God gives Jonah two commands: 2"Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it." Other prophets pushed back. Moses argued, and Jeremiah protested that he was only a youth. Jonah says nothing at all. He 3"rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD." The text then marks his direction by one word, over and over. He 3"went down to Joppa," went down into the ship, and then went down into the inner part of the ship, where he lay down and fell fast asleep. Nineveh's evil has "come up" before God. Jonah is going the other way, down.
The storm answers him with a verb the Hebrew repeats three times. 4"The LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea." The sailors 5"hurled the cargo" into the sea to lighten the ship. At the end of the chapter they 15"picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea." One word ties together what God does to the wind, what the sailors do to their cargo, and what they finally do to the prophet, as if the whole chapter were God's own hand working through every other hand in it.
Meanwhile the captain of a pagan crew finds the prophet asleep. 6"What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your god!" Those are the two commands God gave Jonah, word for word in the Hebrew: arise, and call out. A man who does not know the LORD is repeating the LORD's own orders to the man who does.
When the lot falls on him, Jonah gives his answer, and it sounds impressive: I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. He is saying this on the sea, on a ship, running from the one who made it. The next line answers him. 10"Then the men were exceedingly afraid," and their fear is sincere. They row hard for shore instead of shedding innocent blood. When nothing else works, they pray to the LORD. The chapter ends with the sailors doing what the prophet would not. 16"Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows."
Jonah's own offer to be thrown overboard can be read two ways. It may be a prophet willing to die so strangers can live. It may be a man who would rather drown than carry mercy to a city he hates. The text leaves his motive open. It shows what God did with it. 17"The LORD appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah." The same God who sent the wind that drove him into the water sent the fish that kept him from staying there.
Ask how large the gap is between your confession and your reverence. Then notice that your running, if you are running from something God has asked of you, does not put you outside his reach or outside his use.
Prayer
LORD of the sea and the dry land, there is no direction we can run that puts us outside your reach. Forgive us for the times our confession of you has been louder than our reverence, the kind that strangers around us can shame. Thank you that even our flight becomes ground you work through to bring others to you. In Jesus' name, amen.