followHIM - Jonah, Micah Part 1 • Dr. Joshua Sears • Nov. 21 - 27

Episode Date: November 16, 2022

Are covenants more than two-way promises? Dr. Joshua Sears explores Jonah and how the Lord uses covenantal relationships to save and serve his children.Please rate and review the podcast!Show Notes (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese): https://followhim.co/old-testament/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/follow-him-a-come-follow-me-podcast/id1545433056Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/15G9TTz8yLp0dQyEcBQ8BYThanks to the follow HIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Executive Producers, SponsorsDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: Marketing, SponsorLisa Spice: Client Relations, Editor, Show NotesJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Translation Team, English & French Transcripts, WebsiteAriel Cuadra: Spanish TranscriptsIgor Willians: Portuguese Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com

Welcome to Follow Him, a weekly podcast dedicated to helping individuals and families with their Come Follow Me study. I'm Hank Smith. And I'm John, by the way. We love to learn. We love to laugh. We want to learn and laugh with you. As together, we follow him. Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Follow Him. My name is Hank Smith. I am your host. I'm here with my fishy co-host, John, by the way. John, if I said the word fish out of the Old Testament, what does that make you think of? If you said whale, I would think of Jonah, but actually if you said fish, I'd probably think of Jonah too, actually. It says the Lord prepared a great fish and you're a great co-host. You swallow up our audience, John.

You do. You swallow up our audience. On what kind of a scale? That's funny. Wish I could speak whale. All right. John, you and I are not experts in these smaller prophets. So we needed to bring someone on who knows and understands these books of the Bible.

Who is with us today? Well, we're excited to have Dr. Josh Sears with us again. He was here for Genesis and also for Second Kings, and so I'll remind our listeners. Joshua Sears grew up in Southern California, served in the Chile Orsono Mission. He received a bachelor's in ancient Near Eastern studies from BYU, where he taught at the MTC and volunteered as an EMT. I love saying that. He was a bachelor's in ancient Near Eastern studies from BYU, where he taught at the MTC and volunteered as an EMT. I love saying that. He was an EMT at the MTC. He received an MA or master's from Ohio State University, a PhD in Hebrew Bible at the University of Texas at Austin. His research interests include Israelite prophecy, marriage and families in the ancient world, and the publication history of Latter-day Saint scripture.

I love that topic. I was in seminary the day they said, pass in your Bibles. We're giving you a new one. Wow. He is presented at regional and national meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature, BYU Education Week, the Sidney Sperry Symposium, and the Leonardo Museum Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls. His wife, Alice, is from Hong Kong and plays in Bells at Temple Square. They live in Linden with their five children.

We're really glad to have you back. Thanks for coming back on Follow Him. Glad to be here. Hey, John, those two episodes on Genesis and Second Kings, if we have any new listeners who are like, Oh, I wonder if those are any good. Oh my goodness. Let me tell you, go take the time to go back and listen to both of those. They're moving. They're beautiful. Educational. Yeah. They really are beautiful in every way. They were so good, Josh, not to set you up, Josh. You're like, Oh, that's quite a

bit of pressure. Josh, we're taking on the books of Jonah and Micah today. How do you want to go about this? What should we do first? Well, we're partway through the 12. We call them the minor prophets at the end of the Old Testament, these smaller books right there. So we should probably keep that general context in mind of what we've seen with Amos and what we're going to see later with Malachi and all these guys.

I know these minor prophets, especially some of these are not very familiar to us, and they can be full of images and teachings that can seem really strange or difficult, a little crazy sometimes, just some wild things going on here. I was trying to think hard coming in here, what's the best way we could frame these so that we can make the most sense of these? And I was really thinking the best thing that we might do to make sense of all the crazy little details in here is to really take a big, big step back and just remind ourselves about more big picture things, not lose the forest for the trees as we see these details.

Okay. I think that's always helpful. If we want to think of what's the big picture ideas that really give context for both of these books, that would be the covenant that God has made. And we've talked about that several times this year. I know you've had Carrie Muehlstein and you have had Jennifer Lane, for example, others that have been talking about the covenant throughout the year. But at the risk of a little repetition, I think it might be worth going back and covering a few things because I really think that they will pay dividends as we dive into Jonah and Micah. I think it was President Hinckley who said, repetition is the law of all learning. We don't fear repetition on follow him. And another reason this might be timely is because in this past month, the Liahona magazine came out

with a brand new article from President Russell L. Nelson that was all about the covenant. So that is the October 2022 Liahona. I've got a copy right here. And it features President Nelson's article on the cover. It's got a special one-page intro by a member of the 70, and then his article is the first thing. And it is titled The Everlasting Covenant by President Russell L. Nelson. If there's one thing I could say today to everybody, it would be, you don't necessarily finish this podcast. And what I have to say, go back and read President Nelson. That is the best use of your time right here. A few years ago, I coauthored an article with Kerry Muehlstein and Avram Shannon, who both been on the podcast this year. And we were trying

to explore the covenant. And as part of that, I went back and tried to read everything that President Nelson had ever written on this idea of covenant. And so based on that experience, I've got to say, I think this new Liahona article is like the best thing he's ever done. There's things where in the article we wrote before, we had to read this speech here and this talk here and this devotional over here, kind of connect some dots to figure some things out. Whereas in this new article, he just says it clear as day. I'm going to be assigning this to, I think all my students and all my classes from now on. It's worth your read. So I'm going to quote a few things from here and throughout our time today. I think I'll quote a few parts of what he says, because I think he says some things that

can give you a lot of insight into both Jonah and Micah and the rest of these prophetic books, because all the prophet books in the old Testament, in some way or another, are talking about the covenant. They're all dealing with it. So understanding this, especially with the help from President Nelson, can give us a lot of illumination on these small little books, especially. Yeah. How great to live in a time where we can read ancient prophets and then hot off the press, we can get a modern day prophet. That's just awesome. And I think it's going to be really illuminating putting these together. So here's one thing President Nelson said that's really interesting. So when you're thinking about, okay, well, what covenant are we talking about? And you

go to the scriptures, the two major covenants that you see again and again are the everlasting covenant and what we call the Abrahamic covenant. And President Nelson says this, the new and everlasting covenant and the Abrahamic covenant are essentially the same. Two ways of phrasing the covenant God made with mortal men and women at different times. So that's the first thing that we can kind of pick apart for just a couple minutes here. How are the everlasting covenant and Abrahamic covenant both the same, but also phrasing things a little bit differently. And you might look at it this way. What is God trying to do? Well, he's trying to work for our immortality and eternal life,

Moses 139. So how does he go about doing that? How does he save and exalt his kids? And I think there's at least two different ways you could tell the story of how God does that. Story one might go something like this. A long time ago, we all lived in the premortal life with our heavenly father. He wanted us to grow and progress and become like him. And so he developed a plan that would help us to do that. He knew that in order to progress and become like him, we needed to enter into a special relationship with him where we would work towards this goal and he would help us and together would be able to achieve this. So that relationship

is the everlasting covenant. And he knew that as we came, that would require coming to earth and living life here and then moving on from there to the spirit world and kingdoms of glory. But we needed help because here on earth would be subject to sin and death. And so the savior Jesus Christ volunteered to perform his atoning sacrifice to help us conquer both physical and spiritual death, heal from all the trauma we experience here so that we can return to God's presence better than we were before, inheriting all the blessings that he has for us. So that's one way to tell the story of what God is doing to save his kids. Here's a second story, story number two, a different way to tell it. A long time ago in ancient history, earth was filled with wickedness. The earth was filled with violence.

