re-use the earlier works within the Old Testament, and Hays focuses on the use of the Old Testament in Paul's New Testament letters, both men essentially are focusing on the same phenomenon of intertextuality. Fishbane calls this phenomenon “inner-biblical exegesis,” for, as he argues, what the later scribes were doing by citing and alluding to the earlier biblical works was actually re-interpreting them to speak to the scribe's current audience. This was the method by which what was written “back then” was re-applied and made relevant to the “here and now” of the later scribe's current world.

Related to this is what James A. Sanders calls “comparative Midrash.” In his article, “From Isaiah 61 to Luke 4,” Sanders argues that comparative midrash not only “emphasizes the role an ancient authoritative tradition … played in the life and history of Judaism and Christianity,” but it also shows how “the tradition is contemporized by the community” to answer any needs and questions they may have (Sanders: 75). Furthermore, as Sanders writes in his article, “Adaptable for Life: The Nature and Function of Canon,” such adaptations of the tradition often challenged the later community in ways that may not have exactly been initially welcomed:

… there is much evidence in the biblical process to indicate that authoritative traditions were used in particular situations to challenge the way the majority of the people and their political representatives, the establishment, or any political group, thought their needs ought to be met [Sanders: 544].

Whether one calls the process intertextuality, inner-biblical exegesis, or comparative Midrash, one thing is certain: the reinterpretation and re-application of authoritative biblical texts to speak to the current situations of later biblical audiences is evident on virtually every page of the Bible. Therefore, it is the scholar's task, not only to point out when such instances occur, but also to attempt to explain how a given instance of intertextuality affects the meaning and purpose of a given text, and how it might have challenged its original audience.

In my earlier article, “Jonah's Peculiar Re-Creation,” I argued that within the story of Jonah there were countless intertextual connections to the creation story of Genesis 1–3 and the flood/re-creation story of Genesis 6–9. The impact of these connections highlighted a major theological theme that has often gone overlooked in Jonah: that yhwh's recreation of his people after the exile would, in some way, incorporate Gentiles. This theme not only corresponded to what is found in other post-exilic works like Deutero-Isaiah and Zechariah, but it also served as the theological root from which the later Christian movement used as justification for its taking the gospel to the Gentiles.

Yet this “re-creation” theme is not the only intertextual connection found in Jonah. There is another, equally important theme in Jonah: that of yhwh's covenant with his people. In this article I will focus on a number of intertextual connections in the story of Jonah to various earlier biblical works that speak to this issue of covenant after the exile. I will specifically look at Jonah's citations of Exodus 32:14, 34:6, 1 Kings 19:4–6, and Jeremiah 18:7–8, as well as a more implicit allusion to Jeremiah 36. Now, the noticing of connections between Jonah and Genesis, Exodus, 1 Kings, and even Jeremiah is nothing new. Scholars have long pointed out these connections both in commentaries and in articles. Marvin Sweeney perhaps states it best when he says:

In drawing upon other biblical traditions, such as the creation narratives in Genesis, the Exodus narratives concerning yhwh's confrontation with Pharaoh and Moses' confrontation with yhwh, the Elijah narratives concerning his distress and revelation from yhwh, the book of Jonah engages in a dialogue with earlier biblical traditions concerning the character of yhwh and yhwh's relationship with Israel [Sweeney: 306–07].

The shortcoming of many scholars, though, has been that although they notice connections between two texts (like Jonah and Genesis or Jonah and Exodus), very rarely do they take the next step and ask, “What is the significance of such connections? How do such connections affect the theological message of a given text like Jonah?” Yes, Jonah engages in “dialogue” with these earlier biblical texts, but what is the theological impact of that dialogue? In this article I will argue that the “dialogue” in which the postexilic author of Jonah engages centers on the foundational question of what the goal of yhwh's covenant had been all along. What we find when looking at these earlier biblical works is that the author of Jonah wrote a story that directly challenged his postexilic Jewish audience's concept of yhwh's covenant and what it meant to be his people.

