Arcing Class on Jonah
Jonah 1:1-4:11
It is right for God to show mercy on whomever he desires to show mercy - and we should praise him for this!
#praise
#mercy
#Calvinism
Published February 1st, 2019
Main point summary
Jonah 1-4 (Feb. 1/19)
notes
Main point summary
God delivered Jonah, and so he promised to worship him with thanksgiving; God delivered Nineveh, and so Jonah was furious. Therefore, God used a personal object lesson to show Jonah the rightness of his mercy.
Jonah 1-4 (Feb. 1/19)
editing
OT
Jonah 1:1-4:11
esv
mine
Now the word of the Lord came to a Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, “Arise, go to b Nineveh, that c great city, and call out against it, d for their evil 1 has come up before me.”
The Lord commanded Jonah to preach against Nineveh because of their evil.
But Jonah e rose to flee to f Tarshish from the presence of the Lord . He went down to g Joppa and found a ship going to f Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to f Tarshish, h away from the presence of the Lord .
But Jonah fled on a ship to Tarshish, away from the Lord's presence,
situationresponse
But i the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened j to break up.
and so the Lord caused a mighty storm to threaten the ship's safety.
actionresult
Then the mariners were afraid, and k each cried out to his god. And l they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them.
The mariners reacted with fear,
But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep.
but Jonah reacted with selfish carelessness and slept.
So the captain came and said to him, “What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, k call out to your god! m Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we may not perish.”
Therefore, the captain rebuked him and urged him to pray for rescue to his god.
inference
concessive
And they said to one another, “Come, let us n cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.
Then the sailors cast lots to determine whose fault the storm was, which led them to Jonah.
Then they said to him, “Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?”
So they asked him for information about himself,
And he said to them, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear o the Lord , the God of heaven, p who made the sea and the dry land.”
and he told them that he was a Hebrew who feared the Creator.
questionanswer
Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, “What is this that you have done!” For the men knew that h he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord , because he had told them.
Then the men were terrified because they knew that Jonah was running away from the Lord.
progression
Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?”
The sailors asked Jonah what to do to be saved from the storm,
For the sea grew more and more tempestuous.
because it kept getting worse;
ground
He said to them, “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you,
Jonah told them to cast him into the sea,
q for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.”
because the storm was endangering their lives because of him.
Nevertheless, the men rowed hard 1 to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them.
The men couldn't overcome the storm,
Therefore they called out to the Lord , “O Lord , let us not perish for this man’s life, and r lay not on us innocent blood, s for you, O Lord , have done as it pleased you.”
so they called out to the Lord for mercy
So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, t and the sea ceased from its raging.
and tossed Jonah into the sea, which stopped raging.
Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, u and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord v and made vows.
The result was that the men feared the Lord and worshipped him,
1 And the Lord appointed 2 a great fish to swallow up Jonah. w And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
and that Jonah was swallowed up by a great fish that the Lord appointed.
series
Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, saying,
Jonah prayed to the Lord his God:
x “I called out to the Lord , out of my distress, and he answered me; y out of the belly of Sheol I cried, z and you heard my voice.
"I called to the Lord from Sheol in my distress and he heard me and answered me;
a For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; b all your waves and your billows passed over me.
for you threw me into the ocean and covered me with the waves,
c Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; d yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.’
and then I said, 'Even though I am driven from your sight, I will look to you for help.'
e The waters closed in over me f to take my life; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about my head at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever;
Even though I went down to the bottom of the ocean,
yet you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God.
you rescued me, O Lord my God,
When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord , g and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple.
because I remembered you and prayed to you.
h Those who pay regard to vain idols i forsake their hope of steadfast love.
Therefore, while idol-worshippers forsake their hope of steadfast love,
j But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay.
I will sacrifice to you with thanksgiving and pay my vows,
negativepositive
k Salvation belongs to the Lord !”
for salvation belongs to the Lord."
ideaexplanation
And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.
Then the Lord commanded the fish, who threw Jonah up onto dry land.
Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to l Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.”
The Lord commanded Jonah a second time to preach against Nineveh the message he gave him.
So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord .
So Jonah obeyed and went to Nineveh.
Now l Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, 1 three days’ journey in breadth. 2
Now Nineveh was a huge and important city to the Lord.
Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”
Jonah entered Nineveh and preached that it would be destroyed in forty days.
m And the people of Nineveh believed God. n They called for a fast and o put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.
The Ninevites believed God, so they all mourned.
The word reached 1 the king of Nineveh,
The king of Nineveh heard Jonah's message
and p he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, q and sat in ashes.
and responded with mourning
And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh,
and a proclamation throughout Nineveh, which said,
r “By the decree of the king and his nobles:
"The king and his nobles order
Let neither man nor s beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water,
no-one to eat or drink anything,
but let man and s beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. t Let everyone turn from his evil way and from u the violence that is in his hands.
but rather to mourn and call out to God and repent,
v Who knows? God may turn and relent w and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.”
because God may relent from destroying us."
bilateral
When God saw what they did, x how they turned from their evil way,
When God saw their mourning and repentance,
x God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.
he relented and did not destroy them.
temporal
But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, 1 and y he was angry.
This made Jonah furious,
And he prayed to the Lord and said,
and so he prayed,
“O Lord , is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? z That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and a relenting from disaster.
"Lord, I ran away when you first called me because I knew you were merciful and would show mercy to them!
b Therefore now, O Lord , please take my life from me, c for it is better for me to die than to live.”
So please kill me, because it would be better to be dead than to live."
And the Lord said, d “Do you do well to be angry?”
The Lord said, "Is it right for you to be angry?"
Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and e made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city.
Jonah wouldn't answer the Lord's question but rather sat down east of the city to watch if the Lord would destroy Nineveh or not.
Now the Lord God appointed a plant 1 and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. 2
Then the Lord made a plant to give Jonah shade, to rescue him from his discomfort,
So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant.
and that made Jonah very glad.
But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered.
But at dawn God made a worm destroy the plant,
When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching f east wind, g and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he h was faint.
and then made a scorching east wind, which combined with the sun, exhausted Jonah,
And he asked that he might die and said, c “It is better for me to die than to live.”
so that he asked that God kill him, because it would be better to be dead than to live.
But God said to Jonah, i “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?”
Then God said to Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?"
And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.”
Jonah answered, "Yes, even to be so angry I could die."
And the Lord said,
Then the Lord said,
“You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night.
"If you did right to pity the short-lived plant which you didn't grow,
And should not I pity j Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much k cattle?”
didn't I do right to pity Nineveh, a huge city filled with children and animals?"
comparison
conditional
actionpurpose
The result of Jonah's disobedience and the great storm was Jonah's "death" and yet deliverance, and the sailors' newfound reverence for the Lord.
Jonah prayed to God, promising to worship him with thanksgiving, because he saved him from death; therefore, the Lord delivered him from the fish, too.
Because Nineveh was an important city to the Lord, Jonah preached against it, and God turned from destroy it when they repented; this made Jonah furious, but hopeful that God would still destroy them.
Therefore, God used a personal object lesson to show Jonah the rightness of his mercy.
God's deliverance of Jonah from death, in spite of his disobedience, led to Jonah's promising to worship him with thanksgiving, and to being delivered from the fish, too.
God's relenting from destroying Nineveh made Jonah furious; therefore, God used a personal object lesson to show Jonah the rightness of his mercy.
discourse
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Disclaimer: The opinions and conclusions expressed on this page are those of the author and may or may not accord with the positions of Biblearc or Bethlehem College & Seminary.