Hardly anybody knew about God's covenant, let alone was keeping it. And God wanted to change that and save the world from itself. So he called Abraham and Sarah, this family that was keeping the everlasting covenant, and he made a covenant with them wherein they and their descendants, the family of Israel, would take upon the responsibility of living the gospel, being a light to the nations, and taking the gospel to all the nations of the earth, sharing with them the blessings of eternal life and salvation. So from starting with Abraham and Sarah for the rest of human history clear till the second coming, missionary work and the spread of the gospel and the administration of the covenant would be bound up in this one family line. Through all their highs and lows, all the different places they would go, the destiny of humanity is going to be tied up with the fortunes of this family so that through them, all families of the earth

could be blessed. Jesus Christ, as the Redeemer of Israel, guides Israel, gives revelation to them, helps them, scatters them, gathers them, and he's there to save them from all their troubles so that they can fulfill their mission and responsibility in this covenant. So that's maybe two ways of telling the story. And they're both, they're a little bit different, but they're also interconnected in so many points. So you can think of the everlasting covenant describing, it's like a big cosmic journey. We're in the premortal life. We come here and then we go on to kingdoms of glory. It's this big, epic, huge perspective. The Abrahamic covenant is basically still God trying to save his kids. It's still the same program, but it zooms way in here to earth.

It gets boots on the ground. Now this is where you get your hands dirty, focusing on this mortal life and history. As we know it, dealing with the problems here on earth and our large human community that we live in, not just our individual cosmic journey right there. So they're interconnected. Jesus Christ is at the heart of both of these, but the Abrahamic covenant is just zooming way in. Everything assumed about the everlasting covenant is part of the Abrahamic covenant, but we've got this focus now on missionary work and Christ guiding the house of Israel to be able to share the everlasting covenant with everybody throughout human history. Yeah, that's excellent. I remember Josh in class, I've asked before, what is the gathering of Israel? And most often someone will

say, oh, that's missionary work. And I'd say, well, missionary work is part of the gathering of Israel, but that's not entirely what it is. I think that your overview has helped us see that, that maybe we're going to focus in on Jonah, him as a missionary. Yep. All these are going to come into play. Yeah. But this isn't all it is. There's much more to it than that. There's temple covenants, exaltation. Everything is bound up in this. The everlasting covenant is the plan of salvation. It's the gospel of Jesus Christ. But I love calling it a covenant instead of, you know, calling it a plan. That's helpful. The gospel is good news.

All of those bring things. But I kind of like referring to it as a covenant because covenants are fundamentally about relationships. So it kind of stresses that, that this is about a relationship we have with God. President Nelson says this, when you and I enter that covenant path, we have a new way of life. We thereby create a relationship with God that allows him to bless and change us. The covenant path leads us back to him. If we let God prevail in our lives,

that covenant will lead us closer and closer to him. All covenants are intended to be binding. They create a relationship with everlasting ties. That's a theme of his articles. How does the covenant bind us to God and what does that look like? One thing he mentions that's important is that baptism is your initial covenant that gets you on that covenant path. It's how you're initiated into both the Abrahamic and the everlasting covenant right there, taking on that, you're taking that step into that big journey to become like God and those responsibilities here in this life to share with others and help others and bring peace to the world right there. So that all starts with baptism. And that's one reason why baptism is so important. This is how you formalize that

relationship and start on this journey. Yeah. You become is right. King Benjamin says this day, he has spiritually begotten you. Yeah. So all of this will come to play as we're reading Jonah and Micah. Like you said, Hank, the fact that Jonah's got to be a missionary is tied into his responsibility. That's what Israel's supposed to do is go share. When God is chastising the people for not doing the right thing, the everlasting covenant helps us recognize how high the stakes are. This is how they're going to complete their mission of coming to earth. And the fact that they're responsible for then sharing that with everyone else, there's a lot of responsibility there. And that's why the prophets are sometimes so hard on Israel because they've got such a big job to do. And I can't imagine stakes that are higher than this as far as trying to keep our

covenants and stay true to the Lord. Excellent. There's one more thing President Nelson talks about that will pop up in both Jonah and Micah I want to read here. President Nelson talks about a doctrinal concept that the Israelites had a word for in Hebrew, but in English, we don't have a good word for. But understanding the Hebrew word can help us kind of figure out what these prophets are talking about in their context. So this is what President Nelson says. Once we make a covenant with God, we leave neutral ground forever. God will not abandon his relationship with those who have forged such a bond with him. In fact, all those who have made a covenant with God have access to a special kind

of love and mercy. In the Hebrew language, that covenantal love is called hesed. So this is the word where we have no good English equivalent, and that's what President Nelson says. He points out that in the King James Bible, hesed is translated a whole bunch of different ways. Loving kindness, love, mercy, goodness, loyalty, all sorts of different things. So since it appears some 250 times in the Old Testament, but since it's translated a dozen different ways, we usually miss all the connections between the passages and the fact that for the Israelites, this was a very kind of technical specific term there. So President Nelson says all those English words capture part of what chesed means, but not all of it. So he says chesed is a unique term describing a covenant relationship in which both parties are bound to be loyal and faithful to each other. And he says

this several times that in a covenant relationship, so then hesed is like the special love and loyalty that the two parties have for each other. And it creates a special sort of love and loyalty in there that you don't have with people outside the covenant relationship. Now, one trick with this is, and I'm sure you two have experienced this. Whenever you say anything like this, somebody's going to get offended and say, what you're saying that God loves your people more than other people? That can sound really negative and like it's kind of being exclusive. So President Nelson tries to work us through this a little bit. So by way of analogy, he compares this to a marriage relationship, which is a kind of covenant. So he says, a celestial marriage is such a covenant relationship. A husband and wife make a

covenant with God and with each other to be loyal and faithful to each other. So imagine this, everybody on earth is our brothers and sisters, and we should love everybody. In theory, I don't do the best at this with everybody, but in theory, we should love everybody. But when two people get married to each other, that creates a special relationship in which they now have a special kind of love that's special just to the two of them, and a special kind of loyalty that's special just to the two of them and a special kind of loyalty that's special just to the two of them. That's not trying to take away from the love you should have for all your brothers and sisters, but you should love your spouse in a way that's different and deeper and richer because of that special relationship that the two of you have with your covenant. So President Nelson compares these. So he says,

just as marriages and families share a unique lateral bond that creates a special love, so does the new relationship formed when we bind ourselves by covenant vertically to our God. Right there. So that's the kind of analogy there. God loves all his children. We're not trying to take away from the love he has for everyone, but when people form a covenant with him, it's now a special relationship that does create a special loving dynamic in there that is not available outside of the covenant. But this is not meant to be something that's exclusive saying, oh, now we're in the covenant. We're better than all you people out there. President Nelson says that the covenant path is open to all. We plead with everyone to walk that path with us. No other work is so

universally inclusive. The relationship is open to everyone. Yeah. So it's not like he's trying to exclude the rest of the world from this love. He wants everybody to experience it. So the general authority introduction to the article says this too. President Nelson helps us see how choosing a covenant people wasn't an act of exclusivity, but rather the path to an all-encompassing inclusivity. It's meant to reach everyone. Yes. So we're not trying to say, yeah, God loves these people better than you.

In a sense, yes, there's a special kind of love and loyalty there, and that has a real impact in how he relates to people. But he wants everybody to come experience that. We're trying to get everybody to come experience that richer, deeper kind of love that you can have within the bonds of a covenant. So maybe it's not a coincidence then that in the scriptures, God often compares himself to like a husband marrying Israel as a bride. He's using a covenant relationship there as an analogy to his covenant Israel, just

like President Nelson does. And even inside of Israel, Josh, each tribe has different responsibilities. The tribe of Judah, President Nelson says, was given responsibility to prepare the world for the first coming of the Lord. The tribe of Joseph, through his sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, was given the responsibility to lead in the gathering of Israel, to prepare the world for the second coming of the Lord. So those both could sound exclusive as well, but they're not. They're just like John says, it's like being chosen to mow the lawn. You're being chosen to throw the family reunion. You're in charge. You got to send out the

invitations and make sure everybody knows that it's available. Yeah. So we're all working together here. And the fact, once you enter into that covenant, it really forever after changes your relationship to God. So this is what President Nelson says about that. Because God has hesed for those who have covenanted with him, he will love them. He will continue to work with them and offer them opportunities to change. He will forgive them when they repent. And should they stray, he will help them find their way

back to him. So in other words, God promises throughout the scriptures. And when you look for the word hesed, he'll do this, where he says, even if you break the covenant and you're not showing love and loyalty to me, I will never break the terms of the covenant. I will always show love and loyalty to you. That means that he'll help us out. He offers all sorts of blessings to being in the covenant. It means that when you sin and break the covenant, he'll readily forgive you. He's happy to restore the relationship to the way it had been. And when people get off the covenant path and they're straying, it also means that he'll

come after you. It means that he might come after you and humble you. Try to give you these experiences that'll encourage you to get back on the covenant path. Because once you've made that covenant and you both agreed, okay, eternal life is the goal. We're working towards this. We're trying to have you become like me. Then he is going to just tenaciously be after you. He will not give up on you. Exactly. So that means he might be reaching out extra to get people who've made a covenant back on the path versus those who have never made a covenant with him, because that's what Chesed is all about, is that tenacious loyalty, that drive to love and help people that have made the covenant.