A Brief Summary of Jonah

Most people are familiar with the story of Jonah. Nevertheless, a brief recap must be made in order to facilitate understanding the intertextual connections in Jonah. The story begins with yhwh telling Jonah, a prophet of the northern kingdom of Israel, to go to Nineveh and cry out against it. Jonah, though, boards a ship and heads to Tarshish. yhwh then sends a storm on the sea that threatens to sink the ship, and so after Jonah tells the Gentile sailors that he is a prophet of God and that the only way to make the storm stop is by throwing him into the sea, they pray to yhwh for mercy and throw Jonah in, after which the sea calms down. Meanwhile, Jonah sinks into the sea and is swallowed by a “great fish,” symbolic of Sheol. From the belly of Sheol he prays to yhwh and is eventually vomited back up onto dry land. Jonah, obeying yhwh's second command to go to Nineveh, proceeds to prophesy its destruction in forty days. Surprisingly, though, the Ninevites call for a fast and thoroughly repent of their evil ways. And, even more surprisingly, yhwh forgives them and chooses not to destroy them.

Jonah, though, is furious. He sees yhwh's forgiving of the Ninevites as a “great evil” and proceeds to complain to yhwh that the reason he didn't want to go to Nineveh in the first place was that he knew that yhwh was gracious, loving, and forgiving. So after telling yhwh that he just wanted to die, Jonah goes out east of Nineveh, builds a booth, and waits to see if Nineveh gets destroyed anyway. During this time yhwh provides a plant to shade Jonah, but then allows a worm to destroy the plant so that the sun will beat down on Jonah. After Jonah again tells yhwh that he just wants to die, yhwh proceeds to teach Jonah a lesson. If Jonah showed such concern over a plant that he had nothing to do with, shouldn't yhwh then show concern and pity over the lost human beings of Nineveh whom he created? Interestingly, though, the story ends there. We are never told what Jonah's response is.

So, what is this story really about? Is it merely about how we should forgive our enemies, or is there something more to it? In this article I will argue that, just as Jonah contains a central “re-creation” theme throughout its narrative to address the question of what the re-created people of yhwh would look like after the exile, Jonah also contains numerous intertextual citations and allusions that challenge the postexilic community of returning Jewish exiles not only to re-think what the Mosaic covenant was in relation to the Abrahamic covenant, but also to wrestle with the implications the broken Mosaic covenant had in relation to yhwh's promised “new covenant.”

Exodus 32:14 and 34:6–7

The first intertextual echoes we will analyze are found in the allusion in Jonah 3:10 to Exodus 32:14 and the citation in Jonah 4:2 of Exodus 34:6–7. Now, the events of Exodus 32–34 are fairly well known. While Moses is up on Mount Sinai receiving the stone tablets of yhwh's covenant, the people make a golden calf and worship it. When Moses returns and finds the people worshipping the golden calf, he breaks the stone tablets of the covenant, and yhwh threatens to destroy the Hebrews. Yet after forty days and nights of fasting on Sinai, Moses convinces yhwh to spare them and we are told, in 32:14, that yhwh “repented of the evil that he had spoken to do to his people.” Then in 34:6–7, immediately before yhwh gives the Law a second time, he proclaims to Moses: “yhwh, yhwh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in hesed and faithfulness, keeping hesed for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty.”

It is worth noting that such a statement was not made in conjunction with the first set of stone tablets. It certainly seems that it was essentially added to the second set of stone tablets as more or less as a “prologue” emphasizing that the sole reason why the Hebrews were given a second chance to enter into covenant with yhwh was precisely his mercy, grace, and hesed. The logical question, therefore, thus becomes, “What is this hesed, and to what is it referring?”

