The Rabbis on Jonah (III)

Here is the last installment of the midrash on Jonah from Louis Ginzberg’s The Legends of the Jews (Chapter VIII: Elisha and Jonah). This excerpt is lengthy and already full of fascinating extrapolations, so I will refrain from commenting. I would like to hear about your agreements, disagreements and arguments with the Rabbis about the biblical text, though!

Jonah went straightway to Nineveh, the monster city covering forty square parasangs and containing a million and half of human beings. He lost no time in proclaiming their destruction to the inhabitants. The voice of the prophet was so sonorous that it reached to every corner of the great city, and all who heard his words resolved to turn aside from their ungodly ways. At the head of the penitents was King Osnappar of Assyria. He descended from his throne, removed his crown, strewed ashes on his head instead, took off his purple garments, and rolled about in the dust of the highways. In all the streets royal heralds proclaimed the king’s decree bidding the inhabitants fast three days, wear sackcloth, and supplicate God with tears and prayers to avert the threatened doom. The people of Nineveh fairly compelled to God’s mercy to descend upon them. They held their infants heavenward, and amid streaming tears they cried: “For the sake of these innocent babes, hear our prayers.” The young of their stalled cattle they separated from the mother beasts, the young were left within the stable, the old were put without. So parted from one another, the young and the old began to bellow aloud. Then the Ninevites cried: “If Thou wilt not have mercy upon us, we will not have mercy upon these beasts.”

The penance of the Ninevites did not stop at fasting and praying. Their deeds showed that they had determined to lead a better life. If a man had usurped another’s property, he sought to make amends for his iniquity; some went so far as to destroy their palaces in order to be able to give back a single brick to the rightful owner. Of their own accord others appeared before the courts of justice, and confessed their secret crimes and sins, known to none beside themselves, and declared themselves ready to submit to well-merited punishment, though it be death that was decreed against them.

One incident that happened at the time will illustrate the contrition of the Ninevites. A man found a treasure in the building lot he had acquired from his neighbor. Both buyer and seller refused to assume possession of the treasure. The seller insisted that the sale of the lot carried with it the sale of all it contained. The buyer held that he had bought the ground, not the treasure hidden therein. Neither rested satisfied until the judge succeeded in finding out who had hidden the treasure and where were his heirs, and the joy of the two was great when they could deliver the treasure up to its legitimate owners.

Seeing that the Ninevites had undergone a real change of heart, God took mercy upon them, and pardoned them. Thereupon Jonah likewise felt encouraged to plead for himself with God, that He forgive him for his flight. God spoke to him: “Thou wast mindful of Mine honor,” the prophet had not wanted to appear a liar, so that men’s trust in God might not be shaken “and for this reason thou didst take to sea. Therefore did I deal mercifully with thee, and rescue thee from the bowels of Sheol.”

His sojourn in the inside of the fish the prophet could not easily dismiss from his mind, nor did it remain without visible consequences. The intense heat in the belly of the fish had consumed his garments, and made his hair fall out, and he was sore plagued by swarms of insects. To afford Jonah protection, God caused the kikayon to grow up. When he opened his eyes one morning, he saw a plant with two hundred and seventy-five leaves, each leaf measuring more than a span, so that it afforded relief from the heat of the sun. But the sun smote the gourd that it withered, and Jonah was again annoyed by the insects. He began to weep and wish for death to release him from his troubles. But when God led him to the plant, and showed him what lesson he might derive from it, how, though he had not labored for the plant, he had pity on it, he realized his wrong in desiring God to be relentless toward Nineveh, the great city, with its many inhabitants, rather than have his reputation as a prophet suffer taint. He prostrated himself and said: “O God, guide the world according to Thy goodness.”

God was gracious to the people of Nineveh so long as they continued worthy of His lovingkindness. But at the end of forty days they departed from the path of piety, and they became more sinful than ever. Then the punishment threatened by Jonah overtook them, and they were swallowed up by the earth.

Jonah’s suffering in the watery abyss had been so severe that by way of compensation of God exempted him from death: living he was permitted to enter Paradise. Like Jonah, his wife was known far and wide for her piety. She had gained fame particularly through her pilgrimage to Jerusalem, a duty which, by reason of her sex, she was not obliged to fulfil. On one of these pilgrimages it was that the prophetical spirit first descended upon Jonah.

The Rabbis on Jonah (II)

From Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, Chapter VIII: Elisha and Jonah:

At the creation of the world, God made a fish intended to harbor Jonah. He as so large that the prophet was as comfortable inside of him as in a spacious synagogue. The eyes of the fish served Jonah as windows, and, besides, there was a diamond, which shone as brilliantly as the sun at midday, so that Jonah could see all things in the sea down to its very bottom.

