{"id":77837,"date":"2020-07-21T22:41:01","date_gmt":"2020-07-21T19:41:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=77837"},"modified":"2020-07-21T22:41:01","modified_gmt":"2020-07-21T19:41:01","slug":"jonah-and-the-man-who-came-to-dinner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/jonah-and-the-man-who-came-to-dinner\/","title":{"rendered":"Jonah and The Man Who Came to Dinner"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"77837","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34243,"related_cahpter":"529","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Did Jonah disobey God? The answer is surprising\r\n\r\n","content":"

While the Book of Jonah provides no explicit information about his historical era and circumstances, they can be deduced from the following reference to a \u201cservant\u201d of the Lord of the very same name: \u201cHe [Jeroboam ben Joash] restored the boundaries of Israel from the approach to Hamath until the Aravah Sea, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by His servant Jonah ben Amittai of Gath Hefer\u201d (2 Kings 14:25). (Midrash Bereishit Rabba, 98:16, situated Gath Hefer in the vicinity of Zippori in the Galilee.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On the other hand, the Book of Jonah contains no reference to either King Jeroboam or to the restoration of boundaries; indeed, it makes no overt reference to Israel at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nevertheless, that the two Jonahs are one and the same is the near unanimous opinion of the medieval exegetes with the exception of Joseph Ibn Kaspi (Provence, 1279-1340), who wrote: \u201cIt would appear that this prophet is the one mentioned in the Book of Kings, although it is not necessarily so.\u201d We might add\u2014based on our experience with Obadiah (<\/span>see our comments there<\/span><\/a>)\u2014that the recurrence of a name is not, per se, evidence of identity; moreover, just as Ibn Ezra rejected that identification because the Obadiah of 1 Kings 18:3 is not explicitly named as a prophet, neither is the Jonah of 2 Kings 14:25, although, to be sure, \u201cHis servant\u201d is no mean epithet.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ibn Era also articulated a question that most concerned traditional exegetes, namely: \u201cHow could it occur to a wise man [Jonah], who recognized God and His deeds, to imagine that he could evade Him when he is under His control and He is omnipresent?\u201d Ibn Ezra first cited the opinion of Sa`adya Gaon (882-942) that it is axiomatic that if God ordered him to go to Nineveh, he went, but then sought to evade a follow-up mission. Moreover, the failure of Scripture to report this explicitly is a standard feature of the biblical narrative, for which Exodus 2:20 served as a paradigm. There, Jethro instructed his daughters to \u201cinvite [the Egyptian man who rescued them] to break bread.\u201d Nowhere does it say explicitly that the invitation was extended, nor whether it was accepted; however, Sa`adya maintained, the fact that the next verse states that the man remained with [Jethro] and married his daughter Zipporah is all the textual evidence we need.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here, too, since \u201cthe All-Wise would not choose anyone who would disobey Him,\u201d it is axiomatic \u201cthat he carried it out,\u201d just as not every time that the Torah states that God told Moses to address the Israelites, does it stipulate thereafter that he did. (See Sa`adya\u2019s philosophical opus \u201cBeliefs and Opinions\u201d 3:5.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Image: Rembrandt: The Prophet Jonah before the Walls of Nineveh, c. 1655 \/ wikipedia<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":77838,"id":77838,"title":"Jon1-Rembrandt_The_Prophet_Jonah","filename":"Jon1-Rembrandt_The_Prophet_Jonah.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Jon1-Rembrandt_The_Prophet_Jonah.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/jonah-and-the-man-who-came-to-dinner\/jon1-rembrandt_the_prophet_jonah\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"jon1-rembrandt_the_prophet_jonah","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":77837,"date":"2020-07-21 19:40:48","modified":"2020-08-05 15:31:47","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":477,"height":599,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Jon1-Rembrandt_The_Prophet_Jonah-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Jon1-Rembrandt_The_Prophet_Jonah-239x300.jpg","medium-width":239,"medium-height":300,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Jon1-Rembrandt_The_Prophet_Jonah.jpg","medium_large-width":477,"medium_large-height":599,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Jon1-Rembrandt_The_Prophet_Jonah.jpg","large-width":477,"large-height":599,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Jon1-Rembrandt_The_Prophet_Jonah.jpg","1536x1536-width":477,"1536x1536-height":599,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Jon1-Rembrandt_The_Prophet_Jonah.jpg","2048x2048-width":477,"2048x2048-height":599,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Jon1-Rembrandt_The_Prophet_Jonah.jpg","post_full_size-width":477,"post_full_size-height":599,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Jon1-Rembrandt_The_Prophet_Jonah-334x420.jpg","home_baner-width":334,"home_baner-height":420}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"Introduction","main_caption":"Jonah and The Man Who Came to Dinner","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"Did Jonah disobey God? 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