The book of Jonah is among the shortest books of the Old Testament. Yet it is one of the deepest and richest books of the entire Bible in terms of its theological content. Its main characters are few, its events are brief, and its duration, though unknown for certain, likely spans over a short period of time, perhaps no more than several weeks or months. The book does not contain any prophetic messages except when Jonah predicted to the mariners that the sea would become calm if they threw him into the sea (Jonah 1:12) and that Nineveh would be overthrown in forty days (Jonah 3:4). Outside the book of Jonah, there is no mention of Jonah himself in all the Old Testament except once in 2 Kings 14:25. One may be tempted to consider the book and Jonah himself as obscure or marginal to the overall theme of the Old Testament, but a closer reading of the book reveals otherwise.
To identify the main theological themes in the book of Jonah, it may be helpful to answer the following question: what are the main notions that would be discernable by a first-time reader of Jonah? Though many theological themes can be found in the book of Jonah, the following three themes are especially paramount.
1. God Is Concerned for Everyone’s Salvation
In the Old Testament, the common conviction was that only God’s chosen people—the Jews—were worthy of God’s mercy, compassion, and forgiveness. As the biological children of Abraham whom God had chosen from among all the inhabitants of the earth to reveal himself to, ethnic Israel was the only people who could know the LORD—or so they thought (see Micah 3:11; Matthew 3:9; John 8:33, 39, 41; Romans 2:17-20; 9:4). The book of Jonah shows that God is deeply concerned for the unbelieving, sinful Gentiles as well. This message is so paramount to the essence of the book that it is the “closing scene” of the entire narrative, and God’s main message to Jonah (Jonah 4:10-11). The author of the book intended for that conclusion to be the last thing he leaves the reader with; so he made it the closing remark of the whole book. The same idea can be traced to earlier parts of the book as well. As the LORD was visiting Jonah in his disobedience and in his running away from his face, the mariners—who worshipped other gods (Jonah 1:5)—had an encounter with the God of Jonah and came to know and believe in him (Jonah 1:16).
2. God Accepts Everyone’s Repentance
Many see this as the central theme of the book of Jonah. A perceptive reader of the book will notice that this theme is one of its main emphases, occupying six consecutive verses (Jonah 3:5-10). Though the book is silent regarding the conversion of the people of Nineveh, it is evident that their repentance was so sincere and heartfelt that it seemed to have “changed God’s mind” (Jonah 3:10). Though the people of Nineveh were sinful pagans, the mere fact that they believed and obeyed the voice of the LORD through his prophet, and consequently repented, moved God to relent of the evil he had spoken against their city. Notably, this was a chance of repentance that other cities such as Sodom and Gomorrah were not given (Genesis 18).
3. God Is Sovereign
The book of Jonah shows God’s sovereignty from its opening verse to its end. Jonah is the only example in the Old Testament where God directly commands a Jewish prophet to travel to a gentile nation to deliver God’s message to them (Jonah 1:1-2). The animosity between the Jews and their surrounding heathen nations was well known. Yet the LORD chose to call upon a Jewish prophet to go and help save a gentile nation from God’s wrath. God is free to choose whom to send and to which people. No one is to question why God shows mercy to some and not to others, or why he sent Jonah to Nineveh and not to any other nation (Exodus 33:19; Romans 9:15). This is what God meant when he asked Jonah if he had the right to be angry (Jonah 4:4, 9). If the Jews were to question God’s calling of a gentile nation, then they must also question the calling of their father Abraham and his grandson Jacob. Paul was certain that the Jews did not question God’s calling of their forefathers, and thus they should not question his calling of the Gentiles either. This was Paul’s main position in his theological treatise in Romans 9.
Conclusion
The preceding themes are not new. The book of Jonah lays the biblical and theological foundation for these principles. The book also emphasizes them in the context of a real-life illustration of God’s mercy and compassion. (This is an important reason why the story of Jonah and the repentance of the people of Nineveh must be taken as literal history and not as an allegorical story.) These themes apply to modern-day Christians and not just the Old Testament Jews. New Testament Christians must be reminded—by the events of the book of Jonah—that everyone matters to God regardless of their ethnicity, lack of faith, depravity in sin, or history of faith. The LORD accepted the repentance of the Ninevites when they did not know his commandments or receive his covenant. The pagan mariners did not have the Ten Commandments, the Law of Moses, or the Temple of Solomon. Today’s nonbelievers may be accepted before God in a moment of repentance, even if they have never read the Bible or attended a Sunday church service (Jesus’s acceptance of the thief on the cross is a New Testament example of this principle. See Luke 23:39-43). They too matter to God just as much as his own believing children. Those who claim to be Christ-followers must have Christ’s heart too. The book of Jonah illustrates how today’s Christians should not be. Jonah’s priorities were vastly different from God’s. Jonah had a strong opinion on whom God should show mercy and on whom he should not (Jonah 4:2-3). New Testament Christians should not have a mind of their own but must have “the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16). Though none of these ideas is novel per se, it is edifying to find strong biblical support for these principles in our Bible. The book of Jonah does exactly that.
