Jonah

The article "Out of the Fish's Belly: Prophecy, Sacrifice, and Repentance in the Book of Jonah" has an interpretation of the Book of Jonah from the Bible's Old Testament which is much different from the standard interpretations which preceded it. One paragraph in particular stood out to me:

           

The prophetic call come and Jonah flees to Tarshish. But his presence on the ship only intensifies his difficulties and he arranges to be removed from the scene once again, thrown into the sea, the sailors on the ship, as a kind of narrative aside, converting to the religion of the Hebrews upon departure. No sooner, however, is he tossed free of the ship (in the middle of a tempest) that he is engulfed by a large fish. Miraculously preserved after three days within the belly of the fish, he thanks God for all He has done for him and he is suddenly expelled for the fish onto dry land, the same land, in fact, from which his odyssey began, only to face the prospect of the same divine command. As if in echo of the sailors, it is the rabbinical commentators themselves, this time, who convert Jonah's prayer of thanksgiving into a prayer of repentance, citing his words as an instance of the "prophetic past" (146). 

This paragraph from the article is an example of the author's statement that Jonah, by running away from the prophecy he is supposed to give, runs right into it. When he receives the order to warn the Ninevites of their destruction if they don't repent, he runs in the opposite direction. By running, he faces difficulties that force him into a position over which he has no control, this being the belly of a whale. In his captivity, he thanks God, who promptly releases him from the whale back on the shore he was running from. By trying to leave, he was turned around right back to where he was supposed to be.

Another interesting notion addressed in this paragraph is an older interpretation of the text, which reads Jonah's thanksgiving as repentance. The difference being thanking God for keeping him alive, versus agreeing willingly and eagerly going to give the prophecy. Upon his release, Jonah spreads the prophecy, but goes afterward to sit alone and sulk that his archenemies are being saved. Though the old translation would see the spreading of the prophecy as repentance, the author here argues that it is not because Jonah is not happy to carry out the action.  He is thankful to God, but he does not want to give up his ways. Meaning, he is not willing to love the Ninevites and does not want them to be saved  by repenting because they have long been enemies of Israelites.

The episode with the plant can be interpreted as God trying to show Jonah that all are worthy of his love and mercy, even a group as lowly and despised as the Ninevites, just as the plant was adored by Jonah for its shade.