This term, hesed, usually translated as “steadfast love,” is often used in the Old Testament in connection with yhwh's covenant, and thus could perhaps be better translated in such instances as “covenant love.” So what was this “covenant love” that impelled yhwh to enter into covenant with the Hebrews, despite their sin and idolatry? No doubt what is being implied is yhwh's faithfulness to his covenant with Abraham, as found in both Genesis 15 and 17:1–8, where yhwh promises Abraham that his covenant will be an everlasting covenant for Abraham's offspring as well. Therefore, it was because of his covenant with Abraham that yhwh extended grace to the Hebrews at Sinai and made them his people. Subsequently, throughout Israel's history, yhwh continued to extend his hesed to the people of Israel, because of the covenant he entered into with them at Sinai. And so, with this added “prologue” of Exodus 34:6–7 emphasizing yhwh's grace, mercy, and hesed toward his chosen people, yhwh proceeds to re-give the Law to the Hebrews, and thus establishes his covenant with them, just as he had promised to Abraham.

With these events in the background, the allusions in Jonah 3:10 and 4:2 to Exodus 32:14 and 34:6–7 respectively open up a wider range of narrative meaning for our understanding of Jonah.

The description in Jonah 3:10 of God's reaction to the repentance of the Ninevites clearly echoes Exodus 32:14. In the Exodus account we are told that “yhwh repented over the evil that had spoken to do to his people.” Then, in Jonah 3:10 we are told that “God saw their deeds, for they turned back from their evil ways, and God repented over the evil that he had spoken to do to them, and he did not do it.”

David Marcus notes this parallel as well, and realizes the shocking application of God's repentance to the Ninevites: “In this text we have the repentance of God, which is normally applied to Israel, now being unexpectedly applied to non-Israelites” (Marcus: 130). Although Marcus is correct, he fails to notice a surprising difference between the two situations. At Sinai, yhwh repents of his evil because Moses fasts and intercedes for the Hebrews, whereas at Nineveh, God repents of his evil because the Ninevites themselves fast and repent.

David Gunn and Diane Fewell also notice this when they say, “Whereas God's repentance over the Ninevites follows upon their repentance, in Exodus the yet unrepentant Israelites are spared because of Moses' impassioned intercession on their behalf” (Gunn & Fewell: 138). In a shocking twist to the story, the author of Jonah portrays the repentant actions of the Ninevites as actually outdoing those of the Hebrews. Such a point should not go overlooked when it comes to understanding the story of Jonah, for it has tremendous theological implications.

There is the citation in Jonah 4:2 of Exodus 34:6, the “prologue” to the second giving of the Law: “yhwh! yhwh! A God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in hesed and faithfulness.” In an ironic twist, though, Jonah quotes Exodus 34:6 as the reason why he is angry at yhwh. He states, “For I know you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, abounding in hesed, and repenting over evil!” Ironically, the very hesed that yhwh extended to the Hebrews at Sinai has now become an object of anger to Jonah, precisely because he sees it being extended to Gentiles.

These two intertextual connections to Exodus, though, point to a much larger narrative parallel between the two stories. It is not simply these two citations that connect Jonah to the Sinai account in Exodus—the overall narrative structure of Jonah 3 is patterned after the narrative structure of the Sinai account.

Both stories contain a similar threat: in Exodus, yhwh intends to destroy the Hebrews for their worship of the golden calf (32:1–10), and in Jonah, Nineveh is said to be a “great city for the gods” (3:3) and is thus threatened with destruction because of its evil and idolatry (3:4).

In both stories there is a similar interval of fasting. In Exodus, Moses refrains from bread and water for forty days and nights (34:27–28); in Jonah, Jonah prophesies that Nineveh will be destroyed in forty days, and during that time the Ninevites do not eat or drink water as a sign of repentance (3:7–8). Ackerman (239) describes their actions as “symbolic association with the world of the dead.” By repenting and taking such symbolic association with the world of the dead, the Ninevites expressed the hope that Yahweh would spare them.

In both stories there are objects of yhwh's grace. In Exodus, because Moses intercedes, yhwh spares the Hebrews (32:11–14). In Jonah, because the Ninevites themselves repent, yhwh spares Nineveh (3:5–10).

Underlying both stories are clear covenantal overtones. In Exodus 34:6–7 we have the added “prologue” to the second giving of the Law and the establishment of the covenant between yhwh and the Hebrews. In Jonah 4:2, the fact that this very “prologue” is applied to the Ninevites is the very reason for Jonah's anger against yhwh.