That's why it's so important that we're inviting everyone to get baptized. Missionaries do this work. Once you're in that covenant, no matter how the rest of your life goes, he is going to be after you and he'll never give up on you. He even says to Israel, I'll even scatter you in order to save you. Scattering is all part of the process of humbling them, teaching them, using them to fulfill this mission because this is what they agreed to do. And even if they've lost sight of that, he has not lost sight of that. He's always fixed on that goal. This is fantastic. So Josh, let's restate a couple of things just to make sure John and I get it. John, one, this family of Israel has been chosen to bless the world and to give the covenant to

all the world. And God is going to work with them much like a husband and wife relationship. He's asking them to come into an intimate relationship with him and invite anyone in to this family of Israel. And that's going to be done through missionary work, through temple work. But sometimes Israel doesn't do their part of the covenant. And so God will forgive them when they repent. He will help them when they stray. He will help them find their way back to him. You feel like I understand at least that portion? Yeah, that's great. And that helps us understand the context for a lot of these prophetic books are saying, because when Israel goes astray, which they often have in these books, because of his

chesed and that loyalty to them being not just covenant individuals, but a covenant people, that means he's going to keep working with them, even if it means humbling and punishing. That's a form of helping for him because he's trying to get them back on track. And because Israel's responsibility is to take the blessings of the everlasting covenant to all nations of the earth, God has to find a way to still make that work. Even if Israel's going way off, he's got to problem solve and work with them and try and try again, even if it takes thousands of years so that they can ultimately fulfill their mission to take the blessings of the covenant to every people on the planet. So you'll see all those dynamics at play in these covenant books as these books are exploring

the implications of all these ideas. And if there's one thing I've learned this year, studying the old Testament is the Lord will not give up on Israel. Yeah. He's got a really long game, thousands of years, this plan. So as you watch how he interacts with Israel as a people, you can try to figure out, okay, well, how does that mean he reacts with me as an individual? If he's patient for thousands of years with Israel as a group, that means I think he's pretty patient with you as well. You can watch that dynamic between individual and group. Okay. So I love what you've done here. The new and everlasting covenant is a broader kind of

cosmic eternal view of the whole thing. We get down here on earth, and it's named after Abraham, which is great. But even Abraham said, I sought for the blessings of my fathers. And you're like, wait a minute, who are Abraham's fathers? Because God made a covenant with Adam and Enoch. But that idea of you're going to bear the ministry, you're going to bless all of the families of the earth. So gathering of Israel isn't just missionary work, it's getting them to the temple where the highest blessings offered to families are. So that Abrahamic covenant named after Abraham, we're all part of it.

So that takes more of a right now worldview Abrahamic covenant, maybe we could say it like that. And I'm part of that. I love what Elder Bednar did at one of his conference talks about saying, going on a mission isn't something you do, it's something you are, because you are Abraham's seed. Do you remember that talk? I do, yeah. Becoming a missionary. Yeah, becoming a missionary. Not just going on a mission, but becoming a missionary. He made that thing. And so, this big picture of the covenant, I remember Dr. Robert L. Millett that we've had on the podcast before. And this could have been 30 years ago, kind of sensing there was a lack of covenant consciousness.

And I feel like all of us have really learned more about that. And President Nelson, as you just found out, Josh, has done a lot of talks about this, about we're covenant Israel and that identity with the young adults recently, what was the three identities to remember? I'm a child of God, I'm a child of the covenant, and I'm a disciple of Christ. And so now we get, okay, this is who we are, not just what we're supposed to do, but this is who we are, and we have that relationship with God. Now, let's help fulfill that covenant. So, did I get that right, kind of? Perfect, and it's really helpful through these books and the rest of the Old Testament, watch for that covenant language. Anytime it mentions covenants or gathering or God saying,

my people, and even sometimes it requires digging a little bit behind the scenes and looking at the Hebrew, like with the word hesed, it kind of hides most places. But when you know what you're looking for, it gives you whole new ways of looking at passages. So here's one example that will be relevant later in Micah and Jonah. Exodus 34 verses six and seven, one of the most important passages in the entire old Testament. Exodus 34. Yeah. 34 verses six and seven. Okay. God talking to Moses on Sinai. And I can claim that this is one of the most important passages because it's quoted in the rest of the old Testament about two dozen times. So in the Old Testament itself, in ancient Israel, they saw this passage as just tremendously important. It's about Jehovah explaining his own

nature. And so when they want to talk about the nature of God, this is the classic passage that they go back to. So it says, and the Lord Jehovah passed by before him, Moses, and proclaimed, Now that word goodness there is hesed in Hebrew. So he's abundant in hesed, that kind of covenant love and loyalty there. And you see how goodness is nice, but it just doesn't capture that full sense of what we're getting at, the covenant context and the loyalty and the love that's built into that right there. Verse seven keeps going, keeping mercy for thousands. Mercy there is the same word. It's hesed. They've translated it two different ways within a line right there. So he's abundant in hesed and he keeps hesed for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. And then it goes on to talk about his justice. And that will by no means clear the guilty.

And the Joseph Smith translation has rebellious. So this isn't just that you've messed up. It's that you're an open rebellion and defiance. Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children to the third and the fourth generation. So you've got this contrast here. Some people go, wait, why is he visiting sins on grandkids or something? But I think what's going on, it's trying to contrast that big number at the beginning of the verse, the thousands of generations for which he keeps mercy versus the three or four for which he enacts justice here. You can tell it's a very lopsided number right there. So he's just and merciful, but the scales are heavily weighted towards him wanting to put out mercy. So this is his description of himself, and he's got the word hesed in there twice, stressing that special covenant love and loyalty there. So hold that thought there,

because we will return to this passage later. It comes up in both Jonah and Micah, because again, the prophets look to this as inspiration as they're working through these ideas. Excellent. Josh, you said that the new and everlasting covenant, this covenant, the covenant that President Nelson is talking about could be said as the plan of salvation. Maybe we do a disservice when we teach the plan of salvation without talking about the covenant, because I could do a plan of salvation on the board with a bunch of circles and lines and never really bring up the covenant. Yeah. When I used to teach at the MTC, we'd get to lesson two of preach my gospel. And, you know, missionaries use a lot of visual aids to teach the plan of salvation. And you can buy a lot of commercial ones that have pretty pictures

and puzzle pieces you put together and things like that. My one caution to the missionaries was this, be careful as you teach the plan that it's not just a roadmap. We're here. Then we go here. Then we'll go here or here. Then we go here, here, here. And it's just a bunch of places like that. That's the skeleton, but that doesn't have the life behind it. I love the visual in Preach My Gospel itself, the church's official one, the graphic there. It's very simple and unassuming, and it shows the progression of the places, but then in big old letters underneath everything else, it says, the atonement of Jesus Christ makes salvation possible. As if to say, don't get so

lost in the details of the here and there that you miss that. Jesus Christ, the cross, sin and forgiveness, the atonement, the covenant, what we're trying to get with all of this. Those are the big picture things. So yeah, I think it's very possible to get lost in circles and lines and kind of miss the reason behind all this. Right. This can't be something that we talk about in January, the beginning of the Old Testament year, and then move on because it's throughout the Old Testament. We can remind ourselves that when the angel showed Nephi that vision of the last days, and Nephi saw that Bible, that book, the angel explained to him that the Bible containeth the covenants of the Lord, which he hath made unto the house of Israel,

