Week 1 - Jonah & Joel (Jan. 1 - 7)
our 2023 Bible Reading Plan
Here we go! We’re reading through the prophets and the New Testament books of John. We almost have enough New Testament chapters to read one chapter per week, but we are two weeks short so we have made them the first and last week of the reading plan - so only Old Testament reading this week. We’re going to read the Old Testament Prophets in Chronological order (as best as I can arrange that), here is an image - which you will likely tire of seeing by the end of the year - that will help you place these prophets/books in the story of the Old Testament.
The Book of Jonah
Date of Authorship: The date of authorship for Jonah is uncertain. Dating the career of Jonah the prophet himself is not* uncertain. Jonah the prophet appears in the historical books of the Old Testament with an appearance in 2nd Kings 14. There he gives a prophecy to Jeroboam II of Israel, a prophecy that will come true in the short term, but will ultimately be controverted and reversed by God because of Israel's unfaithfulness. Jeroboam II reigned from 793-753 BC, and his reign represented the absolute pinnacle of the kingdom of Israel (divided) as they possessed their largest territory, were wealthy and had a far-reaching reputation. However, there is little reason to believe that the career of Jonah and the authorship of the book of Jonah were concurrent. C. Hassell Bullock notes a "northern air" to Jonah, and there is no indication that the author is aware of the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel to which Jonah was a prophet. This literary clue would position the authorship of this book in the mid 8th Century BC, during or in within a few decades after the end of the reign of Jeroboam II
Author: Jonah is the exception to a rule; the rule that the prophetic books of the Bible were written by the prophet who's name appears in the title of the book. If you read this book with your eyes open, it should be apparent that these four chapters are written about Jonah, instead of by him. We know little of the author of Jonah. Bullock offers that Jonah may have been written to controvert the positive prophecy given to the kingdom of Israel by Jonah that is mentioned in 2nd Kings 14:25. The author may have been showing everyone how resistant and oppositional to God's will the prophet Jonah was in order warn Israel about their impending judgment and destruction at the hand of the very people that Jonah was told to prophesy to in this book.
Purpose: Jonah is categorized as a book of prophecy, but it is really not prophecy. This book contains only 8 words (in English) of prophecy - Jonah 3:4b. All of chapter 2 is poetry, which would be a more fitting categorization of the book than prophecy. However, the proper designation for the book of Jonah is history. Not a history like Joshua, or Chronicles; Jonah is not primarily meant to tell the story of the people of Israel, the focus of the historical account in Jonah is to teach a lesson. Therefore Jonah is a historical parable.
The short book of Jonah would have taught the Israelite people two important lessons.
God is not only concerned about them. Even though Israel is his chosen people and heirs of the promise made to Abraham, God is sovereign over all nations. He cares enough for nations besides Israel to notice when they are evil, judge them accordingly, warn them first, and accept their repentance before delivering punishment. This is the lesson that the character Jonah fails to grasp and accept. Jonah resisted God's call to Nineveh (the capital of the Assyrian kingdom and soon-to-be empire) and even his psalm of deliverance in chapter 2 is highly nationalistic. The story ends with Jonah's rotten refusal to accept God's forgiveness towards Nineveh and God pointing out that he cares, even for the cattle of that city. Like Jonah, this would be a hard teaching for the extremely nationalistic Israelites to accept, but the Spirit inspired this book so that they - and we - could hear it. God loves your enemies and wants them to come to repentance and receive blessing.
God will accomplish his will. At its core, the book of Jonah is a fun telling of God getting His way. Despite the poor attitude and defiant resistance of His prophet, God would see that the Ninevites repent and Jonah would learn that resistance is futile. Such a lesson would be an important lesson for the prophets who would follow later in Israel's history like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel who would all have very difficult and unpopular messages to convey. They would not resist God as Jonah does, maybe they read his story and learned that there was no point in trying to escape their task. consider these words from the later prophet Jeremiah:
So the word of the Lord has brought me
insult and reproach all day long.