The importance of Exodus 34:6–7 cannot be overstated. It emphasizes that the singular reason for the establishment of covenant between yhwh and the Hebrews rested on yhwh's mercy, grace, faithfulness, and hesed, despite the clear sin of the Hebrews. Therefore when Jonah complains about yhwh's mercy, grace, and hesed being extended to Nineveh, the irony and absurdity of his complaint cannot be any clearer. It was yhwh's mercy, grace, and hesed that spared the Hebrews at Sinai and made them His covenant people in the first place. Therefore, what right did Jonah have to get angry with yhwh for forgiving a people who, despite their evil ways, actually outdid the Hebrews at Sinai in their repentant actions? The hypocrisy of Jonah's attitude extends far beyond any grace that yhwh shows to him within the narrative. It extends as far back as to the creation of the Hebrew nation at Sinai itself.

Such intertextual connections between Jonah and Exodus 32–34 force us to consider the implications this has for yhwh's covenant. Thomas Dozeman has stated that the entire episode involving Nineveh in Jonah 3–4 explores “the implications of yhwh's gracious character among those nations that are beyond the boundaries of Israel,” and has noticed that “this is probed within the context of covenant renewal in Exodus 32–34” (Dozeman: 223). In other words, the author of Jonah is exploring the idea of “covenant renewal” in relation to other Gentile nations, even the most-hated of Gentile nations. If yhwh was willing not only to forgive a sinful Hebrew people who simply cowered in fear for forty days while their leader interceded for them, but also to establish his covenant with them, could he not also forgive a sinful Gentile people who actually followed their king's lead, and actively repented themselves? If yhwh could do that with the Hebrews at Sinai, who is to say that he could not extend his covenant hesed to Gentiles as well? This, it seems, lies at the heart of the challenge posed, not only to Jonah in the story itself, but also to its postexilic Jewish audience as well.

1 Kings 19

The next set of intertextual connections we will consider are those between Jonah 4:3–6 and 1 Kings 19:4–6, which are part of a larger narrative involving Elijah fleeing from Jezebel after he had defeated the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. Scholars have long noted two key similarities between the two stories. First, in 1 Kings 19:4, Elijah asks God to let him die (“and he asked that his soul would die”) and actually says to yhwh, “It is enough now, yhwh, take my life!” In a similar fashion, in Jonah 4:3, Jonah also asks yhwh to take his life when he says, “So now, O yhwh, please take my soul from me, for it is better for me to die than live!” Secondly, after Elijah makes his death wish, 1 Kings 19:6 tells us that he sat under a “broom tree.” In a similar fashion, Jonah 4:6 tells us that Jonah, after making his death wish, sat under a plant that yhwh had provided. In both stories we are given the picture of a dejected prophet, wanting to die and sitting under a plant of some kind. So what could be the point of such a connection?

The answer may lie in the greater narrative of 1 Kings 19, which shares deep connections, not only with Jonah 4, but also, and more significantly, with Exodus 32–34. Craig Broyles has already pointed out that it seems the writer of 1 Kings patterned 1 Kings 19 on the events of Exodus 19–34 (Broyles: 169). It should not be entirely surprising, therefore, to find that Jonah, along with sharing similarities to Exodus 32–34, also shares similarities to 1 Kings 19. Immediately after the allusion to Exodus 34:6–7 in Jonah 4:2, we have an allusion to 1 Kings 19:4 in Jonah 4:3. This is then followed by 4:5–6 and the account of Jonah outside Nineveh, which many scholars see as alluding to 1 Kings 19:4–5 as well. The natural literary, and exegetical, question, therefore, becomes, “What do all three stories have in common?” As it turns out, quite a lot.

First, as with the Exodus and Jonah stories, 1 Kings 19 also contains a clear threat. In Exodus 32–34, the Hebrews had broken the covenant before it had even gotten off the ground by engaging in idol worship, and thus faced utter destruction. In Jonah, it is the Ninevites who, because of their evil and pagan ways, found themselves under yhwh's judgment. In 1 Kings 19, Elijah had run away because he knew that Israel had broken the covenant, that Jezebel had killed the prophets of yhwh, and was now after him as well (19:10, 14).

