A Sign from the Sea
Jonah, Myth, and the Mercy of God
The Midrashic Method: Imaginative Exploration of Scripture
Midrash is not merely interpretation—it is a way of listening. Rooted in Jewish tradition and echoed in Christian imagination, midrash builds upon textual hints, historical echoes, and symbolic resonance to draw out meanings that breathe beneath the surface of the text. Jesus himself employed this approach, speaking in parables and pointing back to Hebrew narratives with layered intention. When he spoke of "the sign of Jonah," he invited his hearers not merely to recall a prophet and a fish, but to perceive a deeper pattern—descent, death, and divine reversal. To read the story of Jonah midrashically is to allow it to echo across time, culture, and imagination. It opens the door to possibilities not plainly stated but deeply felt. And it invites us to see not only what happened, but what it meant—and still means.
Nineveh and the Mythic Imagination
Nineveh, in Jonah's time (8th century BCE), was a city at the heart of the Assyrian empire—fierce, militarized, and steeped in myth. The Assyrians were not known for mercy; they were known for conquest and cruelty. Historical records describe them impaling enemies, flaying rebels, and erecting monuments to their brutality. A lone foreign prophet walking into that world with a word of warning would not normally be met with sackcloth and ashes, but with shackles or death. And yet—something happens. Jonah's arrival pierces through the armor of empire. The people repent. The king humbles himself. The city listens. Why?
It may be that Jonah's message found a channel not only through words, but through mythic memory—a resonance within the Ninevites' own symbolic universe. The gods of Nineveh were many, and often watery. Ea (or Enki) was the god of wisdom and the subterranean deep—the Abzu. Tiamat, the dragon of saltwater chaos, embodied primal threat. But perhaps most fascinating were the Apkallu: semi-divine sages said to have emerged from the sea to bring wisdom and order to humanity. The first of these, Oannes, was described as part fish, part man. He rose from the waters by day to teach, and vanished beneath the waves by night. In Assyrian reliefs, fish-cloaked priests echo his image, walking embodiments of myth and ritual memory. This was the symbolic grammar of Nineveh: knowledge comes from the sea.
The Prophet's Descent
Jonah's journey is not one of ascent into glory, but descent into mystery. He goes down to Joppa, fleeing the presence of the Lord. He goes down into the ship, into the belly of human construction. He sinks down into sleep, a deep, apathetic withdrawal from reality. He is hurled down into the sea, into chaos and consequence. He sinks to the roots of the mountains, the gates of Sheol—the underworld. He is swallowed down into the belly of a great fish, wrapped in seaweed, entombed in motion. This is not merely geography. It is symbolic descent—a pattern of dying. Jonah becomes a man entombed, hidden, buried in the deep. His own prayer from within the fish describes it not just as confinement, but as Sheol, the grave.
And then, something shifts:
"And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land." (Jonah 2:10)
He does not emerge triumphantly. He is expelled. Vomited up like refuse, cast back into the light, reborn not by will but by grace. It is only now that Jonah is ready to go to Nineveh. The prophet who once fled has been reshaped in the depths. His body carries the smell of the sea. His skin, perhaps, bears the marks of acid and time. He walks onto the shore as something both ancient and new—a man not of myth, but bearing its signs.
The Messenger from the Sea
In a culture that venerated fish-men as messengers from the gods, how might the Ninevites have seen Jonah? There is no line in scripture that says they believed he was Oannes. But there is room for imagination. A man who emerges from the sea after three days in the belly of a beast—declaring a divine warning—would not have gone unnoticed in Assyria's mythic framework. Jonah may have walked into Nineveh not just as a prophet, but as a sign. In their imagination, he may have echoed the Apkallu—sent not to destroy, but to instruct. He came not with an army, but with a word. Not with weapons, but with warning. And that may have been enough. In Nineveh's imagination, what rises from the sea comes with wisdom. God, in His mercy, speaks to them in a language they can understand—even if it is not His own. The messenger is misunderstood, but the message is heard.
The Word That Turned
Jonah's message is startlingly short:
"Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" (Jonah 3:4)
There is no call to repentance. No appeal to mercy. No roadmap of redemption. Jonah, still reluctant, delivers a message of condemnation—a sentence, not a sermon. But the word used—nehpakhet—holds more than one meaning. And it is intentionally ambiguous. In Hebrew its referred to as a passive reflexive verb, and it opens a window into how meaning is shaped not just what is said, but how it is said. In this form it intentionally blurs agency, it doesn’t indicate who will cause the change. The choice of nehpakhet (נֶהְפָּכֶתn) is not linguistic laziness—it’s rhetorical brilliance. In one word we have a paradoxical tension of Jonahs vagueness, perhaps deliberate, or perhaps due to his bitterness, and Gods openness, creating space for repentance within warning. It begs the theological tension: Can destruction and transformation be encompassed within a single word?
As nehpakhet stands it can mean "overthrown," as in destruction. But it can also mean "turned," "reversed," or "transformed." Jonah likely meant his message as: "Nineveh will be destroyed." But what happens is this: Nineveh is changed. The people fast. The king repents. The city weeps. And God, seeing their hearts, relents. The irony is deep: Jonah hoped for fire. God gave rebirth. The city is indeed overthrown, but not in destruction—in mercy.
God Speaks, Even Through Misunderstanding
This is the heart of the story: God speaks through a sign that is misread, but still heard. The Ninevites may have misunderstood who Jonah was. They may have folded him into their myths. They may have seen him as a sea-born sage rather than a prophet of YHWH. But that was enough.
"In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways…" (Hebrews 1:1)
God has always spoken through strange mediums: fire, whisper, donkey, wind. Now, a man from the deep. It seems that God does not need to wait for perfect theology. He meets people where they are. He speaks in the symbolic language of their hearts, not to validate their systems, but to subvert them quietly.
Jonah's Bitterness and God's Mercy
And what of Jonah? He is angry. Not because God failed, but because God succeeded.
"I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love…" (Jonah 4:2)
He says this not in praise, but in protest. Jonah did not want revival. He wanted justice. But God's mercy overthrows his expectations, just as it overturned the Ninevites' hearts. Jonah's descent was not only into the sea, but into the brokenness of his own understanding. And there, in the heat of his resentment, God gently reminds him: You care for a plant. I care for people.