The older book
Jonah
Someone greater than Jonah is here.
For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the huge fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Jonah 1:1-4:11 · Matthew 12:38-41 · Luke 11:29-32
The scene
God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh. Jonah goes the other way.
He gets on a ship heading for Tarshish, and Yahweh sends a violent storm. Jonah knows why it is happening and tells the terrified sailors to throw him into the sea. Eventually they do, and the sea becomes calm.
Yahweh sends a huge fish to swallow Jonah.
From inside the huge fish, Jonah describes what happened to him using the language of death. He cries out from Sheol, the place of the dead. The waters surround him. He goes down to the bottoms of the mountains and says that the earth barred him in forever.
"Yet you have brought my life up from the pit, Yahweh my God."Jonah 2:6
Jonah spends three days and three nights inside the fish before Yahweh commands it to spit him out onto dry land.
God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh again, and this time he goes. Jonah warns the city that judgment is coming. Nineveh repents, and God does not bring the destruction he had threatened against them.
Jonah is furious. He admits that this is why he ran away in the first place. He knew that God was gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness.
Centuries later, some scribes and Pharisees ask Jesus for a sign. Jesus gives them Jonah:
"For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the huge fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."Matthew 12:40
We don't have to guess about this connection. Jesus made it.
Jonah goes down into the sea and describes his experience using the language of Sheol and the pit. Three days later he comes out alive.
Jesus says Jonah's three days are the sign he gives for what is about to happen to him.
But Jesus doesn't stop there. He tells the people listening to him:
"The men of Nineveh will stand up in the judgment with this generation and will condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, someone greater than Jonah is here."Matthew 12:41
Nineveh heard Jonah and repented.
The point
Jonah knew what God was like. That was why he ran.
Sit with this
Someone greater than Jonah is here.Matthew 12:41