to Calvin (transl. Owen) and Luther (transl. Oswald). In the case of Luther, I shall further indicate whether his comment appears in his Latin or his (longer) German commentary. The interpretations of the mediaeval Jewish commentators (Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Radak, Abarbanel) are all taken from the Rabbinic Bible, as found in the Bar Ilan Judaic Digital Library (the Responsa Project). As above, their views are expressed in their commentary to the particular verse under discussion (transl. Bob) unless otherwise specified.
English translations of the following primary sources are taken from the following texts unless otherwise indicated: the Jewish-Hellenistic sermon On Jonah, see Muradyan and Topchyan; Rabbinical sources (Mishnah, the talmudim, Mekhilta, Genesis Rabbah, etc.), see Neusner; Targum Jonathan, see Cathcart and Gordon; Pirqei de-Rabbi Eliezer, see Friedlander; Glossa Ordinaria, see Litteral; ‘Patience’, see Koertge; the Qur’an, see Pickthall; the Zohar, see Wineman.
It has been a rare scholarly privilege to spend the last five years in the company of the Book of Jonah. I wish to thank the series editors John F.A. Sawyer and David Gunn for their invitation to write this commentary and for their continuous and ever-gracious and constructive support along the way. I am also very grateful to the series editor Andrew Mein, who read through the penultimate version of this book and gave constructive and encouraging feedback. I am further indebted to the students in my seminar ‘Jonah and His Fish’ that I gave in the autumn of 2019 at the University of Aberdeen. Their questions and insights constantly prompted me to think deeper about the issues raised in this commentary. I especially wish to thank Dr Hei Yin Yip, Amy Bender, Dorothy Plummer, and Caitlin Yool for pointing out a plethora of typos and less felicitous English constructions, thus helping me to write a better book. I am also, as always, grateful to my husband Andreas Tiemeyer for his constant willingness to discuss yet another theological issue, yet another interpreter, and yet another textual problem. It is not an exaggeration to say that Jonah and his fish have become members of our family!
Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer
Örebro, Sweden, November 2020
Introduction
The reception history of the Book of Jonah offers a rich web of interpretations. This brief introduction outlines some of the key interpretative trends in Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and secular readings.
Jewish Interpretations
Jewish interaction with the Book of Jonah is varied, having begun in the intertestamental period and continuing to modern times.
Early Jewish Interpretations
There is some evidence of interpretation as early as the Septuagint (LXX). The Greek translation offers four readings that attest either to a Hebrew text that differs from the Masoretic text (MT) or, more likely, interpretations of the MT. First, LXX Jonah 1:6 finds Jonah ‘snoring’, whereas Jonah in the MT ‘sleeps deeply’. Many later interpreters adopt this reading and explore its theological consequences. Second, whereas the MT Jonah 1:9 has Jonah present himself as a ‘Hebrew’, the LXX defines Jonah as ‘as servant of the Lord’. Third, the LXX understands the MT’s fish as some kind of sea monster. This interpretation may be inspired by Greek mythology, where the same term denotes the sea monsters which were slain by the heroes Perseus and Heracles. Fourth, whereas Jonah in the MT gives the people of Nineveh forty days to repent, the LXX gives them a mere three days. Several later Christian interpreters preferred the latter reading as it lent additional support to their typological interpretation of Jonah as a type for Christ (see further below).
There are multiple other examples of Second-Temple-period Jewish interaction with the Book of Jonah. Jonah is mentioned in, for example, the Book of Tobit, Joseph and Aseneth, Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, 3 Maccabees, and Hellenistic Synagogal Prayers.
A more substantial treatment is found in the Hellenistic sermon On Jonah, probably originating in the synagogue in Alexandria between 25 bce and 50 ce. One significant difference appears in its retelling of Jonah 1:15 where Jonah, according to the sermon, decides to commit suicide rather than allow the sailors to toss him overboard. Another variation concerns Jonah’s time inside the fish. According to the sermon, the fish cares for Jonah as a mother cares for the baby in her womb and takes Jonah on a sightseeing tour of the wonders of the ocean. This ‘detour’ becomes very influential and is later adopted and enhanced by other retellings of the Jonah narrative, exemplified by the Jewish midrash Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer (PRE).
The Jewish historian Josephus offers an abbreviated version of Jonah in his Ant. 9.206–214, featuring only chs 1–2. He treats the biblical text as a historical record and downplays God’s active role in the narrative, together with all its miraculous aspects. In his hands, the Book of Jonah is turned into a narrative about Jonah’s disobedience and his later prayer to God. Nineveh and its (possible) repentance lose all significance, presumably because Josephus and his intended audience knew about its destruction in 612 bce by, among others, Neo-Babylonian and Median forces.
Among the Qumran scrolls, parts of the Book of Jonah are attested in five manuscripts (4Q76, 4Q81, 4Q82, Mur88, and 8Hev1). These manuscripts preserve three very minor variations, none of which alter the content of the book in any salient way.
1 4Q82 reads Jonah 2:7 [Eng. 2:6] ‘You brought up from the pit my life, My soul, o Yhwh my God’, in contrast to the MT of the same verse, which reads ‘You brought up from the pit my life, o Yhwh my God’.
2 4Q76 reads Jonah 3:2 ‘the proclamation like the one that I spoke’, whereas the MT reads ‘the proclamation that I am speaking’.
3 4Q82 and the MT of Jonah 4:6 use different appellations for God. Yet, although they use different names, both traditions would have been read and pronounced the same way.
Rabbinical and Mediaeval Jewish Interpretations
There are ample references to the Book of Jonah in various midrashic compendiums (e.g. Genesis Rabbah, Pesikta de-Rab Kahana). One dominant trend in rabbinical interpretation is to flesh out the Jonah narrative with details of the prophet’s background. Traditional Jewish exegesis equates the prophet Jonah with the eponymous prophet in 2 Kgs 14:23–25, as well as with the anonymous prophet who was active during Jeroboam II’s reign in 2 Kgs 9:1. In parallel, Jonah is commonly identified as the son of the widow of Zarephath, who died and was resurrected by Elijah (1 Kgs 17).
These backstories are then read into the fabric of the Book of Jonah. The identification of Jonah with the prophet in 1 Kgs 14 provides Jonah with a reason for his flight. Jonah had previously had bad experiences with non-fulfilment of his prophecy, and he feared that the same would happen if he went to Nineveh, thus causing people to consider him to be a false prophet (e.g. Seder Olam Rabbah, PRE). Another interpretation, also found among Christian interpreters, is that Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh because he was afraid that Nineveh’s repentance would reflect badly on Israel’s failure to repent (e.g. Mekhilta Attributed to R. Ishmael). In contrast, the identification of Jonah with the resurrected son in Zarephath often serves to develop Jonah’s life after his journey to Nineveh. The Lives of the Prophets, for example, describes how Jonah and his mother chose to settle in Tyre following his return from Nineveh, the reason being that Jonah was now regarded as a false prophet in his homeland.
The mediaeval Jewish exegetes continue to debate many of the same questions (e.g. Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Radak) although they often advocate different solutions. Investigating the particular issue of Jonah’s flight from his mission, Abarbanel portrays Jonah as a martyr, who decided
