Jonah

Susan Niditch’s Jonah: A Commentary makes an important contribution to the interpretation of Jonah, exhibiting the standard components of a commentary along with some distinctive features. Niditch also provides a new translation of the entire text. The introduction addresses various conventional matters, such as textual traditions, language, structure, genre, and historical context. In an expression of the author’s more specialized interests, however, it also includes a section called “Religion as Lived and Personal.” This section draws attention to the prayers of the sailors in Jonah 1 and their vows, sacrifices, divination, and concern for human life, all of which contribute to “an emphasis on personal religion experienced by individuals” (20). Sensitivity to this aspect of Jonah—here and elsewhere—stands as one example of the commentary’s distinctiveness.

Niditch’s translation of Jonah seeks to preserve the cadence of the Hebrew, in part by adhering to its word order wherever possible. For example, she renders the final clause of Jonah 1:3 “arisen has their evil before me” (27). Among other striking translational choices, we may note the rendering “the End (sûp) is twisted around my head” (Jon 2:6), based on a contextually informed interpretation of the word sûp (53, 62). Textual notes follow each segment of the translation, offering a wide sampling of ancient renderings and variants.

In her extensive, highly informative commentary, Niditch considers the force of most of the text’s formulations, drawing on a range of biblical and extra-biblical evidence. To cite one instructive example, based on comparative usage, she argues that the last phrase in Jonah 3:8 (heḥāmās ăšer bĕkappēhem; “the violence that is in their hands”) underscores the Ninevites’ ownership of their evil conduct and their moral responsibility for rectifying it (96). Certain specific rhetorical techniques also find acknowledgment, as in the case of the keyword yrd (“go down”) in Jonah 1, which emphasizes the prophet’s physical and spiritual descent (34).

To be sure, the commentary does not offer thorough treatment of the text’s literary artistry, probably—at least in part—because of the philological orientation of the Hermeneia series. For example, there is no acknowledgment of the text’s chiastic presentation of the conduct of the Ninevite king (3:6), which is widely thought to underscore his transformed attitude. And in rejecting any pointed connection between the texts of Jonah and Joel (105), Niditch leaves certain parallels unaddressed, most notably the otherwise unattested phrase mî yôdēa‘ yāšûb wĕniḥām (“Who knows, maybe [God] will turn and relent”; Jon 3:9; Joel 2:14). All the same, the reader will emerge decidedly enriched by the commentary’s many valuable contributions.

Most strikingly, Niditch offers enlightening discussion of motifs in world literature that are analogous to those found in Jonah, and she devotes considerable attention to the book’s reception history. A key example involves the fish that swallows Jonah, a motif that finds numerous parallels in other tales. The presence of this motif in Jonah, however, reflects the distinctiveness of the biblical worldview: unlike in other stories, the fish is appointed and controlled by God, who, in response to Jonah’s prayer, prompts the creature to spew him out (69). As for the reception history of this episode, Niditch provides, among other things, a lengthy account of its mystical and eschatological repurposing in the midrashic work Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer (70-73), followed by a detailed description of Jewish and Christian artistic representations, including some actual images (74-83).

Discussion of the message of Jonah appears mainly near the end of the commentary (106-108, 118-120). In Niditch’s view, the prophet struggles most fundamentally with the instability of God’s decisions, which cannot be grasped by humans. Jonah seeks “clear boundaries” and “definite consequences,” yet “God’s utter autonomy and unpredictability make the deity, in Jonah’s view, impossible to work for, frustrating to death” (119). In the final analysis, like Job and Ecclesiastes, the work thus “takes its place among the complex reflections of late biblical writers upon heavy matters of life and death, good and evil, human and divine” (120).

Niditch’s commentary will occupy an important place among expositions of Jonah for years to come.

Yitzhak Berger is professor of Biblical Studies at Hunter College of the City University of New York.

Yitzhak Berger

Date Of Review:

January 26, 2024