Second, all three stories contain an interval of a time of fasting. Just as Moses fasted for forty days, and just as the Ninevites had fasted for forty days, we are told that Elijah travelled to Horeb (Sinai) for forty days and nights on the strength of the one meal provided by the angel (19:8).

Third, in all three stories there are objects of yhwh's grace. The Hebrews at Sinai were the beneficiaries of yhwh's grace, primarily because of the prayer and fasting of Moses. In Jonah, the Ninevites received God's grace because they themselves fasted and prayed. Similarly, in 1 Kings 19, after his time of fasting and praying, Elijah learned from yhwh that there were still 7,000 people in Israel who were faithful to yhwh, who had not bent their knee to Baal, yet still had been spared from death (19:11–18).

Finally, as with both Exodus 32–34 and Jonah 4, there are clear covenantal overtones. In Exodus, there is the actual re-establishment of the covenant, based solely on yhwh's grace, mercy, and hesed. In Jonah, we find Jonah angry with yhwh for extending the grace, mercy, and hesed of the covenant to the Ninevites. In 1 Kings 19, it is after Elijah had complained to yhwh that all Israel had “forsaken His covenant” (I Kings 19:10, 14) that yhwh reassured Elijah that there were 7,000 Israelites still faithful to the covenant. Then, as he did previously with Moses in Exodus 33:17–23, yhwh “passes by” Elijah, and then tells him to go back and anoint Hazael as king of Aram, Jehu as king of Israel, and Elisha to succeed him as prophet. After his encounter with yhwh at Sinai, Elijah's confidence is restored and he returns to Israel.

What we thus find in Jonah 3–4, Exodus 32–34, and 1 Kings 19 is that in each narrative there are the following similarities:

a clear threat,

an interval period of forty days and nights involving a time of fasting,

objects of yhwh's grace, and

a renewal of some sort, be it the re-establishment of the covenant in Exodus 32–34, the reassurance of yhwh to Elijah that there were still 7,000 in Israel who had not broken covenant, or the new lease on life Nineveh is given.

Furthermore, just as the narrative parallels between Exodus 32–34 and Jonah 3–4 actually serve to highlight the challenging message of the book of Jonah, the narrative parallels between 1 Kings 19 and Jonah 3–4 also serve to highlight that same challenging message. The reason for Elijah's fleeing was that he was genuinely afraid for his life and despairing over the apparent extinction of faithful Israelites to yhwh. In contrast, the reason for Jonah's fleeing was that he was dead set against yhwh forgiving the Ninevites and extending His hesed to Gentiles. Therefore, whereas Elijah's encounter with yhwh brought about reassurance and renewal for Elijah, Jonah's encounter with yhwh brought about a stiff challenge for Jonah: would he accept what yhwh was now doing by extending His hesed to the Ninevites?

Jeremiah 18:7–8 and Jeremiah 36

The third and final set of intertextual covenantal connections in Jonah has to do with Jeremiah 18:7–8 and Jeremiah 36. One must realize that, for the Jews coming out of the exile, the prophet Jeremiah would have no doubt been held in high regard. After all, he was the one who prophesied about the very exile that had just experienced. In addition, and probably to their shame, they would have well known that Jeremiah was the prophet who had spent his life calling upon pre-exilic Judah to forsake their evil ways and idolatry and return to yhwh's covenant, only to be continually beaten and imprisoned by the rulers of Judah. It was precisely because of Judah's rejection of Jeremiah's pleas that Babylon eventually came, destroyed the nation, and carried them off into exile.

In light of this, it should not be surprising to find certain intertextual echoes of Jeremiah in Jonah. One such echo that is of interest to us has been noted by Benoit Trepanier, who pointed out that the statement in Jonah 3:10, “God repented of the evil he had spoken to do to them, and did not do it,” is strikingly similar to that of Jeremiah 18:7–8, where yhwh says regarding Judah,

I will suddenly speak against a nation and against a kingdom, to root out and to pull down and to destroy it. But if that nation against which I have spoken will repent of their evil, I will also repent of the evil that I have intended to do to it [Trepanier, 9–10].

