Jonah sinks deeper and deeper

 

 

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Jonah's Sleep

 

Jonah seemed completely unconcerned with this terrifying storm and utterly detached from the sailors' distress. While the sailors dashed about to save themselves, Jonah nonchalantly went down into the hull of the ship and fell asleep. With each step of the narrative Jonah descended lower and lower. In verse 3 Jonah went down to Joppa; then he went down into the ship. Now, in 1:5, Jonah went down below deck and lied down. By lying down below deck he was physically as low as he could get. He was now below the sailors in both a literal and figurative sense. If that wasn't enough, he descended even further in his escape from God by falling into a deep sleep. And what a sleep it must have been, for he slept through a storm that terrified even veteran seamen. Previously Jonah showed no concern for the Ninevites and here he showed no concern for the lives of the sailors. This demonstrates just how insensate Jonah was to his fellow travelers and God's heart.

 

The word for deep sleep, radam, is the same word used when Adam was put into a deep sleep in Eden before the creation of the woman (Genesis 2:21). So at another level of the story, Jonah is further identified with Adam. When Adam fell he brought a calamity upon all mankind. The curse of sin has enveloped the whole world with no escape no matter what gods we call upon or what we attempt through our own efforts to deliver ourselves.

 

This segment resembles the story of Jesus sleeping while He and His disciples crossed the Sea of Galilee with a huge storm threatening to sink their boat (see Mark 4:35-41 and Luke 8:22-25). The similarity is too close for coincidence. Clearly God wants us to link the Sea of Galilee storm incident with this portion of the Jonah story. When the disciples woke Jesus and He calmed the storm we are told, "in fear and amazement [the disciples] asked one another, 'Who then is this, that He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey Him?'" (Luke 8:25). Based on the image of wind and water discussed earlier this incident tells us more than that Jesus commands the natural elements. In fact, when the disciples asked one another this question they were paraphrasing Psalm 107:29 where Yahweh was identified as the one who quiets the wind and the water of the storms at sea. This image tells us that Jesus is master over all - the spiritual and physical realms. He is Yahweh, sovereign Lord of all.

 

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Taken from: http://www.ldolphin.org/jonah/jonah1.html