and also many prophecies of the holy prophets. And then the angel repeats, it contains the covenants of the Lord, which he hath made unto the house of Israel. Therefore, it's of great worth unto the Gentiles. So the angel, the way he frames the importance of the Bible is that it's a container for those covenants with Israel, for the Abrahamic covenant right there. And when he says it contains the prophecies of the prophets, I don't think he's talking about a completely separate thing. When we recognize these prophetic books are part of the Old Testament that has the history of the covenant, describes the covenant, and the prophetic books elaborate on the covenant, explore the depths and plumb the ins and outs of the covenant there. So it's all about that ultimately. And I think that's very clearly what the angel's saying to Nephi. But what he goes on to say is the Gentiles miss sight of that. They don't recognize the significance of the Bible. They don't see the importance of the covenant. So the framing is off,

even though they have the words right there. the Book of Mormon, then helps restore that covenant consciousness. So then you can go back to the Bible and go, aha, that's what it's about. Yeah. Things which are plain and most precious, semicolon. That's not the end of the sentence. With all our plain and precious things, no, they're taken from the gospel of the Lamb. Many parts which are plain and most precious, semicolon, and also many covenants of the Lord have they taken away. That's the first Nephi 13, 26 part. And I always want to, don't just, don't forget that part, the covenants, that the restoration brought a restoration of the new and everlasting covenant. Yeah. And you see in Christian history, the way a lot of people

interpreted it, it was, they said, yeah, when Jesus came, the Abrahamic covenant was done. It's like the law of Moses. It's over. It was temporary. The Jews had their shot and they blew it. And now we Gentile Christians are God's people. Whereas the book of Mormon pushes back on that hard to say, no, the law of Moses was fulfilled when Jesus came, but the covenant that he made with Israel is not all fulfilled. That's still the program clear till the second coming. That is it. Love it. So when you don't understand that, you misunderstand all of human history and what the Lord's trying to do. That's not a big misunderstanding. You just misunderstood all of human history.

I mean, exceedingly great many do stumble. That's how the angel puts it, right? Yeah, that's exactly right, Josh. I love this overview that we've done because then it helps you see each individual book, not just the ones we're going to study today, but each individual book then relates back to the covenant. Do you know what I love too? And what I've noticed so many times, particularly some of the recent ones we've done, just about this metaphor of Christ being the bridegroom and we being the bride. What a metaphor. How do you not believe then that eternal marriage is what we aspire to when that metaphor is used

so often, what we as individuals want for us as part of that? But I also think when we talk about some really strong words in the Book of Mormon and elsewhere about the whore of all the earth, I like to tell my students in Isaiah when it gives that long list of, I call it, successive excessive accessories about all the ornaments that the daughters of Zion are wearing and then say, now look, we, allful than us trying to attract other lovers when we are supposed to be engaged or, how would you say it, betrothed to Christ? He's the bridegroom, and I think that helps the metaphor to see the worst kind of rejection you could imagine would be in a marriage covenant. And that's the metaphor that the Lord used. I thought, well, that's good. I think that's a crucial pickup of the Old Testament, isn't it, Josh? That metaphor? Yep. The Lord's going to say that in Micah, you know, look at all I have done for

you. How could you possibly have betrayed me like this? You know, I'm gone after other gods, spiritual adultery. And what's great about the metaphor as well of a marriage relationship between the Lord and all of Israel is that I can see in my own marriage, my wife doesn't expect me to be perfect, but she expects loyalty. And the Lord is the same way with Israel. I don't need you to be perfect, but I need you to be loyal. I need you to have one love, me. And repentance is a part of marriage. I'm sorry I did that. I didn't mean to,

but I'm loyal. I'm still here. I want to be here. Yeah. Love it. So Josh, do you want to jump into Jonah yet? That was good, Hank. Let's jump into Jonah. I like that. Should we dive in to Jonah? Let's swallow Jonah today. And all right. So book of Jonah, just four chapters. It's refreshingly short. Yes. Honestly, of all the 12 prophets, Jonah, I think has to be easily the most famous one, right? Everybody, whether you're Christian or Jewish or non-believer, everyone knows the Jonah story. It's famous. Jonah and the great fish. So one reason it's famous is because it's so unusual for a prophetic book. We've got Isaiah, you've got Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Amos, Micah, Habakkuk, all these other ones.

Jonah, among all of those, is unique in being a narrative rather than a book of prophecies, like every other prophetic book. So from ancient times, Jews have always placed it in this prophetic book collection. So they see it as a prophetic literature, but it's just done very differently where it's a narrative rather than prophecies. And there's nothing to suggest that Jonah wrote this. He's always referred to in the third person. He doesn't come across very good. So probably some other prophet wrote this about Jonah, but it's being done in a way to teach something using his story. So it's a very different way of teaching a message though, than the straight prophecies and quoting the Lord,

like you get in all the other books. He's also unusual in that Jonah is the only prophet in the Old Testament, not just to prophesy about foreign nations, but to actually be told to travel to a foreign nation and talk to them. Elisha does that once, but Jonah is the only other one. So lots of unusual stuff about that from the get-go. Of course, one perennial question that people have had with this, well, it's a narrative, but what kind of a narrative is it? Is it a historical narrative where we're like a journalist documenting exactly what happened to this guy, or is it more like a parable, an allegory that's using the story to teach a message, but not necessarily describing what Jonah actually did? So that's using the story to teach a message, but not necessarily describing what Jonah actually did. So that's a long time debate. I don't feel like I need to

settle that question for anybody. You can see it how you want, but I'll make just a couple observations for what it's worth. Number one might be that one reason people have seen this as not historical is because you've got these miracles like being swallowed by the fish and how could that really happen? I would say just as a believing Christian, I don't have a problem with that in theory. I like what the Bible dictionary says that once you accept the resurrection, the ultimate miracle, all other miracles cease to be improbable. Small potatoes compared to the resurrection from the dead. And for somebody who can create the earth, for somebody who can travel between space and time,

putting a guy inside a fish doesn't seem like a big deal for someone if we believe he really can do those other things. Yeah. So something like that is not a problem for me. Him breathing in the whale for three days and not getting eaten alive by stomach acids. God can do so much. If he needed to keep him alive in there, he could. So for me, that's really a non-issue. So the second point I'd make though, is that all that being said,

there are other reasons why people thought that this might be written more as like a parable or allegory, something like that. Not having to do with whether you believe in miracles or not, but just the way that the book is written. There's a lot of stuff in the book that appears to be along the lines of satire and kind of everything is like the opposite. Jonah is the anti-prophet. He doesn't listen to God. He goes the wrong way. He preaches to the worst kind of people and has the most amazing success of any prophet in history. And there's other satirical elements in here might be the fact that, for example, all the Gentiles who encounter Jonah immediately repent despite what he does with them.

Or the fact that even cows are presented as praying for their sins and fasting and putting on sackcloth and ashes. So you get a lot of these kind of exaggerated fantastical details there. So even though I believe in miracles, I'm not sure what I would do with cows literally. Cows repenting? Yeah, repenting and putting on sackcloth and ashes. So I'm comfortable with either way. I'm comfortable seeing this as being based on a historical story. I'm comfortable with this being written as kind of a parable there too. What I think we need to do is not get so bogged down in the historical details, like what kind of a species of fish was it, that you lose sight of the message.