Trepanier further notes that this similarly worded sentiment can be seen in other places in Jeremiah (26:3, 13, 19; 42:10) to point out that God can and will repent of the evil he has intended for some people if they repent.

What we see here is an intertextual connection that speaks about yhwh's willingness to forgive a nation and spare it from his intended destruction if they repent of their evil. Although Jeremiah 18:7–8 speaks of “a nation” in a generic sense, the context of Jeremiah 18 clearly indicates the “nation” in view is Judah itself. With that in mind, Jonah's allusion to Jeremiah 18:7–8 reveals something that would have been quite shocking to his postexilic Jewish audience. They knew all too well that although yhwh had promised Judah he would turn back the judgment he had spoken against them if they repented, they refused to heed Jeremiah's prophecies of yhwh's judgment, continued in their evil ways, and eventually suffered destruction and exile. Imagine the shock, therefore, when they find in the story of Jonah the picture of evil, idolatrous Ninevites heeding the warnings of a prophet of yhwh, actively repenting, and thus being the beneficiaries of the very thing yhwh had promised to unrepentant pre-exilic Judah.

This revelation is reinforced with the second intertextual echo between Jonah 3 and Jeremiah 36. What we find here are a number of narrative parallels between the two episodes. Jonah 3, as has been previously mentioned, focuses on the reaction of the king of Nineveh to Jonah's prophetic warning of destruction. Similarly, Jeremiah 36 focuses on the reaction of Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, to Jeremiah's prophetic warning of destruction. Both episodes follow a similar plot line, but they end in very different ways:

As Jonah warns Nineveh of its destruction (3:4), Baruch reads Jeremiah's letter to the people of Jerusalem and warns them of its destruction (36:6–10).

Just as the Ninevites proclaim a fast in Jonah 3:5, so too do the people of Jerusalem proclaim a fast in Jeremiah 36:9.

In Jonah 3:8–9, the king of Nineveh makes a proclamation and says, “And men will turn back from their evil ways, and from the violence that is in their hands! Who knows? God may turn and repent; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.” In Jeremiah 36:3, Jeremiah expresses the hope that, “when the house of Judah hears of all the evil that I intend to do to them, men may turn back from their evil ways, so that I may forgive their iniquity and sin.” He then again reiterates this hope in 36:7.

As we are told in Jonah 3:6 that Jonah's message reached the king of Nineveh, we are also told in Jeremiah 36:11–16 that upon hearing Baruch's reading of Jeremiah's letter, that Michaiah tells the royal officials, who in turn go and tell Jehoiakim.

Here, though, is where the stark differences are seen. In Jonah 3:6–7, we are told that the king of Nineveh took off his garment, covered himself with sackcloth, sat in ashes, declared a fast and called upon all of Nineveh to repent. Yet in Jeremiah 36:23–26, we find that Jehoiakim's reaction was vastly different. He burned Jeremiah's scrolls, did not have either himself or any of his officials tear their garments, and even gave the order that Baruch and Jeremiah be arrested.

The result of both kings' actions is thus seen in the sixth and final point. In Jonah 3:10, we are told that, because they repented, God indeed chose not to bring His judgment upon Nineveh. Yet in Jeremiah 36:27–31, we find Jeremiah prophesying that Jehoiakim would soon die and that Jerusalem would be destroyed.

As with the intertextual echo between Jonah 3:10 and Jeremiah 18:7–8, the plot parallels between Jonah 3 and Jeremiah 36 would have clearly served as a reminder to the returning Jewish exiles that, unlike the Ninevites in the story, it was their own pre-exilic predecessors who completely blew it. They had been given the clear chance to repent of their ways and return to being faithful to yhwh's covenant, but they chose instead to not only ignore yhwh's pleas, but to actively persecute His prophet. Indeed, it seems quite probable that the story of Jonah would have evoked in the minds of its postexilic audience the specter of Jeremiah and their own ancestors' guilt for having broken the covenant with yhwh. As a people, they had refused to repent and had thus brought upon themselves yhwh's destruction, as stated in the covenant, at the hands of Babylon.

