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NINE – Jonah

To find out what the prophets of Israel thought of Nineveh, we need look no further than the book of the prophet Nahum – an entire Old Testament book dedicated to its detailed condemnation. ‘Nineveh’ would rank alongside ‘Babylon’ as a name for all things utterly godless and wicked.

God asks Jonah to go there.

We only find out in Jonah 4:2 why Jonah does not want to go. He does not want Nineveh to be saved, and he knows that if he goes there, God will save it – being a gracious God, merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in love. To Jonah, the saving of Nineveh represents an unspeakable injustice against all that is right and good: his ONE wing could never allow it. Like Nahum, Jonah wants Nineveh destroyed: his EIGHT wing wants revenge against the unspeakable injustice of the continued existence of this powerful, successful, and evil place. God wants to save it and gut type Jonah wants no part in it.

For gut types, place is important, so Jonah took himself away. He did not struggle with his emotions, he did not argue with words, he just left the room – as NINE often will (Jonah 1:1‑3).

And to communicate with gut types it is often best to use actions – rather than words or emotions. God uses a great storm. But Jonah, being NINE, is the only person on board the ship to sleep soundly through it all (Jonah 1:4‑5).

With NINEs, what you see is what you get. They ask Jonah what is going on, and he explains quite plainly that he is a Hebrew, a servant of the great God who made the seas and the dry land, that he has fallen out with God and is running away from God, and that the storm is therefore certainly his fault (Jonah 1:6‑12). That’s NINE, just saying it plainly, saying it how it is.

The plain words of NINE can be incredibly effective. Those aboard ship are converted by Jonah’s simple testimony. They give up crying to their own gods (Jonah 1:5) and call on the Lord instead (Jonah 1:14).

Jonah’s plea that they resolve the crisis by throwing him into the sea (Jonah 1:12) is less selflessly generous than it might at first appear when we recognize what is going on for Jonah as NINE. Even here, in the midst of the storm, he does not want to engage his head or his emotions in the complexity of dealing with God’s unreasonable request. Like the narcoticized NINE of today, he seeks a physical route to oblivion, to make it all go away: ‘keep it simple – just throw me into the sea and all this chaos will be over – yours and mine.’ The newly converted shipmates want to do no such thing to God’s prophet, but soon appear to be left with no choice – and they throw him into the sea (Jonah 1:13‑16).

Three days in the belly of the fish stop gut type Jonah from running away or making himself busy in order to avoid having to think or feel. As so often for the modern alcoholic, or any corrupted NINE, it is only when Jonah faces the real possibility of losing absolutely everything that he knows it is time to make a change (Jonah 2:4‑5). It is time to connect with head and heart, and time to face the future and the past – time to face God (Jonah 2).

Round two (Jonah 3:1‑2) and this time Jonah goes to Nineveh. He dutifully preaches (Jonah 3:4) – NINE’s link to SIX. And he must have had about him something of the link to the inspiring leadership of THREE, because Nineveh repents (Jonah 3:5) and God answers their prayer that they might be saved from destruction (Jonah 3:6‑10).

And at the end of it all, Jonah is displeased (Jonah 4:1). His ONE cannot bear the unfairness of forgiveness for such late repentance. His EIGHT still wants revenge for the years of evil. His slow-moving NINE cannot shift from the position it has maintained concerning Nineveh through his entire life. In his vengeful EIGHT and his judgmental ONE he is angry even at his own NINE vision of a gentle, peaceful, loving God (Jonah 4:2), and he longs once again to escape all this mental and emotional complexity and find oblivion (Jonah 4:3). He even leaves the city to sit on the hillside in the hope that he will see the fire come down to destroy the evil place (Jonah 4:5).

NINEs often feel contentedly invisible and like SIXes are charmed and surprised by attention, so Jonah is delighted when God grows him a plant for shade (Jonah 4:6) – but this is just part of another gutsy acted parable from God. When the plant dies, Jonah is angry about its destruction, and would have preferred that it had lived – and God says, forget the plant, you should feel this way about the city, delighted that it lives (Jonah 4:7‑11).

Whether the book of Jonah is history or parable, it gives a truly remarkable portrait of NINE with all its gifts and all its failings. Jonah’s NINE can be stubborn, complacent, neglectful, and fatalistic, and can go through idleness to the longing for oblivion. It can also be open and direct, steadfast and goal-oriented, able to speak hard truths calmly. Jonah’s journey is the journey of NINE: he had to find his gifts and his energy, his self-worth and his inner drive, reflect on his priorities, connect with head and heart, and then act.

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