And that often happens. People get so bogged down in debating if it was a fish or a whale that they miss what the book's actually about. And it has some really important stuff to say. So what we do know is, you know, it says in the first one that the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai. And he is mentioned in a historical narrative elsewhere in the Old Testament, that second Kings chapter 14. So Bible authors, they put these little phrases in there because they want you to link things together. So I'll really quick go to 2 Kings 14 and just read what it says about Jonah there, because I think the author of Jonah wants you to be aware of that story coming in here. So 2 Kings 14, this has Jonah in the northern

kingdom. He'd be living around the ninth century, so 100 years before Isaiah. If you go to about verse 23, 2 Kings chapter 14, in the 15th year of Amaziah, the son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam, the son of Joash, the king of Israel, began to reign in Samaria and reign 41 years. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. He departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin. He restored the coast of Israel or the border 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, the prophet, which was of Gath helper. For the Lord saw the affliction of Israel, that it was very bitter for there was not any shut up nor any left nor any helper for Israel. So that's the Jonah story you get in Kings. And there's a few interesting things about that, that I think will come into

play here in the book of Jonah. Number one is that Israel was wicked. They weren't doing things perfectly, but God saw that their affliction was great and they have no helper. So he still helped them re-expand their borders to what they used to have been and get back some lost territory. So that's an interesting message on God working with imperfect people and not having a perfect standard before he'll come help you out when he sees that you're in distress. So that'll become interesting as Jonah seems to have a much higher standard for the foreigners he's working with, where he wants just justice for them when he's already prophesied good for Israel, even though they weren't doing things great either. And then the other interesting thing is in the book of Amos, in chapter six of Amos, verses 13 and 14, Amos prophesies that because Israel's wicked, the territory from the

entering of Hamath under the sea of the plain is going to get lost to Israel. It's like a complete reversal of what Jonah says. That's interesting that you get Amos, who's a God prophet we really like, prophesying the exact opposite of what Jonah says. And Jonah's got kind of a suspicious character. So that also puts kind of a red flag on him for whatever that's worth. That's interesting. So I think as you get into verse one of Jonah, the Bible authors are assuming that you're kind of connecting that, cross-referencing that back to that story there. So does that mean that Jonah is a historical character then? I think that means that there was a Jonah because he appears in this historical book, but it may not mean still that the book of Jonah as written is all to be taken historical. The author may not have intended it that way.

Actually, on that note, lest anyone's thinking I'm a heretic for suggesting such a thing, I've got a book here of church history. And here's an interesting story that's relevant here. In October 1922, so this is this church history book, it says that the first presidency received a letter from somebody asking about the position of the church with regard to the literality of the Bible. And then two members of the first presidency, Charles W. Penrose and Anthony W. Ivins, writing for the first presidency, answer that. And they say the Bible is the word of God as far as it's translated correctly, but there are some issues with the Old Testament. And then they give an example of Jonah. They wrote that while they thought Jonah was a real person, they said it was possible that the story as told in the Bible was a parable common

at the time. The purpose was to teach a lesson, and this is a quote from their letter, it is of little significance as to whether Jonah was a real individual or one chosen by the writer of the book to illustrate what is set forth therein. Close quote. I think if the first presidency, even though it's 100 years ago, was comfortable with the idea that this is mostly a parable or some of it's a parable, we can be fine with that too. And you don't have to see it that way just to throw out some options there for people who want to see it one way or the other. Excellent. I think most of us know the gist of the story here. Jonah is told in verse two, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city and cry against it

for their wickedness has come up before me. So then in verse three, Jonah does rise up, but then he flees. Is this the first we've heard of Nineveh, Josh? We know about Nineveh later in history after Jonah, it's going to be the capital of the Assyrian empire. So it is a big role. And Nineveh is first mentioned back in Genesis. You've got these cities rising up in Mesopotamia, like Babylon. And Nineveh is back there and it calls it Nineveh, that great city. So I think this is an illusion back there. And you've got Nimrod and people that are over there that are wicked. So calling it Nineveh, that great city, I think is meant to invoke Genesis and seeing Nineveh as kind of an archetype for wickedness that you get over there, like these

big urban centers from Mesopotamia are supposed to be back in the early chapters of Genesis. Okay. So go to this wicked city. In the manual, it mentions something that I think is really helpful. It says Nineveh was part of the Assyrian empire. And we've talked a lot about Assyria when we've talked about Isaiah, the events of the 10 tribes being captured and taken off by the Assyrians and the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem. It says an enemy of Israel known for its violence and cruelty. So remembering what we know about Assyria, kind of a cruel military empire. So where's Jonah being called

to go? Yep. Straight to the heart of it. I mean, I think I'd go, I got to head down to Joppa first. Give me a sec. I think I might be that guy too. I mean, I can't blame the guy. Yeah. And I've seen some people recount the story where they say, oh, Assyria was so militaristic. He was probably scared to go, but the story doesn't say that. And insyria was so militaristic, he was probably scared to go. But the story doesn't say that. And in chapter four, he's going to give his reason for not going. And he basically says, because I don't like them. That's what it gets to. So I think you're right to point this out. He's not scared for his life. In fact, he'd rather be dead than preach to them. So his life isn't the issue. It's that he really hates their guts, to put it bluntly right there. For the reasons you're talking about, I think they are an enemy who's known for their cruelty and everybody hates them. We have whole

other prophetic books kind of celebrating their fall. So Jonah then rises up and he flees to Joppa. He gets on a ship and instead of rising up like God told him to do, he goes down to Joppa. He goes down to the ship and later he'll go down into the water. He's just going down, down, down, rather than rising up like he was supposed to do right there. And then, you know, in verse four, it says the Lord sent out a great wind. The Hebrew verb there is he, God hurled a wind. It's the same verb translated as cast forth in the rest of the chapter several times. So God casts out this big wind. There's a mighty tempest in the sea. So the ship was like to be broken. And then you've got the mariners.

These mariners, based on the port here, are going to be Gentiles, which is important. Remember, all these prophetic books are about the covenant and this dynamic between Israel, the covenant people, and Gentiles, these people that are not part of the covenant. So these are Gentile sailors, and they're afraid for their life. They're crying out to every man to his God. They're casting out the ship's cargo. And Jonah's down there fast asleep. Again, everything about Jonah is just the opposite of what you expect.

Everyone's panicking and he's just asleep. So they come to him and say in verse six, what meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise. He's been going down. This guy's saying, get back up. I need to use this with my teenagers. What meanest thou, O sleeper? O sleeper, call upon thy God.

Get up and say your morning prayers right there. So everybody's praying to their God. You do yours in case we can find the God that will stop this so that we perish not. And then they cast lots and the lot falls upon Jonah. So to them, that indicates that he's responsible for the storm, which they recognize as being supernatural. And then they, verse eight, they ask him, what's your story? What's going on here?

And he responds in verse nine, I'm a Hebrew and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which made the sea and the dry land. And this is a really weird statement. Either he's recognizing the foolishness of what he's done, or this is an ironic statement where he's like, yeah, I worship the one true God who's master of land and sea. But this is the guy, of course, that went out to the sea to try to escape from this God. So he has not been putting what he believes into practice here. He's like, I now fear him because he's found me. Yep. So then the men are exceedingly afraid. And then they knew that he ran from the Lord

because he told them and they say, what shall we do? In verse 12, Jonah says, cast me forth. That's the same word again is God hurling out the storm. Hurl me forth into the sea so that the sea will be calm. And there's two ways you could read this. One is that Jonah is being self-sacrificing here by saying, yeah, throw me overboard and you guys save yourselves. That could be a positive way to look at it. There's a negative way to look at this too, Because Jonah, why couldn't he just throw himself overboard?