Yet in the story of Jonah, they would have seen the Ninevites, the very people who were responsible for the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel, doing the very repentance that Judah had failed to do and receiving the very forgiveness and covenant hesed that Judah had missed out on. Indeed, what we find in Jonah are the logical conclusions to the statements made in Jeremiah 18:7–8 and Jeremiah 36: yhwh will turn back His intended judgment on any nation that repents of its evil ways. Why? Because, as He stated in Exodus 34:6, He is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in hesed and faithfulness.

Conclusions

This article has attempted to show how various intertextual connections in Jonah to earlier biblical works help to place this shocking story of an Israelite prophet who witnesses yhwh's forgiveness of a hated Gentile enemy within the greater literary context of the biblical concept of yhwh's covenant with His people.

Jonah's intertextual connections and narrative parallels to Exodus 32–34 hearken back to the very creation of the Hebrews into a nation and the very covenant that bound them to yhwh their God.

The intertextual connections and narrative parallels to I Kings 19 look back to an event in which yhwh reassures an Israelite prophet that there were still 7,000 Israelites still faithful to His covenant.

Finally, the intertextual connections to Jeremiah 18:7–8 and Jeremiah 36 serve as a humbling reminder of the fact that it was precisely because pre-exilic Judah refused to repent and return to yhwh's covenant that they suffered yhwh's judgment.

In each case, the heart of the story centers on yhwh's covenant. Therefore, one must consider the fact that, along with the theme of re-creation, the idea of yhwh's covenant lies at the heart of the story of Jonah as well. If we acknowledge the book of Jonah as a postexilic work, these intertextual connections, having drawn upon the earlier authoritative texts of Hebrew Scripture, compel us to consider that the challenge issued to Jonah regarding his acceptance of yhwh's covenant hesed being extended to Gentiles was the very challenge extended to the postexilic Judean community to whom this story was written.

One further point must be clarified here, though. This is not to say that Jonah is about how yhwh incorporates Gentiles into the Sinai covenant. As was pointed out earlier, the very reason why yhwh was merciful and gracious in forgiving the Hebrews at Sinai, and the very reason why He entered into a covenant with them was because of His hesed and faithfulness to the promises He made in His covenant with Abraham. And at the heart of yhwh's covenant with Abraham was that yhwh would make Abraham's offspring into a great nation, Israel, who would possess the land of Canaan and through whom yhwh would bless all nations. The end game in the covenant with Abraham had always been yhwh's desire to bless and redeem all nations. The means by which He had promised to accomplish this was to be through Abraham's offspring, the people of Israel.

Nevertheless, yhwh's hesed to the covenant with Abraham had always ultimately aimed to bless all nations. The irony in the Jonah story, therefore, is that yhwh accomplishes this actually through the disobedience and rebelliousness of His own prophet, both in the instance of the Gentile sailors of Jonah 1 and the city of Nineveh in Jonah 3. In a similar fashion, yhwh's glory had been made known to the Gentile nations through the disobedience and exile of His own people. Therefore, the challenge put forth in Jonah to the returning exiles is this: would they accept the fulfillment of yhwh's covenant with Abraham and welcome yhwh's gracious and merciful hesed being shown to Gentiles, or would they call such hesed “evil” and insist that yhwh's grace and mercy be extended only to them? Would they welcome the new covenant of which Jeremiah spoke about in Jeremiah 31:31–34, in which yhwh's law was written on their hearts, or would they cling to the old covenant that yhwh made with their ancestors at Sinai, the old covenant that, as Jeremiah pointed out, they broke (31:32)?

