The Book of Jonah was traditionally read on the day of Atonements,¹ the day picturing the cosmic purification of the land and humanity, restoring heaven and earth to Edenic conditions. Yeshua gave Israel’s rulers a sign that He had the right to cleanse the temple, the small-scale of Eden.

But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here (Mat. 12:39-41, NKJV).

Jonah, active as a prophet during the forty-one-year reign of Jeroboam II (2Ki. 14:23-25), prophesied to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, of YHWH’s coming judgment. This blog uncovers why the Jonah story is significant to the Day of Atonements.

Jonah proved to be an untrustworthy prophet, prophesying to Jeroboam II, King of Israel, that he would restore the territory of Israel from the entrance of Hamath to the Sea of the Arabah (2Ki.14:25). Amos prophesied to Jeroboam II that he would lose the same territory he had restored (Amo. 6:14). Even though Jeroboam II did evil in the sight of YHWH and caused Israel to sin, Jonah projected blessing due to Israel being God’s chosen nation. The author perceptively crafts the irony of Israel’s rebellious ways against the obedience and repentance of the non-chosen (sailors, kings, pagans, great and small), creating a satire on Israel’s flaws while claiming exclusive rights to Eden.

The Book of Jonah begins and ends with Jonah’s attitude problem. After receiving a command from YHWH to “go to Nineveh” (Jon. 1:2), he fled in the opposite direction on a ship to Tarshish. YHWH blocked his escape with a great storm, and the ship’s Gentile crew showed more fear of YHWH than Jonah. After convincing them to throw him overboard, he sank into the depths of the sea, and a great fish swallowed him. It seems Jonah had a shallow repentance in the fish’s belly. At the end of the story, he showed no regret or real change of heart toward the great city of Nineveh (Jon. 4:2). After God’s second command, Jonah went to Nineveh and spoke only five words, “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” The people of Nineveh believed YHWH, fasted and repented of their evil, from the king to the least of them, and even their animals (Jon. 3:5-10). God saw their works and relented from the disaster He planned. But Jonah failed to conquer his desire for revenge against Israel’s great enemy. He emanated a runaway nationalistic, belligerent pride, excluding the nations rather than drawing them into the light of the knowledge of YHWH. Yet, as Jonah’s death and rebirth was a sign to the Ninevites, so also was the Son of Man’s death and resurrection a sign to that “wicked generation” (Luk. 11:29-30). The three days and three nights in Sheol became the enactment of Israel’s national death and rebirth so that there would be a light for the Gentiles.

Jonah vacillated between two extreme attitudes to God’s response to humanity’s sin of unbelief and its sequel. “A moralistic Jonah resists providing an opportunity for salvation to the sinful population of Nineveh and instead seeks out an Edenic realm that tolerates no imperfection” flip-flops with “a pacifist Jonah shrinks from pronouncing doom on the Assyrian city and undertakes an escape toward a blissful world that contains no suffering.” ² God thwarts both of Jonah’s stances by denying him an escape, spotlighting that “the flawed conduct of human beings is inevitable, and both forgiveness and the threat of punishment play necessary roles in the divine response to human iniquity.” ³ Jonah exuded unbelief and escapism from his inherent defects and denied the suffering necessary to alter who he was. He sought to live in a self-made Eden, blind to himself.

In his pursuit to have his own way, Jonah invited death twice over walking God’s path to Eden, once on the ship and once on the hill outside of Nineveh, and in the middle, he died in the belly of the great fish. His actions screamed that he preferred death over showcasing God’s merciful forgiveness to those outside of Israel. Yet God confronted his controlling heart, locked by his indignation of Him. So, when ill-tempered Jonah finally went to Nineveh, he proclaimed only five words on day one of a three-day journey through the city (Jon. 3:3-4). That is all the Bible records. Jonah’s story ends with him sitting east of Eden, deprived of the delights of Eden. So what caused the Ninevites to believe YHWH and turn away His fierce anger, saving the city from perishing?

The Assyrian Eponym list recorded an eclipse of the sun in the month of Sivan over Nineveh. According to NASA’s eclipse website, the year of that eclipse of the sun was 763 BC (762 BCE), Monday, June 15 (Sivan 30) at 2:07 PM, lasting five minutes.⁴ The sun’s eclipse was an ill omen in the Ancient Near East culture. Occurring during the reign of Jeroboam II, Nineveh saw the darkening of the sun as a sign of judgment (Isa. 13:9-10; Joe. 2:30-31; Amo. 8:9; Mat. 24:29, Rev. 6:12). In Israel’s Exodus, God deprived Egypt of light for three days, and His judgment came upon them in Yam Suph. The sign of Jonah, Yeshua’s three days and three nights in the grave, and the sun’s eclipse all link to the Day of Atonements. Yeshua bore our sins to death’s dark abode and gave us the gift of His life so that we might enter His Eden tabernacle, the interface of heaven and earth where God and humans meet and interact.

Takeaway:
Eden is a beautiful place where the living God dwells, characterized by abundance, safety, and life. If we create an Eden without God, it disappears. If we seek to possess Eden, its abundance and refuge melt away in our hands. By atonements, we are safe in His Presence. God’s gift through His Son’s sacrifice, symbolized by the two-goat sin offering, atones for our moral failings. Jonah fled from the presence of God, persisting to escape into his own Eden-like existence. In Jonah’s clinging to his moralistic perfection, he refused what God had chosen Israel to do, to take YHWH’s name to the nations so that they also could worship Him. Ironically, the nations revered and obeyed YHWH more than Israel’s prophet. Jonah allowed his idealistic views to blind him to God’s goodness for all people. Considering Jonah’s halfhearted effort, God prevailed to carry out His will via cosmic signs. Only through our shema surrender to God’s voice of atonement can Eden open, if we trust His word, His path, and not our own eyes.

Fun Factors:
The Book of Jonah has 2700 letters (3³ x 100) in 688 words (8 x 86), totaling 149331, 21 x 7111, digit sum 21. YHWH occurs 26 times. The five words Jonah spoke to Nineveh sum to 1141, 7 x 163, digit sum 7. Jonah’s prayer in chapter 2 has 404 letters (2² + 20²) in 97 words (4² + 9²) totaling 25275, 3 x 5² x 337, 75(9² + 16²). Occurring 18 times, Jonah’s name means “dove, peaceful,” and has a value of 71, the 20^th prime; its reverse is 17, the 7^th prime. Nineveh’s population was 120,000, one-fifth (20%) of Israel’s 600,000. Joseph saved the nations by saving one-fifth (20%) of Egypt’s grain. Seven indicates perfection, 27 a cube Holy of Holies or Eden, 9 judgment, 20 a double portion/tithe, 18 life, and 16 God’s house, the half-shekel atonement value. Mat. 12:39-41 has 373 letters (7² + 18²) in 77 words, totaling 39515, 5 x 7 (20² x 27²).