Instead, he tells them to do it. But then that leaves them the problem of they've got his blood on their hands. And they're really worried about that because in verse 14, they have a whole prayer to Jehovah saying, please, please, please don't put this guy's blood on their hands. So Jonah could be making them do it. And then the responsibility is theirs, not on himself. So that would be less selfless. And also, you got to ask yourself, so later Jonah says he'd rather be dead than go save those people

in Nineveh. So is he still trying to avoid that awful fate of preaching to those people? Because if he'd rather be dead, then asking him to have them throw him overboard is not that big of a deal because he might be still trying to escape the responsibility here. You know, kill me now. He's going to say that twice later. So this guy constantly has a death wish to avoid things he doesn't like. And the interesting thing is these guys are nice guys. They don't immediately cast him over in verse 13. They try their best to save everybody first. And then only after they've exhausted all their efforts, do they resort to throwing him over. So then they do, they throw him over. They have this prayer, Lord, please don't hold this against

us. And then in verse 16, it's interesting. The men feared the Lord, feared Jehovah exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. So in verse five, they're afraid of the storm and they're praying to their gods. And Jonah is this guy who fears Jehovah. And now they fear Jehovah too. They've kind of converted in a way here. And this is kind of a theme of the book of this like instant Gentile conversions. Gentile conversion, which rarely happens, but happens around Jonah. Apparently all of it rarely happens. And he's the one being disobedient Jehovah, but these guys immediately are doing everything in their power to do it the right way. It's an interesting form of missionary work. Yep. So then in verse 17, the Lord prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah and he's in the belly three days and three nights, the famous part. So that's the story thus far. And then

the narrative in chapter two is interrupted by this Psalm of Thanksgiving that Jonah says he offers from the belly of the fish right there. Unlike the other three chapters, which were narrative format, this is kind of a poem, a psalm that you get here. If you look at modern translations, you'll see it switches to poetry format once you get to chapter two. It's so interesting. This is not first person. This is someone writing about Jonah, but they knew what his psalm was. Yeah. And you know, people debate, did he actually write this psalm or was this inserted into the book here as a separate composition? Whatever. It's presented here in the book, know as being him so we can read it that way sure so verse two of chapter two i cried by reason of mine infliction unto the lord and he heard me out of the belly

of hell cried i and thou hearest my voice hell there doesn't have the negative connotation as in english is just shall all the underworld the place where dead spirits go. I can't imagine anything worse than being inside of a fish's stomach. It'd feel like that, yeah. So I might have a different word, too. So then in verse 3, he talks about the billowing waves going over him. And then in verse 4, he says that he turns again towards the temple, which is interesting. That whether Jonah in the belly of the whale or anybody else in dire straits, that the temple is where he goes. He knows that's where God's presence is and his mind is drawn to the temple.

I think that's something we can really relate to. Yeah. When he's in this terrible position, that's what he's thinking about. Yeah. And then you get this interesting kind of death imagery in five and six. The waters compassed me about even to the soul. The depth closed me round about. The weeds were wrapped about round my head and I went down to the bottoms of the mountains.

The earth with her bars was about me forever. Yet hast thou brought me up my life from corruption. Oh Lord, my God. So that's beautiful imagery there about death and kind of being brought up to life imagery there. I think this is why Jesus invokes the story of Jonah when he's talking about his own life and resurrection right there. Because the imagery here is powerful that you're down in those depths, you can't be saved. And then Jehovah reaches down there and just picks you up from that dark watery depth and brings you back up to life. That can happen for someone who is mourning the death of someone. The Jehovah reaches down and picks you up and pulls you out of that. Same with the person who has died can be brought back.

Exactly. So verse seven, when my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord. My prayer came in unto thee, into thy holy temple. And then he kind of makes this takeaway message from these experiences. They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. And here's where we get to start using some of our President Nelson background. So they that observe, observe there is the same verb used for like keep, like keep the commandments. Lying vanities is hablesha.

It's like empty things, worthless things. Like in Ecclesiastes, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Just stuff that's ethereal goes up in smoke, the stuff that doesn't last there. And they that keep that stuff, as opposed to keeping the commandments, it says forsake their own mercy. And guess what the Hebrew word is there? It's hesed. Yeah. You put your trust in these vain, empty things. You forsake your own hesed. God's still offering that to you, but you've put yourself out. You forsake it. You abandon the love you could be getting and the blessings you'd be getting. You stray from the covenant path and you put yourself out of the blessings that come from being in that chesed

relationship. So that's a very kind of powerful lesson there, I think. Josh, is Jonah talking about himself or is he talking about just others in general? If you're reading this in context of Jonah's story, he's starting to maybe recognize this, but it's also written as a general principle. They that trust in lying vanities forsake their own mercy. That covenant love and loyalty there. It's up to us. God's never going to forsake it, but we can place ourselves outside of those blessings there if we stray. Okay. And then he promises he's going to sacrifice again, give thanksgiving and give what he's vowed. And then the fish vomits Jonah out at the end of this. So do you think I will pay what I have vowed? Meaning I will go? In chapter three, it starts off the Lord repeating

arise, go to Nineveh, that great city. And now he does it. So I think he's at least come to the point where he's going to be obedient to that much. I'll go where you want me to go. It's interesting that that's exactly the same phrase too. The Lord doesn't say, I told you, just says, arise, go into the end of that great city. Same exact phrase in Jonah. Same calling. Let's do a redo on this. I repeat. Let's take it from the top. But I don't think this means Jonah has learned all the lessons he's supposed to learn as we'll see in the rest of chapters 3 and 4. I think you could read it as him being quite grudging as he does this.

So I think grudging obedience is at least better than disobedience, but it's still not full-hearted, willing obedience. There's a difference there. So we'll have to continue with this guy on his journey. So then Jonah, in chapter 3, verse 3, he arises, goes to Nineveh. And Nineveh was an exceedingly great city of three days journey. So three days journey might be one of these kind of exaggerated things, the way the story is told. It does not actually archaeologically take three days to walk across the city, but it's painting this picture of just this huge metropolis here. And it says that it's an exceedingly great city in the

King James version. If you look at the footnote in the Hebrew, it literally says a great city, like to God, it's a great city to God, which as God is going to talk about Nineveh later and his care for it. That's an interesting alternate translation to think about. All right. So then chapter three, verse four, he goes and delivers his message.

And this is the strangest message in prophetic history. He doesn't talk about the people's crimes. He doesn't talk about their wickedness. He doesn't invite them to repent. He never invokes the name of the Lord or mentions God. He just says, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Amen. Sit still. The message is even more curt in Hebrew. It's just five words. Od arva im yom va Nineveh nipaket. It's just really short there. In English, it sounds even longer than it actually is right

there. He just says, you guys are all going down in 40 days. This is happening. To overthrow literally means to flip something upside down. It's the same verb used for Sodom and Gomorrah back in Genesis. They're just overthrown completely. So it's hard to say what to do with this. Are we just not getting the rest of his message or is this literally all he went and told these people? The story only gives us this much. And again, you wonder if this is him kind of just doing the minimal effort here. He's still not hoping that they repent. He still doesn't want them to get off the hook. He wants them to go down and that's what he prophesies right there. The whole message. Don't you wish you had that kind of power? You could say eight words in English, five in Hebrew, and an entire very wicked place says, okay, and repents.

Yeah, because then you get in verse five, you get a miracle that's honestly way bigger than the fish. The people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, put on sackcloth from the greatest of them, even to the least of them, including the king. He gets off the throne, puts off his fancy clothes, puts on sackcloth and ashes, and he sends a proclamation throughout Nineveh saying, don't let any of the people or any of the animals, any of your herds or flocks, nobody eat or drink. We're all going to fast. And let all the humans and all the animals put on sackcloth and ashes and let all the humans and animals cry mightily to God. Maybe he'll turn away from the evil and the violence, that maybe he'll change his mind and turn away the fierce anger and we won't perish. So you get this instant conversion of everyone. I can see why some people think this is satire.

