Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 141 · May 21
The Fare Thereof
“But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.”
Who was Jonah before the great fish?
The Old Testament mentions him once outside his own book. King Jeroboam the second "restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain, according to the word of the LORD God of Israel, which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai." So Jonah was no beginner. The prophecy recorded there came true and made his nation bigger, even under a king the same chapter says "did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD." Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah, and it sent him to Nineveh, the great city of the empire that would one day tear Israel apart.
Watch the verbs in today's verse, because every one of them goes the same way. He "rose up to flee," he "went down to Joppa," he "found a ship," he "paid the fare thereof," and he "went down into it." This one verse says "from the presence of the LORD" twice, at the start and at the end. And the going down continues. Jonah goes down "into the sides of the ship," and falls fast asleep in the storm. Later, praying from under the water, he says, "I went down to the bottoms of the mountains."
Jonah gives his reason himself, three chapters later, and it is the last one anybody would guess: "for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful." He ran because what he believed about God was right. He could see the errand ending with God sparing Nineveh before he had even packed.
Meanwhile the sailors, who began the night crying "every man unto his god," do everything well. They cast lots, they row hard to bring the ship back to land rather than throw him overboard, and in the end they "feared the LORD exceedingly," offering a sacrifice and making vows. Men who started the night praying to other gods came out of it better than the prophet who knew the true God. So ask yourself plainly: is there something you know about God that you have been avoiding acting on? If there is, remember what Jonah knew. The God you are running from is gracious and merciful, and He still calls His runaways back to the work, just as His word came to Jonah "the second time."
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 141 is What Do You Want (Mark 10:51).