The End of Jonah is the Beginning of Wisdom 247 3. Truthfulness of the divine word JHWH first sent Jonah to proclaim the punishment of Nineveh’s evil (Jon 1,2). At the end, the sentence is either confirmed (affirmative reading) or reversed (rhetorical question). Nineveh’s impressive repentance produces a complication (26) which hangs unresolved until JHWH claims that contrary to Jonah he will not grieve and that punishment will be meted out. The narrative thus draws a full-circle with perfect closure. Nineveh was indeed destroyed, as were Sodom, Gomorrah and Jerusalem. During the Persian era, the audience was aware that Jerusalem’s recovery was a recent affair and that it did not offer any guarantee against a repetition of 586 BCE. Jonah ponders over the rise and fall of cities. The destruction of the qiqayon foreshadows the demise of Nineveh. Moreover, the affirmative reading corrects Jonas’ challenge. Jon 4,2 quotes Exod 34,6 but omits reliability (tma) from the list of divine attributes (27). Only the affirmative reading of the final verses restores the balance between mercy and justice and reasserts the reliability of the divine word. 4. Righteous anger If Jonah is meant to underline the importance of repentance, the reasons advanced by God for sparing Nineveh are odd. The most fantastic act of contrition does not get a passing mention in God’s “justification” for his attitude towards Nineveh. If God was relenting, it would be on account of the 120.000 adam that add up to their animals since they do not know their right from their left (28). On the contrary, the affirmative reading claims that however many the implorers for divine mercy, God does not change his mind (29). Hence the final verses use swj, a root not used as a divine attribute in the texts quoted by Jonah (30). swj comes from Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel where it is almost always used with a negation (31), revealing the formulaic character of the phrase within prophetic literature. Has anyone ever suggested that these categorical refusals to have mercy are hidden rhetorical questions implying that God would pity? In fact, the prophet’s sufferings equate him with the qiqayon and Nineveh, stressing that he is a tool in God’s hand like the gale, the fish, the plant, the worm, the scorching sun and the east wind. God can grow a plant overnight and kill it the next day, save a drowning runaway prophet and strike him once he delivered the message, delay impending judgment over a city… for a while (Quran 10:98). From this vantage point, Jonah’s desire for death (26) D.N. FREEDMAN, “Did God Play a Dirty Trick on Jonah at the End?”, Bible Review 6/4 (1990) 31. (27) COOPER, “Caprice”, 154, and thus Jonah ben Amittai forgot his patronym: see BEN ZVI, Signs, 43. (28) LANDES, “Dissonances”, 292. (29) BEN ZVI, Signs, 22 and 119 where Josiah’s reform (2 Kgs 23,26-27) is put in the perspective of the readers of Achaemenid Yehud. (30) J. JEREMIAS, Die Reue Gottes (Neukirchen-Vluyn 1975) 105. (31) Deut 7,16; 13,9; 19,13.21; 25,12; Isa 13,8; Jer 13,4; 21,7; Ezek 5,11; 7,4.9; 8,18; 9,5 (Qere).10; 16,5; 24,14. Ezek 20,17 and Joel 2,17 are the only instances of swj without negation in the Prophets.