Jonah & Micah
Not What You Thought
Looking at our next few Minor Prophets, we now meet Jonah and Micah. The book of Jonah is a popular one in our culture today becasue of the infamous story about Jonah being swallowed by a large fish. And yet, while this story is popular, it often gets explained in a way that it was never intended to be. So many Christians today still believe that Jonah ran away from God because he was afraid to do what God wanted him to do, just like we were taught when we were kids. However, this isn’t how the story is portrayed in scripture. Look at what the Britannica says, “Jonah, in the story, feels about Nineveh as does the author of the Book of Nahum—that the city must inevitably fall because of God’s judgment against it.” Jonah has a much different reason for his disobedience than we may have been taught in this short four-chapter book. As far as Micah goes, this book is seven chapters long and describes the harsh reality of God’s people and why they will be judged by God. The uniqueness of this book, however, is the description in the later chapters about the coming savior and the total depravity of mankind. With this in mind, let’s dive in and see what these two prophets have to teach us.
Stubbornness & Mercy
To start, let’s begin with Jonah. As mentioned before, this book is only four chapters long, but these four chapters pack a punch. Jonah was a prophet who God chose to deliver a message to Nineveh to lead them to repentance. And as the story goes, Jonah runs away from God on a ship until he’s overthrown by the crew into the sea when they learn of his disobedience. Jonah then prays while in the belly of this giant fish and God hears his prayer and has this giant fish spit up Jonah onto the land of Nineveh where Jonah shares the message that God gave him to share with these people. Then all the people repent and they all live happily ever after, right? Not quite. This is how many people are taught the story as children, but this isn’t how the story actually concludes. The Ninevites seemingly did indeed repent, but Jonah’s story does not end here. Look at what Jonah 4:2-3 says, “Then he prayed to the LORD and said, “Please LORD, was this not what I said when I was still in my own country? Therefore in anticipation of this I fled to Tarshish, since I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in mercy, and One who relents of disaster. “So now, LORD, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.”
This is a much different ending than what we may have thought. Jonah is so fed up with how the Ninevites have been living that he complains to the Lord about how He is showing the people of Nineveh too much mercy. It says in this passage that the reason Jonah fled from God is not becasue he was afraid, but because he knew that God was ‘A gracious and compassionate God’. Jonah is so upset with this action from God, that he even asks God to take his life! Imagine being so displeased with someone that whenever they are shown mercy, you just wish you weren’t alive. As crazy as this seems, God has a great lesson for us to learn from this story. That lesson, of course, is that we are not the ones who get to decide whom God shows compassion to, and for how long. As beings who need to rely on God’s mercy every single day, we are in no place to determine who God shows mercy to and how long He decides to show it. We should all be grateful beings who praise God for the mercy that He has shown us and pray that all of those who receive this same mercy repent and follow Him.
The Hope of Christ
All of this is a perfect segway to the book of Micah. Micah like many of the minor prophets begins by telling Israel and Judah of the destruction that is coming their way. In fact, God has a specific warning in store for the oppressors that roam throughout Israel and Judah. Micah 2:1-3 tells us “Woe to those who devise wrongdoing, Who practice evil on their beds! When morning comes, they do it, Because it is in the power of their hands. They covet fields, so they seize them; And houses, so they take them. They exploit a man and his house, A person and his inheritance. Therefore this is what the LORD says: “Behold, I am planning against this family a catastrophe From which you cannot remove your necks; And you will not walk haughtily, For it will be an evil time.” This is another great example of how God can use even the evil things of this world for His glory. God will take this evil time and use it as a form of discipline for the ones who are inciting the evil in the first place. But just as we saw in the book of Jonah, God is not just a God of wrath, He is also a God of mercy. God tells Micah of better days that are coming in chapter four and He even tells Micah of the greatest gift of all that will be coming in Christ Himself!
Look at what Micah 5:2-3 says “But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Too little to be among the clans of Judah, From you One will come forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His times of coming forth are from long ago, From the days of eternity.” Therefore He will give them up until the time When she who is in labor has given birth. Then the remainder of His kinsmen Will return to the sons of Israel.” It is always encouraging to know that on this side of the cross, we don’t need to wait for our Lord to send His savior because He has already come! Our faith can be totally placed in Christ because He has fulfilled every prophecy and taken the punishment of our sins on Himself. How beautiful our God truly is that before we ever sinned, God had a plan to save us ‘From the days of eternity’. I hope and pray that as we continue with these prophet studies, you won’t grow bored of the similar outline, but that you will find beauty in the uniqueness of the message that God has for His people. May we be reminded by Jonah and Micah that God showing His mercy towards sinners is a beautiful thing and that this very mercy should always push people to Christ.
Sources
[1] Blue Letter Bible. (n.d.). Blue Letter Bible. https://www.blueletterbible.org/
[2] The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2024, November 28). Book of Jonah | Description, Bible, Synopsis, & Facts. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Book-of-Jonah
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