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The book of Jonah is unique in both form and content. It is one of the smallest books of the Prophets, and it conveys its message through the medium of a story. Rarely does it fail to captivate its reader, while at the same time it poses a variety of striking questions of theme and narrative. Indeed, to the thoughtful reader, the Book of Jonah is one of the most enigmatic writings of the Prophets. Jonah is a rebellious prophet. Why? In view of his rebelliousness, why does God continue to call upon him after his attempt to flee, and then reason with him about His forgiveness of a repentant population? The earlier, remarkable repentance of the ship's sailors is matched by an even more startling repentance by the people of Nineveh. Perhaps the most significant and perplexing matter, however, is Jonah's taking exception to God's forgiving the population of Nineveh, articulated in opposition to a central Jewish doctrine of Divine mercy.
I suggest that the seminal problem for the prophet Jonah is the threat of exile of the people of Israel. Specifically, Jonah's flight is in response to the specter of the potential destruction of the northern Kingdom of Israel at the hands of Nineveh/Ashur. The issue of exile raised immense theological issues for Jonah, involving the appropriateness of justice and mercy in God's world. We will attempt to trace the development of the sub-themes related to this formulation, thereby examining the many facets of the book's main theme.
The present investigation will attempt to demonstrate the value of a literary analysis of structure(1) in trying to solve the enigma presented by the Book of Jonah. Literary analysis assumes that communication in literature may take place through ideas as conveyed not only by words directly, but also by the use of symbols, the attribution or withholding of motives, the reprising of motifs and thematic key words, and subtle modification of near-verbatim repetition of phrases. This methodology, it will be recognized, is quite similar to accepted Rabbinic exegesis.(2) The Rabbinic method is frequently generated by philosophical or historical considerations, and this is especially so in the Rabbinic approach to Jonah, which is limited in its textual base. The present literary approach is more anchored in...