That question, though, is not answered in Jonah. For the question put forth in parable-like stories like Jonah ultimately must be answered by the audience to which it is directed. That was the question that the postexilic community had to answer for themselves. As history eventually showed, this challenge put forth in Jonah was not accepted until a small group of Jews who followed another prophet from Galilee, whom they claimed to be the Messiah, began to take his Gospel of the new covenant to the ends of the earth. In fact, it was Paul who addresses this very concept of covenant in relation to Gentiles in Galatians 3: the promise in the covenant to Abraham, namely that God would justify Gentiles by faith, and that Gentiles who believe are the true descendants of Abraham (Gal 3:6–9), is not annulled by the later covenant at Sinai (Gal 3:17). He did not simply make up such a notion. It was there in the Hebrew Scriptures already. It was there in the story of Jonah, where Gentiles received yhwh's covenant hesed, not because they converted to Judaism, but rather because they repented of their evil ways.

Granted, there were other Jewish groups, like the Pharisees, who also went out seeking converts, but there were clear differences between the activity of the early Christians and that of other Jewish groups like the Pharisees.

As Michael F. Bird argues in his book, Crossing Over Sea and Land, the early Christian mission to the Gentiles was clearly an organized movement, whereas there was no such organized mission to the Gentiles by other groups like the Pharisees. He writes, “Second Temple Judaism did attract proselytes and facilitate the conversion of Gentiles that wanted to convert to Judaism, but it was not self-consciously missionary since the role of Israel, the Torah, and the synagogue was never directed unequivocally towards Gentile recruitment” (Bird: 151). At the same time, though, Bird points out that the early Christian mission to Gentiles “represents a transformation of Jewish perspectives regarding the inclusion of the Gentiles in the salvation of God” (Bird: 155).

When the Pharisees did seek to convert Gentiles, they sought to convert them to Judaism by insisting on circumcision and strict adherence to Torah. Paul, on the other hand, sought converts, not to the Judaism of the Mosaic Covenant, but to rather the faith of the New Covenant that was born out of the Mosaic Covenant and was a fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant. That is why he was so vehemently against Gentile converts getting circumcised. That is why he insisted that in Christ “there is no longer Jew and Greek, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free: but Christ is all and in all” (Col. 3:11).

I have attempted in this study to show the importance of taking proposed cases of intertextuality seriously within traditional historical-critical biblical studies. While it is certainly a literary analysis of texts, it is one that, when set within the boundaries and parameters determined by the various other historical-critical methods, can provide a vast amount of insight and understanding to the intended meaning of biblical texts. Although a text certainly was written in a specific historical setting and spoke to historical issues, the medium through which those historical issues were addressed was the medium of literature. Therefore it is imperative for biblical scholars, not only carefully to consider every historical-critical issue surrounding a biblical text, but to read, understand, and interpret that text as a work of literature as well. The scholar must not only read biblical texts with the eyes of a historian, but he must also read them with the eyes of a literary artist. Both disciplines are essential to a full understanding of any passage in the Bible. Since intertextuality reveals that the author of a text reinterpreted, reapplied, and wrestled with prior authoritative biblical texts, scholars and readers must do their best, not simply to note these intertextual connections, but to wrestle with their reinterpreted meaning, just as the authors have invited us to do.

References

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Anderson

Joel Edmund

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Bird

Michael F.

2010. Crossing Over Sea and Land: Jewish Missionary Activity in the Second Temple Period. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson.

Broyles

Craig C.

2001. “Traditions, Intertextuality, and Canon.” pp. 157–76 in Interpreting the Old Testament: A Guide for Exegesis, edited by Broyles

Craig C.

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Dozeman

Thomas B.

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Fishbane

Michael

. 1985. Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.

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. 1993. Narrative in the Hebrew Bible. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Hays

Richard B.

Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.

Marcus

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. 1995. From Balaam to Jonah: Anti-prophetic Satire in the Hebrew Bible. Brown Judaic Studies 301. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press.

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Sanders

James A.

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Jacob

. Studies in Late Antiquity 12. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.

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Sweeney

Marvin A.

2000. Berit Olam: Studies in Hebrew Narrative and Poetry. The Twelve Prophets, Volume 1. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press.

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1951. “The Story of Jonah.” Catholic Bible Quarterly 13: 8–16.