I read the book of Jonah the other day and as often happens in reading I found something that caught me off guard. In Jonah 4, Jonah describes God in language that is pretty typical (and wonderful): Jonah 4:2 He prayed to the LORD, “O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity." The word "love" in this passage is the Hebrew "hesed"--the word that typically describes God's covenant love for Israel. Jonah applies it to the people of Nineveh (which was by all accounts one of the most wicked cities and nations of the day). How is it that the wonders of God's covenant along with his compassion, slow to anger etc. get connected to a nation that is not Israel? What's the covenant that might bind God to the people of Nineveh? Added to this there is at the end of this chapter the implication made by God that he planted and made the people of Nineveh grow. All of this brings to mind at least two things. First, the covenant that God has with Nineveh may well be the covenant of Noah, where he promises not to destroy the world with the flood again (can we compare destroying Nineveh to a kind of minor flood?). The covenant of Noah has some stipulations that were being broken by the people of Nineveh (known for its blood thirsty armies and injustice), but when they confess their evil God relents-for they are not living in covenant faithfulness. The second thing: God makes it clear on more than one occasion in the Old Testament that while he has called Israel out as his own people, that the other nations too have been established by him and he has a heart for them. Behind the scenes, even in the Old Testament we see a God who is establishing a worldwide kingdom.
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