If Jonah actually thought he could run from God by boarding a ship bound for Tarsus, he was seriously disappointed. God “hurled” a great wind at sea and the ship. The Psalmist is right; you cannot run and hide from God. Nina Simone sang the song, “Sinnerman.” It makes me think of Jonah. “Oh, sinner man, where you gonna run to? Sinnerman, where you gonna run to? Where you gonna run to? All on that day.” It goes on to say he runs to the rock to hide him. The rock cried out he’s not going to hide him. The second attempt to escape God is in the next verse of the song. “So, I run to the river. It was bleedin’; I run to the sea it was boiling….” I guess you could say, in Jonah’s case, that the sea was boiling. It was boiling so bad that Jonah 1:5 says, “Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his god. And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them.”
The “boiling” ocean caused the seaman to cry out to their gods. It was a diverse crew. They each had their own god. Roop says, “It is normal for ancient mariners to attribute the weather to direct divine action, whether that weather be calm or storm.” Most ancient religions see their gods as riding upon the clouds or sending rain and storm upon their devotees for a failure of some kind. Modern thought laughs in derision at the thought of God controlling the weather. That’s an ancient idea that the modern scientific world has outgrown. However, in Jonah’s case, they were right. God did cause the storm. The text says He “hurled” the storm at the ship. Roop goes on to say the seaman matched “God’s hurling with some of their own (1:5). They hurl cargo overboard to lighten the load, perhaps so the boat will ride atop the waves rather than be buried under them.”[1]
While the crew panicked over the divine storm they were facing, verse 5 continues to tell us what’s going on with Jonah, who is actually the reason for the storm. It says, “But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep.” I remember storms in the North Atlantic while I was serving on the destroyer Waller in 1966. No one slept during that storm. I remember storms in the South China Sea while serving aboard the destroyer Rathburne in 1976. No one slept through that storm, either. This leads me to believe that Jonah’s nap was a divine one. God was going to do something important, and He caused a sleep to come upon the subject of the revelation. God put Adam into such sleep when he took one of his ribs to create Eve. God put Abraham to sleep to show him the vision of the sacrifices, demonstrating God’s guarantee that he would have a son. In Genesis 15, God shows Abraham that it doesn’t depend on him. God will see to it Himself. God is in control; one must rest in the hands of the one who sends the storms and trials of life. God is there even in the storms of life. This was another lesson from God to unbelieving people that He will see to it. I’ve heard so many sermons that suggest that God depends on me in one way or another. Cowles says, “God depends on you to diffuse invaluable light, and therefore facilitates your service by putting you prominently before all human eyes, like a city on a hill which no forest or high land can hide, or like a candle, never placed under a bushel measure.”[2] If the work of God, in God’s way, in God’s time, depends on me, the world should get ready for disappointment. God does not depend on me. I depend on God! That’s the truth that Jonah is about to learn. In the contest between God and the idols made of iron or wood, God confronted the idolaters and told them that they had to carry their handmade idols with them. God tells us, “you don’t carry me. I carry you.”
[1] Roop, Eugene F. 2002. Ruth, Jonah, Esther. Believers Church Bible Commentary. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press.
[2] Cowles, Henry. 1887. Matthew and Mark, with Notes, Critical, Explanatory, and Practical. New York: D. Appleton & Company.