The prophetic book titled “Jonah” begins with a command of God to the prophet. “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.” We are familiar with Jonah’s response. Instead of obeying the voice of God, “Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord” (2:3).
Tarshish was the opposite direction from Nineveh. But there is nothing in scripture that indicates that God is not to be found there. It is doubtful that Jonah, a prophet of God, really thought that he could flee to a place where God could not reach him. In Psalm 139, David wrote:
“Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend into heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.
If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there Your hand shall lead me,
And Your right hand shall hold me.”
(7-10)
It seems probable that Jonah was familiar with this passage. What is probably meant by the phrase, “from the presence of the Lord” is that Jonah’s animosity toward Nineveh brought the desire to leave the region, his office as prophet, and the command God had given him to go preach to his enemy. He simply did not want to do what God wanted him to do! And so, he determined to physically get as far away as possible from the responsibility God gave him.
There is a lesson in this for us. Now, some may be ignorant in not knowing God’s nature. He is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. You can’t literally hide from God’s presence. The One who created the universe is not like Baal, who Elijah once sarcastically posited if, “he is on a journey, or perhaps he is sleeping and must be awakened” (cf. 1 Kings 18:27).
More to the point, you can’t ignore or disobey God without consequence. Jonah learned that lesson, and so must we. “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them” (Ephesians 5:6-7). You can’t “flee from the presence of the Lord”!
