Perhaps
Jonah’s very name is a clue to his personality and mission. At least one critic
(Lewis 163) maintains that “Jonah” stems from the Hebrew word for “oppress.”
The prophet’s dangerous mission to distant Nineveh thus makes him an oppressed
person. More typically, his name is translated as “dove.” In the Hebrew
Scriptures approximately forty different animals are associated with human
beings through nicknames and comparisons. Many of them are uncomplimentary
links to pests such as fleas, moles, or pigs (Wolff 98). In several passages,
the dove also receives less than flattering descriptions. Isaiah 38:14 compares
King Hezekiah’s lament to a dove’s soft but complaining noise in “I moaned like
a dove.” In Hos 7:11, Israel (poetically called Ephraim) is compared to a dove,
but it is representative of an undiscerning person, a birdbrain: “Ephraim has
acted/Like a silly dove with no mind.” In this instance, the dove is a fickle
creature, incapable of sustained devotion. In the book of Hosea, the Lord is
loyal to the people, despite their faithlessness to the deity.
In
the story of Noah, of course, the dove is a positive symbol of reconciliation
after the deluge of God’s justice (Gen 8:11). The dove is also one of the birds
used by ancient sailors to guide them to dry land (Hamel 344), a practice that
has implications in the book of Jonah when, after meeting the prophet, the
mariners pray to the Lord. Elsewhere in the Torah (the first five books of the
Bible, also called the Pentateuch) a dove is even used as an acceptable means
to restore “unclean” persons to the community. For example, a woman who seeks
purification after giving birth could, if financially strapped, substitute two
doves for a sheep in her sacrifice at the Tent of Meeting (Lev 12:8).
Throughout the Song of Songs, “dove” is a term of endearment used by lovers,
and in Ps 74:19 the “lowly ones” who should not be ignored in a community are
compared to doves. Associating Jonah with a dove therefore has both negative
and positive connotations in the context of other Bible passages—connections
echoed in more modern symbolic and psychological interpretations of Jonah’s
story and reflecting his disobedience and ambivalence to the divine call.
Jonah
is also the son of Amittai (אמתי), a word that derives from the Hebrew root אמת,
truth. So Jonah’s name may be broadly interpreted as either “Peaceful bird, son
of human truthfulness” or “Birdbrain, son of God’s enduring truth in the face
of human capriciousness.” Ambiguous interpretations of the prophet’s name imply
a major problem of the book: how to view Jonah’s character. If Jonah is a dove,
his actions are sometimes far removed from the dove of hope in Noah’s story.
The peaceful dove symbol may seem appropriate for Jonah at the beginning of the
tale, but by the end it appears to be the opposite of his truth nature (Hauser
22). If he is a son of truth, he is not particularly faithful to his prophetic
calling or keen to fulfill it. Jonah and Yahweh are the only characters in the
book who have names; everyone else—the mariners, the captain, the king of
Nineveh, the nobles—remain anonymous. Yet even Jonah’s name reveals the
potential for dispute over what his character entails. (Janet Howe Gaines, Forgiveness
in a Wounded World: Jonah’s Dilemma [Studies in Biblical Literature 5;
Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000], 36-37)
