Texts in Conversation
In Jonah 1, the prophet flees God with the same verb Ugaritic tradition uses for Litan the serpent, casting his resistance in language used for a divine enemy.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
KTU 1.5 I:1
Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
Ancient Near East
Though you struck Litan the wriggling serpent, finished off the writhing serpent, Encircler-with-seven-heads, the skies will be hot, they will shine when I tear you in pieces: I shall devour you, elbows, blood and forearms; You will indeed go down into the throat of divine Mot (death), into the maw of the Beloved of El, the hero. The gods departed and did not stay. Then they set their faces towards the lord of the heights of Sapan, and Gupan and Ugar said: Message of divine Mot (death), word of the Beloved of El, the hero: My appetite is the appetite of the lion in the wasteland as the desire of the shark is in the sea; as wild bulls yearn for pools, or the hind longs for the spring. Look, in truth does my throat devour clay and with both my hands I devour them.
Jonah 1:10
Hebrew Bible
7 The sailors said to one another, “Come on, let’s cast lots to find out whose fault it is that this disaster has overtaken us.” So they cast lots, and Jonah was singled out. 8 They said to him, “Tell us, whose fault is it that this disaster has overtaken us? What’s your occupation? Where do you come from? What’s your country? And who are your people?” 9 He said to them, “I am a Hebrew, and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” 10 Hearing this, the men became even more afraid and said to him, “What have you done?” (The men said this because they knew that he was trying to escape from the Lord, because he had previously told them.)
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Notes and References
“... The antanaclastic repetition of the root ,ּבָרַחonce for the “latch” and three
times for “fleeing” recalls the well-known tradition of ... also attested in Ugaritic as ltn bṯn brḥ
“Leviathan the fleeing serpent” (CAT 1.5 i 1). ... The allusion in Jonah
persuades us to parallel Jonah and Leviathan, since both flee God. In this
light, the “fear” of God that Jonah registers in 1:10 becomes more terror than
reverance.71 ...”
Noegel, Scott B.
Jonah and Leviathan Inner-Biblical Allusions and the Problem with Dragons
(p. 249) Studies in Judaism and Christianity from Second Temple to Late Antiquity Brescia 37, 2, 2015
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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