The Problem with Herman Melville’s Reading of the Book of Jonah

Toward the beginning of Moby Dick, the preacher Father Mapple delivers a sermon on the book of Jonah to a congregation of sailors. He poses the following question: in the long prayer offered by the prophet while in the belly of the fish, why does he never express remorse over his act of disobedience, or commitment to obeying God henceforth? And why does God answer this apparently inadequate prayer? Mapple concludes that it is admirable of Jonah “not [to] weep and wail for direct deliverance” but rather to accept that “his dreadful punishment is just.” While accepting the preacher’s question, Shalom Carmy finds his answer at best incomplete:

At no point does the Jonah whom Father Mapple holds up as the model of repentance say, “I am Your servant and wait upon Your command.” He still chafes at his mission [to convey the word of God to the people of Nineveh], and later, when God has accepted Nineveh’s repentance, he resents God’s mercifulness. Such a mentality seems less than ideal.

As the 12th-century Spanish author Abraham bar Ḥiyya put it, the book of Jonah is about people who turn to God. The righteous sailors with whom Jonah tries to escape respond to the storm with a heartfelt desire to do God’s will. The people of Nineveh repent under duress. But one man—the prophet—does not quite find his way to repentance. Jonah’s prayer is that of a man who is thankful that his life has apparently been spared, even if his home in the fish’s abdomen is a temporary prison. He is now willing to bend to God’s demands but not to thank Him for the opportunity. . . .

[Father Mapple is correct that] acceptance of punishment as deserved is an important step toward submission. Given the choice between, on the one hand, brooding or histrionic remorse that does not effect change of conduct and, on the other hand, a willingness to obey that lacks introspection, regret, and consternation, we should no doubt, in the short run, value action over sentiment. This is especially so in a culture like ours that often employs feigned regret and remorse as an appeal to pity and cheap mercifulness.

[However], real regret, real remorse, the heart broken in the painful recognition of what we have done ill in our relationships with other human beings and with God—these are essential to wholesome repentance. Hot tears of contrition and desperate pleas for forgiveness are not the same thing as [what Father Mapple derisively terms] “clamor . . . for pardon.” These themes are prominent throughout the book of Psalms; they are absent from Jonah’s incomplete submission in his prayer. And so, if we take a larger, biblical view of the matter, what Father Mapple holds up as ideal repentance, however productive in its context, is not beyond criticism.

Read more at First Things

More about: Hebrew Bible, Herman Melville, Jonah, Literature, Prayer, Religion & Holidays, Repentance

 

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF