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–Synopsis–

The ruthless Assyrian Empire has conquered large areas of the Middle East, and the Israelites fear that they will be the next victims of Assyrian cruelty. Jonah is called by God to pronounce judgement on their capital city of Nineveh. Terrified, he runs away and boards a ship headed as far west as he can go, but finds out it’s not so easy to escape.

After almost being lost at sea in a storm, swallowed by a whale, and spit back on land, the Lord gives Jonah another chance to obey. The reluctant prophet goes to Nineveh, eager to see its destruction. But will God deal with these people the way he expects?

–Review–

I would like to begin this particular review with a quote from the book that covers the theme of Jonah perfectly:

“Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.”

– page 61

The story of Jonah has always been one of my favorite books in the bible. How creative God can be when He is trying to get our attention, has always fascinated and terrified me at the same time. In Jonah’s case, he had to become engulfed in a giant fish belly for three days before he was willing to complete God’s command of warning the people of Ninevah to repent or suffer His wrath.

*Just a bit of a disclaimer, I am aware that there are people who take a more figurative stance with the whole being eaten by a giant fish and surviving thing. While I am not going to argue with you, I am personally in the literal camp, due to my other belief that God has the capability and power to do whatever He desires, so I will leave it at that*

To understand Jonah’s hesitancy to even set foot in Ninevah, you have to be aware of a bit of Middle Eastern history. At the time of Jonah, at around 8 BC, the middle east was rife with war and upheaval. You had the Arameans (present-day Syria) who took land that rightfully belonged to Israel that King Solomon himself acquired, and you have the Assyrians (near modern-day Iraq) who struck fear in pretty much everybody else due to their immense military strength and brutality to any who opposed their regime. As Jonah would have taken the long journey, he more than likely would have come into close contact with skirmishes between the Arameans and Assyrians. Not to mention, that whole area was infested with pagan worship, so not the most welcoming to a prophet of God.

The fear of death was not the only reason Jonah was less than willing to high tail it to Ninevah. You see, Jonah also struggled with the idea of showing compassion to those who seemingly did everything that went against God and His people. He could not understand why God would even give them the chance to repent due to their evil ways.

This struggle alone is so relevant to today in my opinion. As Christians, we are told to not only pray for our friends and family, but our very enemies as well. Enemies such as those who would kill me for my very belief but regardless, those people still have souls and are still God’s creations. It takes a truly humble heart to pray for people who want nothing more than to see you dead but that is what we are called to do like Jonah.

This story mainly focuses on the actual journey to Ninevah as well as Jonah’s conversations with God after he gives the Assyrians the message. If you are familiar with the story, you know how caught off guard Jonah was when things did not turn out as he expected and even desired. He wanted the city to go up in flames like Sodom and Gomorrah, but God obviously had different plans. I will not spoil the rest of the story since I want people to read it themselves and learn something.

All in all, this was a nice and short read you could get through in about an hour. The formatting on the Kindle version was a bit off, but it was not unreadable. I also noticed multiple instances in which Jonah’s thoughts were in quotation marks, as though they had been spoken. This sometimes caught me off guard and took me out of the story. Also, per the shorter length, the pacing is quite fast, to the point where I wish we could have experienced more of the internal battles going on in Jonah’s head but again, we have the Bible for more of that.

That being said, I will give this book two different star ratings. I give the story 5-stars, with the writing getting 3-stars. Average them out and you get 4 stars!

-About the Author-

Cyndi Carter is from Greenville, SC, and now lives in Clearwater, FL, with her husband John. She enjoys reading, history, language, cooking, and almost all kinds of music. Celtic and traditional music especially make her heart sing.