The question came in a deceptively simple guise: “What is your favourite scriptural text?” Normally the answer would be: “The one I am working on at the moment.” But, under pressure, the response that came unbidden to my lips was: “The Book of Jonah.” And what was the reason for this? It was surely not because the book is so short, coming in at a mere four slender chapters; rather, as I reflect on it, this tiny scroll is really a most extraordinary creation.
In the first place, the prophet for whom it is named is, most unusually, not at all the hero of the text. At every point in the book, he gets it wrong, in a way that is almost comical. Consider: unlike other prophets, Jonah runs away as soon as he hears God’s command, and it costs him money: “He paid the fare, went aboard to travel with them to Tarshish”. Notice that very important phrase here: “away from the Lord”. I suppose you might argue that he is simply living up to his name; for Jonah means “dove”, and the prophet spends the entire book flying away from God.
