Happy Thanksgiving! Here’s Jonah all in one place, finally. Like him and the Ninevites, we all have much to be thankful for.
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Thus ends, with a crash, the Book of Jonah.
This is the only time in the book that Jonah is happy about anything. Needless to say, it won’t last.
Jonah’s gourd probably isn’t a gourd at all, but a mistranslated castor-oil plant. “Gourd of the LORD” is more fun to say, though.
At this point, as he hopes against hope that God will change his mind and destroy Nineveh anyway, I like to imagine Jonah as Beavis, shaking his clenched fists in front of him: “Smite them! Smite them! Yeah! Uh, that[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
What’s that? It’s a lamassu, the quintessential symbol of Assyrian might! They put them at the gates of important cities like Nineveh.
You’d think the story would end when Jonah finally did his job and succeeded, causing the Ninevites to repent. But that’s not really what this book is about.
Jonah talks to God the way I talk to my therapist. Maybe I should be more afraid of my therapist.
The Neo-Assyrians were nice enough to leave behind a lot of art that enables me to draw period-accurate thrones and robes and beards and stuff.