What do we do with the scary things we encounter in the Minor Prophets, the Book of the Twelve as they are more affectionately called? Chapter after chapter, in Hosea through Malachi, we encounter visions of destruction and judgment. What purpose could there be in writing these books and including them in Scripture?

The prophet Jonah knew the point of messages about judgment, and in this post I want to highlight an important role that the book of Jonah plays where it stands, nestled right in the middle of the Book of the Twelve. Jonah the prophet, in the book that bears his name, serves as an interpretive compass to guide you in how to navigate the larger collection of the Minor Prophets, to guide you in how to respond to messages of imminent judgment.

As a reader, you encounter the book of Jonah about 40% of the way through the Minor Prophets. By this point in your reading, having completed Hosea, Joel, Amos, and Obadiah, you’ve had plenty of time to test your interpretive imagination. You’ve read many prophetic oracles of judgment. Perhaps you’ve found insight and meaningful statements along the way, but you’ve likely spent some time wondering what God intends by crafting such disturbing pictures of judgment. Perhaps you’ve put the books down more than once and, out of a low-level fear, let some days pass without picking them up again to read.

This is where the Book of Jonah comes in, a radical change of pace, a narrative interlude just before the halfway point. It’s almost like the designer of this collection anticipated people giving up halfway through and therefore designed the collection with a built in tour guide.

Let’s imagine the narrator in the Book of Jonah as the tour guide, an old man you meet along the path called Minor Prophets. Jonah, the character in the book, serves as the compass that points you in the right direction.

On the trail, when you encounter the tour guide, he offers a bit of encouragement through his story-telling. He invites you to listen to his story because he wants you to consider how Jonah, one of the main characters in his story, can point you in the right direction.

You look up from your Cliff Bar, see the old man, and hear,

“You’ve made it this far, but you want to stop because the path is scary. Well, I know you are a sojourner on these prophetic paths. Not many people call the Prophets home. Let me tell you a story about a particularly interesting one of us. His name is Jonah. He knew a thing or two about exactly your question: What’s the point of all this judgment talk? Why such scary sights?”

As the old man talks, you are immediately intrigued. This story isn’t what you expected. You thought he would tell you a hero story about a model prophet, but that’s not who Jonah is at all. Jonah runs from the presence of Yahweh, and you know that isn’t ever good. But your fear subsides and you are intrigued as you listen because the old man laughs and smiles while telling the story. He seems to think of it as some sort of comedy. The story is wild, and the old man talks with a gleam in his eye. The old man knows something you don’t, and he’s acting like what he knows is good news. He isn’t worried about your fear. He loves the story he tells, and so you listen.

You notice that in the story Jonah, the main character, is doing exactly what you wanted to do: Jonah leaves the trail. As soon as the word of Yahweh came to Jonah, he ran. What does Jonah know about the word of Yahweh that made him run? It’s not clear yet, but you are also drawn into the way the story keeps cycling around God’s help for people in need. You hear about how Jonah went down into a boat to escape Yahweh’s word, but God sent a storm to bring him back. The sailors find out that Jonah is the cause of their imminent destruction in the storm, and in response the pagan sailors themselves cry out to God for help. God hears even them and has mercy (chapter 1). Jonah is cast into the sea and sinks to the depths, but even there he looks to God, and God brings him up from the depths of the sea (chapter 2). The word of Yahweh comes to Jonah a second time (chapter 3), and at this point the old man laughs out loud and exclaims,

“He gives him yet another chance! He just won’t quit on people who call out to him! Even Jonah!”

But why did he run in the first place?

“We’re almost there. Keep listening.”

Jonah finally does what he was called to do. He delivers the message of judgment: “Forty days, and Nineveh will be overturned!” The sailors faced imminent destruction in chapter 1, and they cried out to God for help. Jonah faced imminent death in chapter 2, and he cried out to God for help. Now, here in chapter 3 Nineveh faces imminent destruction, and they too cry out for help. From the king to least of the people of Nineveh, even the animals — they all put on mourning clothes and cry out to Yahweh for help.

“Do you see the point? What are you supposed to do when you’re confronted with messages about imminent destruction?

Oh! But your question about why Jonah ran. This brings us to the last chapter.”

In the final part of the story, Jonah states explicitly why he ran. Jonah shakes his finger at God, and as the old man tells this part he laughs again and gets loud as he imitates Jonah’s foolish rant:

“I knew that you are a God who is gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and that you relent from disaster!” (Jonah 4:2)

This is what Jonah knew all along. He knew the point of God’s messages of judgment. He knew Yahweh’s character. He knew that those messages of judgment come with an unspoken conditional: Judgment is imminent (unless you repent).

So what do we do with the repeated messages of judgment we encounter throughout the Book of the Twelve, the Minor Prophets? The story of Jonah is our guide. The prophet Jonah is our compass. We need to know what Jonah knows: God’s character, as stated in Exodus 34:6–7, doesn’t change. He speaks even his words of judgment to lead us to take refuge in him and his Anointed (Psalm 1–2). Just before the middle of the Book of the Twelve, Jonah serves as an interpretive guide and compass, making clear what to do with God’s messages of judgment.

We’ll let the old man, our tour guide on the trail of the Minor Prophets, have the last word,

Don’t leave this trail, young man. Stay the course. These words might be scary, but now you know what Jonah knew. Enjoy the journey if you can. This path is designed with a lot of intention and purpose. Lots of good things to see here! Take the time to look and behold. When you see these awful sights and get a glimpse of your own life in the people against whom judgment is proclaimed, be like the sailors and Jonah — Jonah in chapter 2 [he added with a chuckle], not like Jonah in the last part. And be like Nineveh! Take refuge in Yahweh. We need scary sights, young man. That’s why this trail exists. We need the scary to point us back to our only source of life and happiness. It’s for our good. As the great king said in Psalm 18, “He’s a shield for all those who take refuge in him.” And as the Greater King showed us in Gethsemane, “Those who know your name trust in you. For you, Yahweh, have not abandoned those who seek you” (Psalm 9:10).