JONAH: THE EPITOME OF HYPOCRISY

There is a great deal of misunderstanding regarding the subject of hypocrisy. Among many non-Christians, it is used as an excuse not to join a church. But for most of those people, their definition of a hypocrite is any church-goer who is not perfect, which certainly is true of all of us whether we are believers or not.

The actual word “hypocrite” does not occur in the Hebrew language, but there are related terms. Gunther, in his extensive discussion of this concept points to the Hebrew word hanep: “the term denotes what elsewhere is graphically described as the man with a 'double heart' and 'false lips' (Ps. 12:3f); he always has God on his lips, but keeps him far from his heart (Jer. 12:2).”

Moving to the world of the New Testament, the Greek words hupokrisis (hypocrisy) and hupokrites (hypocrite) have their original life in the world of theater and referred to someone playing a part. But the best way of all to define terms found in the Bible is to let the context determine the meaning. And in the NT, we have plenty of examples to consider that will aid us in this process, especially in the Gospel of Matthew where the term is used fifteen times on the lips of Jesus as he characterized the religious leaders of his day.

Gunther describes the overall picture behind Jesus' criticisms: “Jesus did not condemn the Pharisees because of their serious and pious attitude toward the law as such. Rather it was their understanding of righteousness and their ways of evading its demands that he condemned.” Note that underlying His comments to such leaders, “Clear knowledge of the right course of action is assumed; but it is the actual situation that gives the decisive judgment on his behavior, and thus Peter became a hypocrite [in the episode described in Galatians 2:13].”

Thus, we could say that it is inappropriate to label any believer as a hypocrite if they are new Christians who do not yet fully understand what behavior is required of them by God. And even those who do know but are having trouble doing what is right cannot be rightly accused of hypocrisy if they freely admit their weaknesses and attempt, with the Holy Spirit's help, to improve each day.

So I thought it might be an interesting exercise to look at what is probably the prime example of a hypocrite in the Old Testament, namely Jonah, and compare his actions with those of the scribes and Pharisees whom Jesus condemned.

Matthew 6:2

This is the first time that Jesus labels anyone as a hypocrite, and he applies the name to those who loudly proclaim whenever they give money to the poor, rather than doing it in secret. For a similar situation in the Book of Jonah, look at the prayer in Jonah 2. It purports to have been prayed to God from the belly of the fish, but it appears instead to be composed for a larger audience to hear. Just look at how Jonah talks not to God but about God in verses 2 and 9b which address God in the third person instead of directly. And the fact that it was composed sometime after Jonah had exited from the whale is indicated by the past tense verbs used throughout.

With that in mind, when Jonah loudly proclaims in verse 9 the fact that he vows he is going to offer a sacrifice to God later. In effect he is bragging to his audience just as the hypocrites in Jesus' time did.

Matthew 6:5

The same thing applies to Jonah's pious prayer in chapter 2. As mentioned above, the whole prayer with its noble sentiments regarding the holy temple (vv. 4,7), deliverance coming from God only (v. 9), and the foolishness of whose who worship idols (v. 8) is not really directed toward God, but seems better designed to impress whomever hears his prayer recited later. This is reminiscent of Jesus' comments in Matthew 6:5-8 toward those who stand praying in the synagogue so that they can be seen by others.

Matthew 7:1-5

In this famous passage, Jesus labels as hypocrites those who see the sins in other people's lives but do not recognize the even greater faults that they themselves possess. That attitude really characterizes the overwhelming character trait exhibited by Jonah throughout his book. He is so wrapped up in his judgmental attitude toward the Ninevites that he cannot see the glaring lack of love in his own life. Just look at how angry he becomes when he learns that God has relented toward Nineveh due to their repentance (v. 4:1).

This provides is a good negative example that we are best to avoid in the current climate when, more than ever, Americans are divided into two warring political camps. Whichever side you happen to be on, how many of us pray for the conversion of some politician we despise rather than praying for his or her utter downfall?

Matthew 15:7; 22:18

The mention of hypocrites in chapter 15 refers to those who ignore one of God's basic commandments, “Honor your father and mother,” by giving the money to the temple relief fund instead of supporting their own aging parents. In that manner, they could again get glory from the people for their generosity.

