Now for the second time (compare 2.1) Jonah prays to the Lord, but here the tone of the prayer is very different. This time he explains the reason for his anger at God’s merciful treatment of the people of Nineveh. The flashback employed here tells us for the first time the reason for Jonah’s attempt in chapter 1 to travel in the opposite direction instead of to Nineveh. The beginning of his prayer takes the form of a question, and the question form is retained in Good News Translation. But such rhetorical questions, which do not really expect an answer, can easily be replaced by statements, since that is essentially what they are. So, for example, New English Bible translates “This, O Lord, is what I feared when I was in my own country.”
Since in so many languages a term for “prayer” suggests “petition,” such a form would seem out of place in this context, for it is a complaint that Jonah is bringing to the Lord. Therefore it may be more appropriate to say “so Jonah said to the Lord.”
Good News Translation is rather more literal than New English Bible in saying didn’t I say (similarly Jerusalem Bible “just as I said would happen”), where New English Bible has “this is what I feared.” The Hebrew noun used here is the same as in 3.6 and covers a wide area of meaning. It need not refer to a spoken word, though that is its most usual meaning. Just as the Hebrew verb ʾamar “to say” can often mean “to think,” so here “word” can stand for “thought,” and so by implication “fear.”
Good News Translation uses home in this verse in its wider sense of “homeland” rather than “house.” Before I left home corresponds to the more literal translation of Revised Standard Version, “when I was yet in my country.”
As in other instances, the direct address LORD must be expressed in some languages as “My Lord.”
The clause before I left home may be more appropriately placed at the beginning of the direct discourse or at least immediately following the expression of direct address; for example, “before I left home, didn’t I say that this is just what you would do?”
The indirect discourse must be made direct in a number of languages; for example, “didn’t I say, ‘I know that you will change your mind’?” Because of the particular nature of the embedded direct discourse, it is necessary to alter the wording so as to represent what Jonah would have said prior to the actual events; otherwise, the direct discourse would be out of keeping with what Jonah could or would have said.
That’s why I did my best is an attempt to translate a difficult Hebrew verb that may be taken here in an adverbial sense, “at first” (so New American Bible “I fled at first”). The same Hebrew verb is translated “prevent” in King James Version or Psa 119.147, 148, but the verb “prevent” no longer has the same meaning in English as it had when that translation was made. It is unlikely, therefore, that Modern Language Bible is correct in translating this passage: “This is why I fled to Tarshish to prevent it.”
New English Bible (also New American Standard Bible) uses a verb that attempts to recognize the temporal aspect of this Hebrew word by saying “to forestall it.” This does formal justice to the verb in the original, but is not so suitable to the situation in which Jonah found himself. As normally used in English “forestall” carries with it both the idea of foreseeing someone else’s action and of taking effective action to ensure that it does not take place. The element of anticipation is certainly present in Jonah’s flight in the direction of Spain, but it is only indirectly that his flight would have meant the sparing of Nineveh, since he then would not have been able to denounce it.
If one understands That’s why I did my best to run away to Spain as being better interpreted as an expression of haste (so Revised Standard Version), it is possible to render this sentence as “That is why I ran away to Spain as fast as I could” or “That is why I left for Spain as quickly as possible.” (It is impossible in some languages to translate literally “run away,” since Jonah went by boat, not by running.) If, on the other hand, one wished to suggest the intensity with which Jonah undertook to escape to Spain, one may translate “That is why I did everything I could to go to Spain.” It is rarely possible to translate literally “I did my best,” since one must qualify “best” in terms of some particular kind of activity.
Chinese Union Version arranges the text of this verse in a more logical order than most translations by first stating the reason for Jonah’s action, and then the action itself, “I knew that you were … therefore I made haste to flee….”
