Work in Progress:

Book of Jonah

Depth-psychological Interpretation

Introduction:

The post-biblical narrative scriptures (Aggadah, Midrash, and Kabbalah) are a commentary on the biblical story. They deal with biblical motives with a new updated understanding. In a similar way, a depth-psychological analysis may reveal the story's symbolic content in a way closer to modern thought and at the same time establish a connection with religious tradition.

Summary of the four chapters:

Jonah is ordered by God to preach against Nineveh. Jonah runs away from this command to a boat. A violent storm arises. The sailors discover Jonah. Jonah knows that he has sinned and that he is the cause of the storm. He asks the sailors to throw him into the sea. They do this - and the storm subsides.

A big fish swallows Jonah and he remains in its belly for three days and three nights. He says a prayer of thanks for his deliverance. Once again God orders Jonah to go to Nineveh. Jonah prophesies the destruction of the city after forty days. But the inhabitants of Nineveh repent and God has mercy on them.

Jonah is dismayed because he feels frustrated that his prophecy was not fulfilled. Upon the first request by God he had already refused to go to Nineveh, but fled to Tharsis. He had inkling that God would have mercy. Therefore he now wants to die. Jonah leaves the town (in order to wait if his second prophecy will be fulfilled?). Jonah enjoys the gourd (or `castor-oil tree') which God had grown for him, and he grieved as God takes it away again. Thus God wants to demonstrate to him how he had mercy on Nineveh.

General commentary on the book of Jonah:

Little is said about the life of the prophet before and after what is written in the biblical story. (Only in II King 14:25 does he prophesy the victory of Jerobeam II on the Arameans.)

Most probably the book belongs to the post - exile period. Also language and style point to the 4th or 5th century. Many modern scholars see in the book a polemic tendency: the author wanted to stress that God's mercy relates to all human beings.

Different commentators pursue that Jonah is the least understood and mostly misused book of the Bible. Is it historical? The essential teaching of the book is that the love, care and forgiveness of God are not grudged to non-Jews. Envy is reproached.

As a parable, the narration serves to describe God's mercy. In the allegoric explanation Jonah is the representative of Israel, the people. His disappearance in the sea symbolizes the exile, his coming on land again, and the restoration of the empire. Like Jonah, so the people of Israel flee from the duty, which God has imposed on it.

Jonah in post-biblical scriptures:

In the Aggadah it is said that Jonah refused to go to Nineveh, because already earlier he failed to fulfill the Godly command, when he prophesized the destruction of Jerusalem but which was averted by repentance. This is an attempt to explain or to justify Jonah’s refusal.

It is further said, that the eyes of the fish served as windows; a pearl in the innermost of the fish shone and Jonah saw all the secrets of the waters or of the depth.

In Midrash Jonah, it is said that the belly of the fish is the underworld (sheol), according to Jonah (2,3): "Out of the belly of the netherworld cried I, And thou heardest my voice". And it is said: "and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights" (2,1).”These are the three days in which man is in the grave, and his body, his intestine split.” Here the underworld is identical with death and the freeing from the fish with resurrection of the dead.

Depth-psychological commentary:

The motive of being swallowed and the commentaries on the pearl are most important. Jonah does not follow the command of God immediately, and this brings about, paradoxically, a transformation of God: Jonah is saved by the whale and has in the darkness of the unconscious a numinous experience. The shining pearl is a symbol for the treasure to be found in the unconscious, in the darkness, in the belly of the whale. This insight is of great significance: Patience and perseverance in a conflict can bring about a clear solution.

The fact that Jonah talks to the sailors that he is the cause of the storm is of a high moral standard. He lets the sailors throw him into the sea, which equals a self-sacrifice.

Jonah obeys the second call of God to prophesy the destruction of Nineveh. He has to teach and preach against his will; i.e. he is under a kind of compulsion. The Self is stronger than the Ego. The Self demands a sacrifice. And once again Jonah experiences the supremacy of the Self: God has pity on the town and the prophecy of Jonah is not realized. Therefore he is called a false prophet. But then Jonah enjoys the castor-oil tree, which provides him with shade.

Being in the womb of the mother, in the belly of the fish, means being immersed into the realm of the mothers: into nature, into the night, into death. And then follows renewal. The night-sea-journey of Jonah is an archetypal image for individuation. Therapeutically, the Book of Jonah can help those who are afraid of the night, and possibly the depressed. Because depression can be looked upon symbolically as death, and when rebirth takes place, a waking-up from sleep and a getting out of depression takes place. With other words, there can be a meaning in depression, because in the unconscious transformation and rebirth takes place. It is an "Auseinandersetzung" with the powers of darkness.

The book of Jonah contains the motive of a renewal of consciousness by immersing into the unconscious. (Similar motives: are the Mikweh [ritual bath], baptism, bathing in the Jordan-river.)

Jonah is a sun-hero; i.e. he makes the night-sea-journey like the sun. One has to understand the way of the sun symbolically. The hero represents the development of consciousness, which after its course on the heaven of day comes to a place, where continuation and renewal of life is possible only by an "Auseinandersetzung" (dispute) with the powers of darkness. Therefore the night-sea-journey is an image of individuation. It is also the basis for every initiation.

The heroic deed of the hero consists in the fact not to fear the deadly darkness, which signifies the source of knowledge.

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