Yeah. And it's worth noting, we have no record of Nineveh all converting to the worship of Jehovah. Yeah. I mean, maybe those eight words were the very end of his sermon. Yeah. Like, did he say anything else? Well, it's like the sailors. We're supposed to compare this to the sailors. Just based on this brief encounter with him, they completely turned to Jehovah and changed their ways, forsake the other gods, and sacrifice. By being a terrible missionary, Jonah is a really good missionary. And interesting, that word overthrown, it can be a literal overturning something, but it's in the passive voice here. And in other scriptures, that Hebrew verb in the passive can be metaphorical for

turning around, changing, transforming. So in a way, what Jonah said can still come true that Nineveh did completely turn around. They transformed, but this is not happening like Jonah expected. They transform on the inside, not getting the city physically destroyed by getting flipped over there. So it's not the way he was hoping. That's disappointing to him, it sounds like. And look what they do in verse 8. It says that, let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence which is in their hands. Interestingly, back in Genesis, when it talks about the problems that are on the earth that caused the flood of Noah, it uses the same two Hebrew words, ra'ah, the evil, and hamas, the violence right there,

is what Genesis stresses caused the flood. It was the wickedness and the violence. So they're eschewing that. So as far as what Gentiles can do, just doing basic things in their framework, this is it. Live righteously, stop the violence, live peacefully. Jonah should be excited about this. He's achieved what the Abrahamic covenant is supposed to do, is bring righteousness and peace to a violent, wicked world. Good job. And then in verse 10, God sees their works and that they turn from their evil. And then he

changes his mind, which is what repents mean there, of his evil that he was going to do to him, this calamity, and he doesn't do it. So you get this miraculous salvation of them. And here it goes. Jonah should be excited, but Jonah was very angry. Chapter four, very angry. And chapter four is really, really the whole story comes together. It's all been leading to the discussion that you have right here. And again, this is a very well-crafted literature. This is not someone necessarily on the ground recording with a reporter taking down every word. So for example, what Jonah says in verses two and three is exactly 39 words in Hebrew. And what God says to Jonah at the last two verses of the chapter, verses 10 and 11 is exactly 39 words in Hebrew as well. So someone has set up 39 words from Jonah, 39 words

from Jehovah to him as a, bookending this chapter is they have this discussion. So it's super well-crafted. Say that again, which 39 words at the beginning of? So in chapter four, verses two and three, Jonah complains to God using 39 Hebrew words. And then in chapters 10 and 11, God finishes by responding to Jonah and his speech has exactly 39 words. Oh, verses 10 and 11 of chapter four. Yeah. That's 39 words. The last two verses of Jonah. Yeah. In the quote part, not the part where it says, then the Lord said, but everything after that word's the quote. 39 words in Hebrew. I love stuff like that. I love symmetry. Somebody is setting this up really cleverly. So then verse four, the Lord says, doest thou well

to be angry? I love that phrase. How's that anger working for you? Yeah. Jonah doesn't respond. So then Jonah goes out of the city. He sets up a little shelter and he sits in the shadow because I imagine it's hot. And he sits there hoping maybe I think God will still destroy the city. He's going to see what happens with this. How's this going to play out when day 40 comes? And then God prepares this gourd, there's some kind of plant that comes up to shade Jonah better than he had before. And it says that it delivered him from his grief right there. So he's like, oh yes, thank you. I'm appreciating this. He's really glad of the gourd. But then in verse seven, God sends a worm. It smites the gourd in the night. The gourd dies. So then when the sun comes up in verse eight, it's really hot and the sun's beating on Jonah. And he wishes again that he were dead. It's better

for me to die than to live. I skipped past verses two and three. We should go back and see what Jonah says in those 39 words right there. So verse two, Jonah prays to the Lord and says, I pray thee, O Lord, was this not my saying when I was yet in my country? Therefore, because of this, I fled before unto Tarshish. So he's explaining now why he fled. Because I knew that thou art a gracious God and a merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness and repent is the of the evil. Now what's he quoting there? It's Exodus 34. So that's Jehovah's classic description of his own nature. And so when it says you're gracious, God, merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, kindness is your hesed word again, right there. So he's like, oh, I knew it. I knew that you're

of great kindness, great chesed. And because of all of that, that you'll easily change your mind about doing bad things to people. Repent of the evil, right there. Basically he's saying, I want Nineveh to go down. I want to watch them burn. So that's why I fled because I didn't want to give him the chance to repent because I knew that you're so merciful that given any opportunity to do so, you would show them mercy. And notice he's not quoting the second half of Exodus 34, six to seven, which does talk about God's justice because he's fine with that. He likes God's justice. He's quoting the part he doesn't like. I knew you were going to

be nice. Yeah. Yeah. Slow to anger and full of chesed right there. He's citing this as a negative thing. He's saying God is too loyal, too loving, too merciful. He's extending this to people who don't belong in the club here. Right. You're being merciful to people who don't deserve it. Yeah. Now, again, the irony is back in second Kings 14, that historical narrative about Jonah, he prophesied that God, because he sees Israel has no helper, that even though they're wicked, he would extend their, extend their border again.

So Jonah's fine prophesying about people getting what they don't deserve there when it's his people, but here when it's the Ninevites, he can't stand it. They need to get the evil that they deserve, not the mercy that you think they say that they deserve. It is kind of interesting while we're on that topic. Usually the house of Israel is working with other members of the house of Israel, but here he sent as a missionary to another place. Yep. I think it's very much exploring this dynamic of how should covenant people in Israel be relating to these Gentiles outside, especially when they're the mean Gentiles that you don't like. Right. Yeah. These aren't just any old Gentiles, like you pointed out,

John, these are the Assyrians. I don't know whether Jonah really went to Nineveh or not, but regardless, the point of picking Nineveh here for the story, I think, is that, yeah, we're going straight for the worst Gentiles you can think of. These aren't just those okay neighbors over there to the side. These are the worst of the worst. And they deserve it. They deserve to be destroyed. He says, take my life from me. It is better for me to die than to live. He is really upset that God is merciful. Yeah, he'd rather die than see them get mercy. So then we get the Gord story, and he's really sad to see this Gord die because it was giving

him shade. And then you get the Lord's response in 10 and 11. This is the only prophetic book to end on a rhetorical question because it's not going to answer. The book is not going to answer the question for you. You as the reader have to wrestle with the question and answer it. Jonah doesn't get a chance to. We don't know what happens to him. So in verse 10, the Lord says, thou hast had pity on the gourd, this plant, for the which thou has not labored, neither made it grow, which came up in a night

and perished in a night. And should I not spare Nineveh, that great city wherein are more than 120,000 persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left and also has much cattle, many animals? So why are you taking more pity on this plant than a city that's got more than 100,000 humans in it and even more animals? Shouldn't I have mercy and pity on them? So we're left to kind of ponder this question. Are you okay with God extending mercy to your enemies? Say that again. I like that. Are you okay?

With God extending mercy and love to people that you do not like, to your enemies there. Should I say this out loud? I've often thought about the second coming and how there's a part of me that, oh man, you're going to, you're going to, certain people are really going to get it or things in our culture and Hollywood and violence and all of that. But what if he comes and extends mercy? Well, I was kind of hoping for a little more retribution, the doctrine of retribution. Isn't that in here too somewhere? It also reminds me a little bit of the prodigal son.

The comparison. Yeah. They repent and he's mad. He's mad that they're repenting. Yeah. Elder Holland gave that great talk a few years ago on the parable of the laborers. The laborers in the vineyard. Same thing.

People worked all day for the same amount of money as people that came in right at the 11th hour, and they were upset. That's not fair. Why are you showing such generosity to people who don't deserve it as much as I do? And I love the idea of that and the prodigal son. That issue comes up when we start comparing and looking sideways. Instead of looking at how the Lord's dealt with us, we want it to be fair. When the whole thing about the labors and the vineyard, no, it wasn't fair. They were called at different times, but the Lord of the vineyard can do what he wants and we shouldn't be envious because he is generous. I think that's what Elder Holland says. And we got to remember too that every ounce of judgment we want him to put on other people,

what's that going to do for us? He's got to accept that God's generous to his enemies. And if the natural man is an enemy to God, that suggests that all of us are his enemies to some extent, and we're only saved through the atonement of Christ the Lord. Yeah. It's a good thing. God loves his enemies. Yeah. So I think Jonah really forces us to wrestle with this. Again, it's an open-ended question. I think it's meant in ancient times to have the Israelites wrestle with this. What does it mean to be a covenant person? And that's God's relationship to the other people.

You might be in the covenant. You have that special chesed, but doesn't he also love other people right there? Right. Remember that Jonah had said they that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. So he was talking about how important chesed is there, but then he didn't like God's chesed when it was extended in some extent to these people of Nineveh. He's like, oh, I knew that you have so much chesed. Why are we doing this for them? Kind of a thing. So not being restrictive about that. I knew you'd be merciful. That's the funny thing about it is he, like, I didn't go here because I knew you'd be nice to him and I didn't want you to be nice to him. And it's so hard for me to take, just kill me.