The second part of the verse indicates the degree of Jonah’s bitterness against God’s decision to spare Nineveh. The influence of Joel has already been observed in connection with 3.9a, which is a close parallel to Joel 2.14. Those words in Joel are immediately preceded by a confession of faith in God’s mercy in terms very similar to those used here. Parallel with the “Who knows?” expressed by the king of Nineveh in 3.9 is the I knew of Jonah in this verse. Jonah did not need to question, as the king did, whether God was capable of changing his mind and withholding punishment. He knew that God was too kindhearted to carry out the threat that the prophet had been commissioned to deliver (3.4), and that was the reason he had been reluctant to deliver his message in the first place. Jonah quotes here the confession of faith found in Exo 34.6, but not as a ground for thankfulness, but as a ground for complaint that God could not be counted upon to be consistent in punishing those who deserved to suffer. Accordingly, to understand this passage correctly, it must be seen as a biting touch of irony, or even of scorn, against a God who was too mild to lend his support to the prophet by destroying Nineveh in accordance with the commissioned word of prophecy. New English Bible hints at the irony by enclosing the words from Exodus in quotation marks, “a god gracious and compassionate, longsuffering and ever constant.”
There are a number of passages in the Old Testament that echo the wording of Exo 34.6. The closest approximation is Psa 86.15. The formula in Jonah is practically the same as in Joel 2.13, and varies from Exodus in reversing the order of the first two adjectives, and making no mention of “truth.” This shorter form, with the same order of words as in Jonah, is also found in Neh 9.17 and Psa 145.8. The shorter form, but with the same order as in Exodus and in Psalm 86, is given in Psa 103.8. So it is evident that the confession of Israel’s faith stated here in Jonah was a familiar one during centuries of her history. Only here is it used as a ground for criticism of God’s nature. The first two adjectives, loving and merciful, are used to describe God, not only in the passages already mentioned, but in 2 Chr 30.9; Neh 9.31; Psa 111.4. These two adjectives are applied in the Old Testament solely to God, with the possible exception of Psa 112.4, where some scholars understand the last line to refer to God (for example, Revised Standard Version), and others conclude that it refers to man.
You are a loving and merciful God may be rendered as “you are a God who loves people and is kind to them” or “you as God love people and show mercy to them.”
The phrase always patient corresponds to a Hebrew expression generally rendered in earlier translations as “slow to anger.” As well as in the passages just mentioned, it is used of God in Num 14.18 and Neh 1.3. In Prov 14.29; 15.18; and 16.32 it is used to describe human beings who are not easily roused to anger, but are even-tempered and patient.
Patient may be expressed both negatively and positively; for example, “you do not become angry quickly” or “you do not punish right away” in contrast with “you very slowly become angry with people” or “you put up with people’s badness for a long time.”
The words always kind correspond to two Hebrew words that are consistently rendered in Revised Standard Version as “abounding in steadfast love.” The translation of chesed as “steadfast love” is closer to the meaning of the Hebrew than the rather colorless kind of Good News Translation. In New English Bible the normal way of expressing this phrase is “ever constant,” though in Psa 86.5 another element in the Hebrew, that of love, is brought out by speaking of the Lord as “full of true love.” As far as possible, a translation of the Hebrew word chesed should do justice to the emphasis on love and on its constancy and loyal steadfastness. It has been defined by Wolff, page 52, to denote “kindhearted actions that, by spontaneous love and the faithful meeting of responsibilities, create or establish a sense of community.”
In order to do better justice to the meaning of Hebrew chesed, one can translate in this context “people can always trust you to be good to them.”
The final section of this verse, and always ready to change your mind and not punish, is an echo of 3.10. In New English Bible this is included within quotation marks along with the words quoted from Exo 34.6. The expression is not a quotation from that part of Exodus, however, and the terminology “always willing to repent of the disaster” is far from intelligible. It borrows some of the wording of 3.10, but does it far less effectively than Good News Translation. Much the same wording as in 3.10 is found in the Hebrew of Exo 32.14, but there it refers to Israel, not Nineveh.
It may be important to specify somewhat more clearly the relationship between change your mind and not punish. Since the latter is the result of the former, one can then translate “change your mind so as not to punish” or “decide not to punish.” The final part of verse 2 may therefore be expressed as “you are always ready to decide not to punish,” or “… change your decision so as not to punish,” or “… decide differently and therefore not punish.”
Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. et al. A Handbook on the Book of Jonah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1978, 1982, 1993. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .