(Audio and Text)
Title: From God’s Presence
Last week I jokingly promised that we would NOT be spending 7 years in the book of Jonah, and then I’m sure some of you looked at the fact that we are only covering one verse today and thought, “He’s going to try break some record here, and kill us in the process!”
Again, I promise you that we will move through this narrative much faster than we did Matthew, but today’s verse is so pivotal, that I wanted to give it adequate attention.
(read/pray)
But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
Tarshish:
Tarshish is placed on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea by several biblical passages (Isaiah 23, Jeremiah 10:9, Ezekiel 27:12, Jonah 1:3, 4:2), and more precisely: west of Palestine (Genesis 10:4, 1 Chronicles 1:7);
It is described as a source of various metals: “beaten silver is brought from Tarshish” (Jeremiah 10:9), and the Phoenicians of Tyre brought from there silver, iron, tin and lead (Ezekiel 27:12). The context in Isaiah 23:6 and 66:19 seems to indicate that it is an island, and from Palestine it could be reached by ship, as attempted by Jonah (Jonah 1:3) and performed by Solomon’s fleet (2 Chronicles 9:21).
Some modern scholars identify Tarshish with Tartessos, a port in southern Spain, described by classical authors as a source of metals for the Phoenicians, while Josephus’ identification of Tarshish with the Cilician city of Tarsus is even more widely accepted. However, a clear identification of Tarshish is not possible, since a whole array of Mediterranean sites with similar names are connected to the mining of various metals
POINT:
It is not critical to know exactly where Tarshish is (but it is safe to assume it’s West, whereas Nineveh is East) but what is important is the correlation that
“to Tarshish”=“from the presence of the Lord”
“from the presence” paniym (Hebrew) Can also correctly translate as “from the face”
One other quick note on the Hebrew being a rough translation to English:
“and went down into it” yarad (Hebrew) Literally: “He went down into the ship with them”
(Show Slide of Jonah’s Journey)
Q: Where Does Jonah’s Logic Fail?
A: You can not run from the presence of the Lord. (Omnipresence)
Psalm 139:7-10
Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend into heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.
If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there Your hand shall lead me,
And Your right hand shall hold me.
Why does Jonah disobey? (Spoilers Ahead)
I know that you know the answer to this, we covered it pretty thoroughly last week during our introduction…but I’m asking something a bit more academic here: Where in the text does it tell us why Jonah flees?
You have to jump forward all the way to Jonah’s argument with God in chapter 4, verse 2.
Jonah 4:2
So he prayed to the Lord, and said, “Ah, Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm….”
Close:
When we look at this verse, it screams to us the two main themes from this book. Does anyone remember what I said were the two main themes of Jonah from last week?
- The universality of Salvation to all peoples who believe.
- The need to obey God immediately.
And then, within that tapestry, there is one very sharp, very specific lesson that we can hold tight to today, from just verse 3.
So let me ask you, just reading verse 3, what is the practical lesson here?
Today Application: When you are set against God’s will, you will make decisions that make no logical sense whatsoever.
(Detox from sin concept of Tim Challies)