Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to him, "Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you." But he answered them, "An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth. The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here!" (Matt. 12:38–41 NRSV)

Jesus’ words leave a lot of questions unanswered. First, what did Jonah being in the fish’s belly have to do with Nineveh’s repentance? Though Jesus links these two events together in his statement, their congruence is not as obvious, perhaps, to the modern reader. Second, is Jesus really talking here about divine wrath or about human repentance? Third, what does all this have to do with asking for a sign, and how is Jesus’ death tied to that? Fourth, why does Jesus make a parallel between Jonah’s stay in the belly of the fish and his own death over the same period of time?

Before attempting to answer these difficult questions, I would like to propose some ground rules for interpretation. It seems to me that Jesus is stating neither a parable nor an allegory, but is rather making an analogous statement. That is, Jesus is directly equating the story of Jonah’s being in the fish three days and three nights with Nineveh’s repentance and then likewise tying his own death with the Pharisees’ refusal to repent. The questions remain: (1) What is the link between Jonah’s visit to a fish’s belly and Nineveh’s repentance? (2) What is the link between Jesus’ death and the unrepentant attitudes of the Pharisees?

The last link is quite obvious to most Christians: Jesus’ death was supposed to be the sign that would lead the Pharisees to repent of their unbelief in him as the Messiah. Yet as I read the New Testament, I find that opposite to how people would have thought in Jesus’ time. On the one hand, Jesus’ death would hardly be expected to lead anyone to such repentance since the messiah figure was not associated with crucifixion and death but rather with miracles and powerful conquest against the Romans. The sign Jesus speaks of, then, is ironic and flies in the face of the hopes of the Pharisees.

In another sense, if this is what Jesus intends his hearers to understand, what does it suggest about his interpretation of the story of Jonah? Was Jonah’s stay in the belly of the fish supposed to bring the Ninevites to repentance? Jesus doesn’t say that; he only connects Jonah’s preaching with Nineveh’s repentance.

So is there a way out of this confusion? The only way I have been able to come to terms with Jesus’ statement is to rethink the overall purpose of the book of Jonah. Accordingly, we will deal with Jonah’s self-sacrifice first, then Nineveh’s repentance afterward.

From all that we can know now about ancient maritime cultic practices along the Levantine coast, Jonah was clearly offering himself as a human sacrifice to appease Yahweh’s wrath and thus bring about the storm’s cessation.1 This decision is in response to a telling question by the sailors: "What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?" (Jonah 11:1 NRSV). The sailors obviously expect that some kind of assuagement of Yahweh’s wrath would be required from Jonah since he is the one having angered him by his own admission. So Jonah suggests to them what any sailor of any other religion might expect.

The irony is that once Jonah has suggested that he be thrown overboard, an obvious intended human sacrifice given the information available to us, the sailors seem reluctant to follow through. Normally, one would expect them to be eager to get Jonah ejected from the ship in order to save their lives. Instead, mysteriously, they continue to try to row toward land. How are their actions to be interpreted? Do they think that human sacrifice is wrong? This is hardly unlikely, given their backgrounds. Is the author perhaps attempting to suggest that Yahweh worship is known well enough that these sailors perceive that his own prophet is lying about his regard for this kind of atonement? How would this be true when even the Israelites had a hard time getting this message?

However this ironic twist is to be understood, it would seem clear that the author is foreshadowing the highlight of Jonah’s story: Nineveh’s repentance.

Even greater than the irony of sailors aboard ship being reluctant to offer a Hebrew prophet as a sacrifice is that of Nineveh’s repentance. During the time of the Jonah of 2 Kings 14:25, Assyria was not a great threat to anyone, whereas Israel combined with Judah was enjoying a period unequalled except during the time of Solomon. Thus, it is incredible that any Assyrian king would respond to a Hebrew prophet as dramatically as the author portrays this king.

Why would the king of the most powerful nation of that area and time listen and repent at the preaching of a foreign prophet? It is true that Assyrian kings were particularly vulnerable to evil omens and during an eclipse of the sun were expected to leave the throne with a substitute king ruling for a prescribed number of days after which he would be executed in an effort to convince the gods that the "king" had so been eliminated.2 Even so, why would the preaching of a foreigner who hadn’t read any omens net such a dramatic effect?

One might understand the story better, given the cultic practices of Assyrian kings, had the king’s response been to seek the advice of his local priests and prophets. Instead he merely steps off the throne, takes off his royal robes (possibly both signs of abdication in preparation for a substitute king), and then repents, fasting in sackcloth. And he indicates that he hopes his repentance will be well received by this foreign deity.

Even more contrary to what one would expect, the people repent before the king and after only hearing Jonah for one day. This is one of the main points the author is trying to make for us. It took three days in the belly of the great fish for Jonah to repent, whereas it took one day of a three-day journey through Nineveh (according to the author’s calculations) for the Ninevites to repent to a foreign deity.

How could this be? One could take some imaginative leaps and suggest that the author has in mind that the ancient dailies (in the form of traveling tradesmen and sailors) had brought the story of Yahweh who aborted his own prophet’s attempt to appease his wrath. This story had reached the ears of the king, who in turn was so impressed with it that he chose to repent.

But I don’t think this is necessary. The author of the book of Jonah isn’t trying to explain how or why things happened the way they did but rather to give us a message that sometimes those who do not know God repent, whereas those who are supposed to know him best (prophets) refuse to do so.

Jesus is very kind to Jonah. He does not put him down as much, perhaps, as the author does. He merely draws the appropriate analogy. Just as Jonah had to spend three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster in order to repent,3 so God would give his people that long of a sign for their repentance when Jesus succumbed to the forces of evil.4 If the effects of that "sign," including Jesus’ resurrection, were not enough for them to believe, who then ultimately would? Would it not be the Gentiles? And would they not repent, like the Ninevites, in "one" day? Thus Jesus’ words about Jonah bring to mind what will happen after his death when Christians convert the Gentiles.

Notes and References

1. See Aaron Jed Brody, "And Each Cried Out to His God": The Specialized Religion of Canaanite and Phoenician Seafarers (Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1998), 73–85.
2. For information on this Assyrian ritual, see Jean Bottéro, Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods, trans. Zainab Bahrani and Marc Van De Mieroop (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 138–55.
3. The LXX interpretation of the Hebrew "fish."
4. The ancients perceived these forces as sea monsters.

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