But if I say, “I will not mention his word
or speak anymore in his name,”
his word is in my heart like a fire,
a fire shut up in my bones.
I am weary of holding it in;
indeed, I cannot. (Jeremiah 20:8-9)
Notes
Miracles of Jonah
Jonah is famous, not necessarily because he got the whole city of Nineveh to repent, or not even because his attitude towards God was so poor, but because he was swallowed by a giant fish and spit back up onto land. This miracle is so astounding and amazing that Jonah has become one of the most memorable characters in all of scripture. Skeptics have pointed to this miracle as evidence for the argument that the Bible is unreliable or a-historical. Some commentators defend the possibility of this miracle by noting that at least two people have been documented to have been swallowed by sperm wales and have survived the experience (G. Macloskie, How to Test the Story of Jonah. and check out the story of James Bartley here). I don't oppose attempts like this one to use natural phenomena to argue for the possibility of the miracles in the Bible, but I do contest the notion that the miracles of the Bible must be the result of natural phenomena. Ultimately the reader of the Bible is left to choose to believe whether or not God is really sovereign over the world and capable of breaking, suspending, or changing the rules of nature as we know them, or not. To believe the story of Jonah, you don't need to believe that it is possible for yourself to survive three days in the belly of a whale, you simply need to believe that if God wants to make it happen, he can.
The book of Joel
Date of Authorship: The date of Joel is uncertain. Those attempting to pinpoint it have suggested dates as early as the 9th century, and as late as the 4th century BC with modern scholars trending toward later dates. Thankfully there are no cardinal points of orthodoxy at stake when determining a date for this book. Joel is not necessarily about a geo-political, historical situation, but about a plague of locusts which has wreaked havoc in Judah. If you watch the adjacent Bible Project video, you will notice that they settle on a later (post-exilic) date and understand Joel to have incorporated much of earlier canonical writing into his prophecy. I would caution that there are those (like the creators of the OT timeline picture above) who believe that the themes and words of Joel are the source material for those later prophets, and think that Joel may be the earliest prophetic contribution to the canon.
Author: We don't know much about Joel. his numerous references to "Zion" and "Jerusalem" seem to betray that he is ministering to Judah and he is familiar with the priestly operations at the temple (1:9, 1:13) but likely not a priest.
Structure: Joel has a pretty clear 2-part structure, but there is no agreement on where to split it. somewhere between 2:18 and 2:27, the book of Joel changes from a lament over the present reality of a plague of locusts that has ravaged Judean agriculture, to Yahweh's response to this lament which includes a projection of the future realities of the eschatological age.
Purpose: Joel is a response to a calamity that is sent by God on Judah. after lamenting the tragedy of this plague of locusts, the prophets energizing vision is a promise of a future where God confronts the evil of the nations, the land of all the world is restored by the bounty of his presence, and God's spirit will fill all of His people. Also, "Joel" is a really great name.
Notes
The Locusts of Joel
"Locusts were all too common in the ancient Near East and were notorious for the devastation and havoc they brought. the locusts breed in the region of the Sudan, Their migration would strike in February or March and would follow the prevailing winds either to Egypt or Palestine. A locust will consume its own weight each day. Locust swarms have been known to caver as many as four hundred square miles, and even one square mile could teem with over 100 million insects. If the locusts laid their eggs before being blown out to sea, the problem would recur in cycles. A single female laying her eggs in June could potentially result in eighteen million offspring within four months... The ecological destruction could cripple the economy for years. Sometimes fields would be so damaged as to have greatly reduced fertility. The destruction of trees would have even more devastating effects on the ecological balance. Not only would shade and wood supply be lost, but topsoil erosion would increase and the loss of forestation's contribution to the environment would accelerate the development of wasteland conditions."
The IVP Bible Backgrounds Commentary: Old Testament 760-761