The easiest reading of the book of Jonah is that the prophet just didn';t feel like going to Nineveh. After all, we don';t read of Jonah arguing with God when he was sent, only that he just didn';t go. But a closer reading of the history of the people of Israel sheds some more light on the story of Jonah, revealing that he was more than just a rebellious prophet who didn';t want to go where God had sent him.

In plain speaking, the mission for which the Lord had sent Jonah was one that, in human thinking anyway, didn';t make a lick of sense. God was, in essence, sending Jonah to preach to his enemies. God was sending Jonah to preach to a race of people who were mortal enemies of the Israelites. Jonah knew that the Ninevites were a bloodthirsty, vicious people who posed a very real threat to his own countrymen. On top of that, they were desperately wicked people that Jonah no doubt believed were deserving of God';s judgment and wrath.

Jonah just couldn';t understand why he should go to a place like Nineveh, and the thought of being called to go there must have galled him. But it didn';t matter why he didn';t want to go to Nineveh, only that he refused to do what God had told him to do, instead relying on his own human understanding and reasoning. The results of that refusal made a most interesting — and very entertaining — adventure!