It is a law that when their time has come, all the fish of the sea must betake themselves to leviathan, and let the monster devour them. The life term of Jonah’s fish was about to expire, and the fish warned Jonah of what was to happen. When he, with Jonah in his belly, came to leviathan, the prophet said to the monster: “For thy sake I came hither. It was meet that I should know thine abode, for it is my appointed task to capture thee in the life to come and slaughter thee for the table of the just and pious.” When leviathan observed the sign of the covenant on Jonah’s body, he fled affrighted, and Jonah and the fish were saved. To show his gratitude, the fish carried Jonah whithersoever there was a sight to be seen. He showed him the river from which the ocean flows, showed him the spot at which the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, showed him Gehenna and Sheol, and many other mysterious and wonderful place.

Three days Jonah had spent in the belly of the fish, and he still felt so comfortable that he did not think of imploring God to change his condition. But God sent a female fish big with three hundred and sixty-five thousand little fish to Jonah’s host, to demand the surrender of the prophet, else she would swallow both him and the guest he harbored. The message was received with incredulity, and leviathan had to come and corroborate it; he himself had heard God dispatch the female fish on her errand. So it came about that Jonah was transferred to another abode. His new quarters, which he had to share with all the little fish, were far from comfortable, and from the bottom of his heart a prayer for deliverance arose to God on high. The last words of his long petition were, “I shall redeem my vow,” whereupon God commanded the fish to spew Jonah out. At a distance of nine hundred and sixty-five parasangs from the fish he alighted on dry land. These miracles induced the ship’s crew to abandon idolatry, and they all became pious proselytes in Jerusalem.

There is far more going on here than I can wrap my mind around! Some brief notes:

1. Okay, I have to admit that the imaginative commentary here is rather strange to my sensibilities. And actually a bit goofy. I wonder if that isn’t because I’ve been trained as a modern reader to seek out only the serious “plain meaning” of the text and tolerate nothing more. Creative interpretations of Scripture make me anxious because I associate them with the rise of schisms and heresies. The Rabbis, apparently, didn’t share my neurosis and were able to read the text with greater exegetical freedom—I’d even say more “playfully”.

2. According to the midrash, Jonah announced to Leviathan that he had come to slaughter it “for the table of the just and pious”. I think this reflects one strand in Jewish tradition, seen in 2 Apocalypse of Baruch and 2 Esdras, in which the aforementioned gigantic fish is consumed at the great eschatological banquet. Joel Marcus, in his commentary on Mark in the Anchor Bible series, wonders if this tradition is one of the elements at work in the Synoptic accounts of the feedings of the 5,000 and the 4,000 since the Evangelists care to point out that fish was involved. I’ve always been gullible and am quite swayed by this suggestion. Could this also be the theological warrant behind the treasured Roman Catholic practice of the Lenten parish fish fry?

3. The Rabbis as a whole seem to have believed that Jonah actually survived his 3-day stay in the gigantic fish. I much prefer Kevin Edgecomb’s suggestion that he actually died inside the fish, so that what it threw up on the shore 3 days later was actually Jonah’s corpse, which God then raised back to life. I’m not sure why I never thought about that possibility before, though the fact that I first learned of the story of Jonah as a non-Christian from a Jack Chick tract might have something to do with it.  Anyway, I think this interpretation makes Jonah an even stronger type of Christ and I like it for that reason.

The Rabbis on Jonah (I)

Rabbi Louis Ginzberg (1873-1953) is the man responsible for The Legends of the Jews, a collection of rabbinic commentary (midrash) on Scripture arranged in chronological fashion.  Here is the section on Jonah’s calling and his attempt at escape (Jonah 1.1-16). For those interested, I’ll post two other sections of this midrash over the next few days.

Among the many thousands of disciples whom Elisha gathered about him during the sixty years and more of his activity, the most prominent was the prophet Jonah. While the master was still alive, Jonah was charged with the important mission of anointing Jehu king. The next task laid upon him was to proclaim their destruction to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The doom did not come to pass, because they repented of their wrong-doing, and God had mercy upon them. Among the Israelites Jonah was, therefore, known as “the false prophet.” When he was sent to Nineveh to prophesy the downfall of the city, he reflected: “I know to a certainly that the heathen will do penance, the threatened punishment will not be executed, and among the heathen, too, I shall gain the reputation of being a false prophet.” To escape this disgrace, he determined to take up his abode on the sea, where there were none to whom prophecies never to be fulfilled would have to be delivered.

On his arrival at Joppa, there was no vessel in port. To try him, God cause a storm to arise, and it carried a vessel back to Joppa, which had made a two days’ journey away from the harbor. The prophet interpreted this chance to mean that God approved his plan. He was so rejoiced at the favorable opportunity for leaving land that he paid the whole amount for the entire cargo in advance, no less a sum than four thousand gold denarii. After a day’s sailing out from shore, a terrific storm broke loose. Wonderful to relate, it injured no vessel but Jonah’s. Thus he was taught the lesson that God is Lord over heaven and earth and sea, and man can hide himself nowhere from His face.

