The passage covered in this week’s lesson, Jonah 1:4–12, is influenced by the following themes, which are expressed by opposing pairs of verbs: "walking" versus "fleeing," and "going down" versus "bringing up."

Walking versus Fleeing

The divine command to Jonah directs him to "get up and walk to Nineveh" (1:2; repeated in 3:1). The Lord’s mission instructions to his servants in the Old Testament, from Abraham in Genesis 12:1 to Daniel in Daniel 12:9, 13, frequently include the command "walk" (Hebrew halak). Perhaps the steady, deliberate pace of the disciplined walker communicates something fundamental about the manner of accomplishing the tasks that the Lord assigns his people.

Even inanimate nature sometimes received the Lord’s command to "walk," because according to 1:11 (repeated in verse 13) the sea, upon which the Lord earlier hurled a forceful wind, was "walking and storming," an expression unique to the book of Jonah. The fact that the sea responded to the command of him "who made the sea" (1:9) is celebrated by the Psalmist with the words "He commanded and a stormy wind blew in and lifted the waves of the sea" (Ps. 107:25). The disciples of Jesus testified to the same power when they exclaimed "even the wind and the waves obey Him" (Matt. 8:27).

The "walking" nature of Jonah’s mission is further emphasized by subsequent occurrences of the verb: "So Jonah got up and walked to Nineveh" (3:3). Once there, the extent of his mission to the city is described by the expression "three days’ walk" (3:3). Upon completion of one day’s walk through the city, Jonah witnessed a positive response to his mission, according to chapter 3, verse 4.

But Jonah’s initial response was to flee rather than walk. He got up and fled, according to 1:3 (echoed in 1:10 and 4:2). His flight is further defined as "to Tarshish" and "from the presence of the LORD." The image of a man on the run does not sit well with a person in a trusting relationship to God. It is thus Jonah at his worst, a man on the run from God, who at the captain’s orders makes a dishevelled appearance on the storm-tossed deck of a ship that he placed in danger by attempting to evade the Lord.

Going Down versus Bringing Up

When the Old Testament narrates that a man "goes down" (Hebrew yarad) the expression sometimes connotes a spiritual as well as geographical descent. This is illustrated in 1 Samuel 25:1, where one of the most potentially destructive episodes in David’s career happened after "David went down to the wilderness of Paran."

Last week’s lesson highlighted Jonah’ three "goings down" in chapter 1, described by repeated occurrences of the Hebrew verb, but did not mention Jonah’s fourth and final "going down," which happened when he was inside the great fish, described in chapter 2. In his prayer a somewhat shaken Jonah tells God "I went down to the roots of the mountains!" (2:7).

In contrast to Jonah’s four goings down, he praises the Lord in 2:6 for bringing him up, or more precisely for bringing up his life from the realm of death. A more visceral idiom is employed by the narrator in 2:10 to describe the collaborative effort between the Lord and the fish to bring up Jonah: "the LORD instructed the fish, and it vomited up Jonah."

This week’s lesson focuses on Jonah aboard the tossing ship after his first three goings-down, which he himself initiated, and just prior to his fourth going-down, which was the Lord’s initiative.

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