2 Kings 14:23-29 (ESV)
Jeroboam II Reigns in Israel
In the fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, began to reign in Samaria, and he reigned forty-one years. And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin. He restored the border of Israel from Lebo-hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the LORD, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath-hepher. For the LORD saw that the affliction of Israel was very bitter, for there was none left, bond or free, and there was none to help Israel. But the LORD had not said that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, so he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash.
Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam and all that he did, and his might, how he fought, and how he restored Damascus and Hamath to Judah in Israel, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel? And Jeroboam slept with his fathers, the kings of Israel, and Zechariah his son reigned in his place.
Jonah the prophet was first a reliable prophet to his people and then became a reluctant prophet toward the Ninevites. We all know the story of Jonah and the fist. We know that he was sent, by God, to the capital city of the Assyrians, Nineveh, and told to preach God’s grace to them. He refuses to do that and instead boards a ship in the opposite direction. Most people know how that ended up. Most people don’t know the above story, however. Jonah was not always reluctant to preach God’s Word. In the above story, Jeroboam II is the new king. He, like all the kings of the northern nation of Israel, was wicked. He followed his early relative, who he was named after, by remaining evil and doing evil things. Despite this evilness, however, God does expand the nation of Israel and allows them to expand their territory (a promise God had made years earlier ... 2 Kings 10:30).
It is interesting that Jonah was from the town of Gath-hepher. The name “Gath” out to be familiar to most Bible readers. That was the town that Goliath was from. It was a boarder town of Israel to the far north. It would have gone back and forth in regard to ownership. The town would go back and forth as to ownership. Goliath was a Philistine. This understanding of Jonah’s home town might give us some insight into his reasoning for not going to Nineveh. Jonah grew up, as a Jew, in a town that often was taken over by another race of people. It was even named for that group of people originally, before Joshua conquered it and gave it as an inheritance to Israel (Joshua 19:13). It is not a large stream to believe that Jonah’s reason to not to go to the wicked people of Nineveh, was his hatred for anyone NOT Jewish. He had this experience in his youth. Although born to a Jewish family (Amittai), he was raised among foreigners. Yet, God used him to speak to Jeroboam II. However, when God wanted him to go to another group of foreigners, he refused. Jonah was raised to see the Jewish people as special and chosen by God and did not want to see God’s grace extended toward wicked Gentile men and women and children. That is being a bigot, at best.
God did use Jonah and he eventually brings God’s grace to not just his people (see above), but also to the Ninevites (albeit still reluctantly). It is important to see how our past informs the present and can, often, control our actions and behavior in the future. When Jonah was given a prophesy to his people that would be good for them, he was eager to speak God’s Word. But, when given a prophesy to speak truth to a group of people he disliked, Jonah was reluctant and even suicidal. Hatred in the heart of any people causes us to miss the mark on God’s plan for us.
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