On the same vessel were representatives of the seventy nations of the earth, each with his peculiar idols. They all resolved to entreat their gods for succor, and the god from whom help would come should be recognized and worshipped at the only one true God. But help came from none. Then it was that the captain of the vessel approached Jonah where he lay asleep, and said to him: “We are suspended ‘twixt life and death, and thou liest here asleep. Pray, tell me, to what nation dost thou belong?” “I am a Hebrew,” replied Jonah. “We have heard,” said the captain, “that the God of the Hebrews is the most powerful. Cry to Him for help. Perhaps He will perform such miracles for us as He did in days of old for the Jews at the Red Sea.”

Jonah confessed to the captain that he was to blame for the whole misfortune, and he besought him to cast him adrift, and appease the storm. The other passengers refused to consent to so cruel an act. Though the lot decided against Jonah, they first tried to save the vessel by throwing the cargo overboard. Their efforts were in vain. Then they placed Jonah at the side of the vessel and spoke: “O Lord of the world, reckon this not up against us as innocent blood, for we know not the case of this man, and he himself bids us throw him into the sea.” Even then they could not make up their minds to let him drown. First they immersed him up to his knees in the water of the sea, and the storm ceased; they drew him back into the vessel, and forthwith the storm raged in its old fury. Two more trials they made. They lowered him into the water up to his navel, and raised him out of the depths when the storm was assuaged. Again, when the storm broke out anew, they lowered him to his neck, and a second time they took him back into the vessel when the wind subsided. But finally the renewed rage of the storm convinced them that their danger was due to Jonah’s transgressions, and they abandoned him to his fate. He was thrown into the water, and on the instant the sea grew calm.

A few things I found interesting:

1. The Rabbis understand Jonah as a historical figure and the Book of Jonah as a historical narrative, probably because this is how the text invites the reader to understand it. Jonah is concretely identified as a disciple of the prophet Elisha, expanding the biblical detail of his being “the son of Amittai” (Jonah 1.1), the same person who in 2 Kings 14.25 is called “the prophet” from Gath-hepher. As far as I know, the Fathers as a whole understood Jonah the same way—which is to say, historically. (Careful who you’re calling “fundie” here.)

2. The background to Jonah’s preaching in Jerusalem, supplied here by the Rabbis, provides an explanation for his reluctance to preach in Nineveh. Precisely because Jerusalem was spared, Jonah acquired the reputation of a “false prophet” of doom. Who’d want give people a second reason to call him that?

3. The other people in Jonah’s boat are called “representatives of the seventy nations of the earth”, i.e. ambassadors of the Gentiles. Seeing things this way certainly accentuates the universal trajectory already present in the biblical narrative. It probably also reflects the strong Jewish critique of pagan polytheism in the Prophets (in Isaiah, for example). Only the God of Israel answers, and He is thus implicitly confessed by the Gentiles on the boat as “the only one true God”.

More to come!

Heschel on the decline of religion

It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion—its message becomes meaningless.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man (1955)

St. Augustine and the Jews: A change in the tide?

A professor at Boston University has published a book on St. Augustine’s views of the Jewish people that might just turn the tables on received wisdom. In her interview with TIME magazine, Paula Fredriksen, a convert from Catholicism to the Jewish faith, tells of how she came to see St. Augustine in new light:

Back in 1993 I was reading a work of Augustine’s attacking a Christian heretic. Usually when ancient orthodox Christians said terrible things about heretics, they found even worse things to say about Jews. Until 395, Augustine had not been much different, but here he was, writing about one of the flashiest heresies of his time, and marshaling as arguments unbelievably positive things about Jews. As I read further, my scalp tingled. I had been working on Augustine for 20 years and I’d never seen anything like this before. Not only could I establish that he had changed his position, but I could locate this shift in his thinking very precisely, to the four-year period when he also wrote his monumental Confessions.

In defense of the thesis of her book, Fredriksen says:

There are two kinds of evidence. First, from his life. Recently we’ve recovered a nice little memo of his to a fellow bishop on behalf of a plaintiff, telling that bishop to get his sticky fingers off this guy’s property. The plaintiff whose side he takes is a Jew, and Augustine even quotes St. Paul to the effect of not creating a scandal “in front of the Jews.” But more important is the theological 180-degree turn Augustine does between 395 and 398. He has moved from demeaning Jews and disparaging Judaism to becoming the only theologian of his era to make them an important and positive part of his view of God and humanity.

She explains how this was so:

… Augustine, in the course of arguing for [the reality of] Christ’s incarnation—this intimate relationship between divinity and humanity—explicitly parallels it to God’s relationship with the Jews. He writes that Catholics and Jews stand as one community over against pagans and heretics; that Jesus and his apostles, including Paul, lived as Torah-observant Jews for the whole of their lives. And he urges that God himself would punish any king who tried to interfere with the Jews’ practice of Judaism. These ideas preserved space for Jewishness in Christian culture, space that in the much more toxic culture of the Christian Middle Ages, helped save Jewish lives. Although that, too, was an unintended consequence. He could not possibly have imagined their being in that kind of danger.

Paula Fredriksen is Aurelio Professor of Scripture at Boston University. Her staff biography page can be found here.

[Hat tip: Jim Davila over at PaleoJudaica]