In a similar manner, Jesus in Matthew 22 criticizes those who are careful not to neglect the tithing of even their spices at the same time totally ignore the more important aspects of God's law such as justice and mercy and faith.”

Just look at Jonah 4:1-3 in which he admits that God is merciful and forgiving. This attribute is mirrored in Jesus' summary of the Ten Commandments as love for God and love for others. Jonah knows full well this attitude is required of him also but persists in his hatred of the Ninevites in spite of that.

Matthew 23:13

In this passage, Jesus denounces as hypocrites those scribes and Pharisees who actually prevent others from entering the kingdom of heaven while at the same time doing the sort of things that exclude themselves from entering. Jonah does this in two ways. The most obvious example is his stated reason for fleeing for Tarshish – to actually prevent the Ninevites from hearing the word and repenting in time to be saved.

The second example is a little more subtle and controversial. In Jonah 1:12, the erring prophet does what appears to be the noble thing. He asks the sailors to throw him overboard so that God's wrath will be satisfied and they will be saved. Jonah in this one passage actually appears to be a real type of the coming Jesus Christ. But since this seems to be so out of character with the portrait of Jonah we see elsewhere in the book, I am suspicious that Jonah knows he is going to die anyway in the storm, and so to make the best out of a bad situation he decides to basically commit suicide. But he doesn't want that final sin on his hand, and so he urges the sailors to throw him overboard instead of him jumping out of the boat himself. That way the sin will be theirs, not his. So although he may not be of the kingdom himself, his death may at least remove the kingdom from the pagan sailors.

Matthew 23:25-28

Twice in these verses, Jesus labels the scribes and Pharisees as hypocrites since they appear to be righteous on the outside “but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.”

When the sailors ask Jonah what sort of country he comes from, he proudly proclaims, “I am a Hebrew. I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” (Jonah 1:9) (Note how Jonah conveniently forgets to add “and all that are in them.”) And I am sure that once Jonah reached Nineveh and went around preaching doom and gloom to the inhabitants, he really got into the role of the righteous representative of the Almighty God to an unrighteous people.

And yet in spite of these noble appearances, the true pettiness of Jonah comes out most clearly in the last chapter when he sits pouting under a booth and waiting for fire and brimstone to descend on the city. And his “self-indulgence,” in Jesus' words, is demonstrated in his anger when “his” shade vine is eaten by a worm and he begins to sweat a little. That minor discomfort is all Jonah is thinking about, not the fate of an entire city.

Luke 13:15

Finally, there is this one passage in Luke's Gospel ) in which the leader of the synagogue and his audience object to Jesus curing a woman on the sabbath. Jesus calls them hypocrites and replies, “Does not each of you on the sabbath lead your ox or donkey to water to drink?” This is practically identical to the way God attempts to put things into perspective for Jonah after he begins to pout because his vine has been destroyed. God says, “You are concerned about the vine, for which you did not work and which you did not grow...and should I not be concerned about Nineveh...in which there are more than 120.000 people...and also many animals?” (Jonah 4:9-11) In both cases, it is an argument from the lesser to the greater. The only difference is that whereas Jesus argued from the relative importance of people over animals, God argued for the relative importance of animals and people over a single plant.

Conclusion

The final issue to discuss is whether Jonah truly fits the definition of a hypocrite mentioned at the start of this article. In other words, Jonah is only a hypocrite if he clearly knows what God wants him to do and then refuses to do it while putting on a righteous front. I think the text demonstrates decisively that Jonah was purposely refusing to do what he knew all along was the right thing.

In the first place, the very fact that God chose him to be the one to deliver His message to a foreign country probably marks Jonah out as being one of the prophets, who had perhaps had an effective speaking ministry earlier within the bounds of Israel.

Secondly, Jonah's proclamation that there is only one God who created the heaven, sea, and land indicates his fully orthodox Jewish belief (Jonah 1:9)

Thirdly, the language of Jonah's prayer in chapter 2 demonstrates that Jonah was highly conversant with other OT texts as well as totally centering his religious life around the Jerusalem temple (2:2,7).

Lastly, and most obviously, Jonah's powerful and accurate pronouncement regarding the very nature of God in Jonah 4:2 certainly shows that Jonah cannot claim ignorance regarding God's will for mankind.