Yeah. I can't handle all this kindness. And it's surprising, but we really struggle with this. We've had several general conference talks in recent years talking about divisions among us. And I don't think anybody thinks, oh yeah, I've got enemies that I hope to see crash and burn, but we do have divisions and people that we may not think that they're- They're deserving. Doing things as right in God's eyes as me. Like Elder Renlund a year ago gave this great talk called The Peace of Christ Abolishes Emnity.

And he pointed out that the COVID-19 pandemic has been a global stress test both in and out of the church. And he says that there's been really positive things the way people have come together. But there's also shown tendencies that we've had towards contention and divisiveness, he says. This suggests that we have work to do to change our hearts and to become unified as the Savior's true disciples. It's not a new challenge, but a critical one. I was also really touched just this past conference, October 2022. Kristen M. Yee's talk about beauty for ashes and forgiving those that have hurt you. You get these terrible gut-wrenching situations like abuse. And she mentions there, you know, the Lord said, I will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it's required to forgive for our own good, but he does not ask us to do this without his help. His love is understanding through our covenants with the Lord. We can each receive the strengthening power,

guidance, and help we need to both forgive and to be forgiven. This is something we all have to work on to some extent. So I think Jonah's story rather than just us versus some terrible foreign military power really invites us to think about this. Am I willing to forgive people who have done wrong, even if it's wrong to me? Yeah. Sister Yee said, I came to realize in a profound way that the same son of God who atoned for my sins is the same redeemer who will also save those who have deeply hurt me. I like how she said that hit her. Yeah.

Right. In a profound way. The acknowledgement that there are some types of things that people have endured that are so difficult that she talked about, like abuse and things, is that the only way that we can forgive is with God's help. And I appreciate that. No, this is beyond you.

This is beyond your ability. You're going to need God to help you do this. And sometimes we get backed up against that wall. I can't do this by myself. I'm going to need the power of the Savior to help me to go to forgive. So I love that she acknowledged that. That was a powerful talk. Yeah. So Jonah's often reduced to a children's tale, you know, that's really simple and cute. And we reduce the lesson to just simple obedience. You know, he was disobedient, then learned his lesson. But this closing question, I think, that's really simple and cute. And we reduced the lesson to just simple obedience. You know, he was disobedient, then learned his lesson. But this closing question, I think,

really puts the whole book in a different light where we really got to examine our, you know, whatever ethnocentrism, racism is still among us, sexism, homophobia, all the things that are dividing us and where we look down on certain groups of people. The book of Jonah really is an invitation to say, are you actually in the right on this? And are you putting limits on God's generosity, mercy, and grace for other people who maybe have a very different life than you do? That's great to point out that's the only prophetic book, I'm looking at my notes, to end in a rhetorical question. It kind of leaves us to, I think the prodigal son kind of ends that way too, where you're still, you're going, ah, I want more. Wait a minute. And it leaves us to wrestle

with something, which I love that, that you go finish the story and wrestle with it in your own heart. Another thing I want to just bring up is that it's wonderful that Jesus brings up this story. So, we've got Matthew 16, where the Pharisees come and say, give us a sign, and he gives this wonderful thing. You can discern the face of the sky. My dad used to say, red sky in the morning, sailor take warning, red sky at night, sailor's delight. He gives something similar here, but then says, it's a wicked and an adulterous generation seeketh after a sign. There shall be no sign given unto it, but then says, it's a wicked and an adulterous generation seeketh after a sign. There shall be no sign given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas, and he left them and departed. That's Matthew 16, 4. So, what is the sign of the prophet Jonas then?

It's got to be the three days, right? Yeah, I think you've got that. And then the fact that he goes on to say what Jesus is saying right too, is that Jonah preached and they repented. And yet now one greater than Jonah is here, Jesus, and yet his own people are not accepting him. So that dynamic too. So I think either of those play into what Jesus is trying to do. I want to read just a little paragraph, a couple of sentences from Elder Holland. This is in a message called The Best Is Yet To Be. He says, quote, let people repent. Just those three words, let people repent, let people grow, believe that people can change and improve. Is that faith? Yes. Is that hope? Yes. Is that charity? Yes. Above all, it is charity, the pure love of Christ.

In another talk, Elder Holland says, all that God has ever had to work with is imperfect people. It must be terribly frustrating to him, but he deals with it and so should we. And then I think in that same talk, he says, so be kind and be grateful that God is kind. It's a happy way to live. It's a happy way to live. It's a happy way to live. We need his kindness and we can extend it. And he gave examples like a spouse who hangs on to something that their husband or wife did 20 years ago,

because they're determined to hold it over their heads for another 20 years. And he's saying, you've got to let go of that. You've got to believe people can change and improve. And that if we want God to be gracious and merciful with us, we've got to extend that to others. In the manual, there's a great quote from President Oaks who says, we should never set ourselves up as judges of who is ready and who is not, who deserves the message and who doesn't. The Lord knows the hearts of all of his children. And if we pray for inspiration, he will help us find persons he knows to be in preparation to hear the word. Jonah was kind of setting himself up as the judge. He didn't want these people to get the message, yet they were ready to accept the word according to the manual there.

When Jesus said, except for the sign of Jonas, I remember one of my professors saying, it just wasn't manly to have your name end in a vowel in Greek. So, you've got Jonas in the New Testament referring to Jonah in the Old, or Isaiah in the New Testament, Isaiah in the Old. Yeah, because the ah makes it sound like feminine in Greek. You're right. Yeah. What was the sign? Well, Jonah was in the whale three days and three nights. In Jonah 1.17, Jesus was in the tomb.

Jonah comes out. So there was kind of a type of resurrection in there. And that was the sign that Jesus was giving, if I understand that correctly. Go back and look at the story of Jonah, and that's the sign that I'll give you. Yep. I wanted to mention something for our listeners that perhaps I'm not sure the author of the book of Jonah intended for us to see, but there is a foreshadowing to the Savior's three days and three nights. He goes into the belly of the fish or into the tomb for three days and three nights,

and then he comes out. And part of this story is that Jonah comes out of a place he never should have come out of. When you go into the belly of a well, you don't come back out. And yet he did. And the Lord went into the tomb, a place where nobody comes back out of, and yet he came back out. And I know that there's many listeners who have lost loved ones. We just recently in our neighborhood had a wonderful young lady killed in an accident. And it's just so devastating. Yet the story of Jonah, I think, points us to Christ's resurrection.

That though we feel like someone is not going to come back, like they're gone forever, just like Jonah coming out of the whale, just like the Savior coming out of the tomb, the person that you love and miss is going to come back. I remember, Josh, in a previous episode, you told us about a moment where you really had a gut check. Do you really believe that people live after they die? Do you really believe in these things? And you said, you know, when it came down to it, I found out that I did. And I thought that was so profound. I wanted to read something from Henry Scott Holland. When my dad died, I found this little quote and it was something that I just read through a couple of times and it really helped me. I don't think he has any relation to Elder Holland, but it's a wonderful quote. He says, death is nothing at all. It does

not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I and you are you and the old life that we live so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by my old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you used to. Put no difference in your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we have always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It was the same

as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt. Nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How shall we laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again? Death is Nothing at All by Henry Scott Holland. I hope that brings some level of comfort to someone listening who in their heart just mourns to see their family again That's awesome Hank, I think of my folks just every day There's a great statement of, it's actually I believe on Benjamin Franklin's tomb

Here lies the body of B. Franklin, printer Like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out and stripped of its lettering and gilding, lies here food for worms. But the work shall not be wholly lost, for it will, as he believed, appear once more in a new and more perfect edition, corrected and amended by the author. Capital A, author. I have never heard that. That's beautiful. Isn't that great?

It's going to be a new perfect edition, corrected and amended by the author. Please join us for part two of this podcast.