Jonah And Intertextual Dialogue Analysis

HOSEA The prophet Hosea lived in the kingdom of northern Israel in the eighth century B.C., a time of great political change and struggle. The Hebrew monarchy felt the need to make political alliances with pagan kings to keep Israel on friendly terms with other nations.

Individual Hebrews often married or in business deals with pagans, were attracted to the sexual rites in the pagan fertility temple. Of particular danger to the Hebrew faith were the cults of the storm god Baal, the Lord of the Winds, who was very popular among ordinary people.

.Hosea's "calling" concerned his wife, Gomer. The prophet believed he was called by God to marry a prostitute. Hosea was chosen to go and love a woman who is loved by her husband, a "wife of whoredom"

In his article, "Jonah and Intertextual Dialogue," Anthony Abela has noted parallels between Jonah and Jeremiah in that both prophets face great distress and life-threatening circumstances.33 The prayer of Jonah 2 draws upon the language and imagery of the Psalter to portray Jonah as a righteous worshipper expressing his thanksgiving that Yahweh has delivered him from drowning in the sea.34 The threats to Jeremiah's life are reflected in his "confessions" where he laments the hardships and difficulties of his prophetic calling (cf. Jer 11:18-12:6; 15:10-21; 17:14-18; 18:18-23; 20:7-18) and in the various narrative accounts where Jeremiah's enemies seek to put him to death (cf. Jer 11:19-23; 20:10-11; 26:1-15; 38:1-6). Both Jonah and Jeremiah experience great distress as prophets for Yahweh, but the irony is that they experience these hardships for entirely different reasons. Jonah's downward "descent" of disobedience leads him to the brink of Sheol as he is engulfed by the waters of chaos.35 Jonah suffers because he has rejected his prophetic commission and refuses to speak the word of Yahweh, while Jeremiah suffers because of his faithfulness to his prophetic commission and the compulsion to proclaim the word of Yahweh that he cannot escape (cf. Jer 20:7-9). In fact, the suffering of Jeremiah recalls that of the faithful "Suffering Servant" in Isaiah.36 The Isaianic Servant and the prophet Jeremiah are beaten, shamed, and then vindicated (Isa. 50:4-9; Jer. 20:7-12). Both the Servant and Jeremiah are like sheep "led to slaughter" (Isa. 53:7-8; Jer. 11:19) so that they are cut off "from the land of the living." Adding to the irony, the disobedient Jonah is delivered from his life-threatening situation and his imprisonment behind the "bars" of the underworld in Jonah 2:6, but the faithful Jeremiah must rest in the promise of an eventual deliverance from the various forms of imprisonment that he experiences