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commissioning and attempted escape
“Son of Amittai, to Nineveh, go
And tell them of their great impending woe;
Their evil, like a stench, has come to me.”

But Jonah ran; he traveled down to Joppa.
(Wait, Jonah who? Oh, Amittai’s his poppa.)
Yes, Jonah, in his wisdom, tried to flee.

Escape was planned, a ship set sail for Tarsh’,
But God hurled winds and water strong and harsh;
A mighty tempest rose upon the sea.

“The ship will sink!” The men were all afraid;
So to their gods with fervent cries, they prayed,
And threw their precious cargo in the deep.

Below was Jonah; on his bed he laid.
The captain found him sleeping, irate said,
“Arise, beseech your god our ship be saved!”

“Let us cast lots!” The lot on Jonah fell.
“What actions have begot this evil spell?”
So Jonah told them how he’d misbehaved:

“I fear the LORD who made the sea and land,
But when He told me what for me he’d planned,
I ran off, thinking I’d escape unscathed.”

The sea grew more and more tempestuous.
“What shall we do, lest evil fall on us?”
Now more afraid, the men did naught but weep.

“What you must do is throw me in the sea,
For you are not at fault; blame falls on me.
If you do this, the tempest will subside.”

“We can’t do that!” So hard they rowed towards shore;
The waves increased, winds gusted all the more.
“O LORD, we all are perishing!” they cried.

“We’ve tried, O LORD, to save a life, not kill
A man, but now we bow to sovereign will.”
And when they threw him in, the storm just died.

Then bursting forth in worship, praise, and awe,
They sacrificed, made vows, and then they saw
A giant fish drag Jonah to the deep!

an aside
[Now pay attention, reader! You’ll find you need to choose,
For right here in the telling, there’s some we’re going to lose.
The turn the tale now takes here, some prefer not to wish,
For Jonah got pulled underneath, got swallowed by a fish!

True, sharks might drag their prey, or chew them up instead,
But swallowing men whole? That makes one shake one’s head!
While some assume a whale, the text omits that feature;
The Hebrew dag translates as “an aquatic creature.”
If Latin is your thing, the word you seek is cetus,
“A sea monster or whale,” but was there one could eat us?

Images of Monstro are conjured by that thought,
And little puppet boys who don’t heed ‘should’ and ‘ought,’
But animated Disney is easy to dismiss,
And so, perhaps, is Jonah, but Jesus tells us this:

“For just as Jonah was, those three days and three nights,
Midst belly of the fish,” beloved Matthew writes,
“so will the Son of Man (divine, yet lowly birthed),
Three days and three nights spend, in darkness in the earth.”

Perhaps a simile or rhetorical device,
Or an allusive tale, an allegory nice
Explains away this yarn (at least how it began),
Of Jonah’s run from God and His leviathan?

Methinks the best approach, if you are so inclined:
A focus on one word, the tiny little ‘sign’,
Connoting oft a work of God, indeed miraculous,
But supernatural means leave most a bit nonplussed.

But signs, while rare, gave weight to what the prophets said,
Cease speculative talk of fish alive or dead.
Aside completed, let’s return (at least that’s what I wish)
To what befell poor Jonah, now swallowed by the fish.]

(continue to 'Son of Amattai - 2 of 2')
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