An Interpretation of the Story of Jonah

Have you read the Bible story of Jonah? If so did you understand it? and what is your perception of its meaning?

My own understanding of the Story of Jonah is that it is like the Travail of Jesus.

Jonah dwelt in the Celestial Realms and the conditions on Earth were so bad that God/the Source/ the Creator called upon him to come and minister to the Children of Earth (known as Ninevah) in a physical body, to dwell among them.

The journey to Ninevah was through the Lower Planes (known as the Isles of Tarshish).

He had to increase the density of his vehicle in order to be able to live in the atmosphere of Earth, because Earth is a dense physical plane. Therefore he had to travel down through the planes. It took him three days and nights to complete the process.

The storm through which he pregressed was synonymous to the evil and tumultous conditions of the people in the lower Realms, and the Plane of Earth.

Jonah didn't want to do this but he knew that he had to. Like Jesus, sometimes his mission was s bad that he thought that God/Source/Creator had deserted him, but that was his physical body reacting under the stressful conditions.

Jonah had to be prepared for his journey from the Divine Realms to the Earth, by stages. He had to travel down through the planes, stopping at each level, to acclimatize and take on a new denser body. He was not alone on this journey. He was accompanied on each plane by Beings that dwelt there.

Not only was each level denser but was occupied by Beings living under different circumstances, and the lower that he travelled the less developed and evolved and younger were the Souls upon those planes.

It is likened to a deep sea diver, at the greatest depths of the ocean. A man cannot just jump out of a boat in a pair of swimming trunks and work on the sea-bed. He needs air, because there is no air. He needs special clothes to combat the intense cold and he needs a suitable vehicle in which to travel, and also to protect him from the creatures living in the various depths, some of which are hostile and dangerous. So it was with Jonah, who also needed such preparations, for and on his descent, as does any Being of Light that descends or ascends from one plane to another.

Please let us have your thoughts on this.

Blessings

grazier

It's a wonderful interpretation; a soul under pressure.

Things go in cycles, like the seasons. Could be political, like the election cycles. Here in America we have federal elections every two years like clockwork, the story of Jonah could be meaningful in that context.

I find the shapes of things very interesting. For instance, what is the shape of a boat? Is it an ark or an arc? What is the shape of a fish? What is the shape of a storm? Seems that the number pi gets around in that story. Even the King is worried about a 180 degree reversal of fortune.

This is a very good thread, indeed.

[theophilus]

Originally Posted by grazier

Have you read the Bible story of Jonah? If so did you understand it? and what is your perception of its meaning?

The reason God gave the Bible is found in 2 Timothy 3:16,17.

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

The story of Jonah, like the rest of the Bible, was recorded so that we can learn from it but we don't have to try to find some symbolic meaning for each event in it in order to learn its lessons. It is a literal account of what actually happened to Jonah.

It shows the futility of a servant of God trying to evade God's will for his life. God wanted Jonah to go to Ninevah; Jonah didn't want to go and in fact ran in the opposite direction. As a result of his disobedience he endured a lot of suffering that could have been avoided but he ended up doing what God had originally commanded.

When he was in the ship God sent a storm which endangered the lives of everyone else in the ship. Our obedience or disobedience to God affects the lives of those around us. Compare the effect Jonah's presence on the ship with the effect the presence of the apostle Paul had when he was on a ship.

Since they had been without food for a long time, Paul stood up among them and said, “Men, you should have listened to me and not have set sail from Crete and incurred this injury and loss. Yet now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For this very night there stood before me an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship, and he said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before Caesar. And behold, God has granted you all those who sail with you.’ So take heart, men, for I have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told. But we must run aground on some island.”
(Acts 27:21-26 ESV)

Paul was on this ship as a result of his obedience to God and his presence protected the live of the others on the ship.

But God even used Jonah's disobedience for a good purpose. Jonah spent three days and three nights inside a fish. Jesus said that this was a picture of how he would spend three days and three nights in the earth between his crucifixion and resurrection.

Grazier, I like your interpretation of. The Jonah story.
Theophilus, please understand that the bible is not an account of true events, it is the jewish mythology and like all myths its truth is symbolic. Take Adam and Eve, cast out of the garden of eden when they ate from the tree of knowledge. This, to me is an allegory of man's situation. When we evolved our intelligence through having large brains (tree of knowledge) we were cast out from eden (ignorant yet happy life of ancient man/animals) and made to work for a living plus orher consequences arising from our intelligence. I have heard other interpretations such as Adam being the first incarnation of Jesus.
We should all find what wisdom we can in the bible stories, but remember that they are just stories. As any school boy knows Adam and Eve did not exist: we evolved from apes.

[Miss Hepburn]

Absolutely fascinating!
Bravo.