Work Text:
There are days that Jonah is convinced that God called upon him because He knew how he would cower in fear, how he would run away, and, in so doing, sin against the Almighty. Knew how woefully imperfect and afraid Jonah would be in the face of a Divine Mission, and how he would look it. Knew that when he finally appeared on the shores of Nineveh, covered in water and fish guts, he would be quaking in what was left of his sandals. That when he proclaimed: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown,” it would not be a mighty condemnation, but a meek, terrified stutter.
And how could the Ninevites, when faced not with a haughty prophet who seemed to think himself superior to them, but rather with a shaking young man as imperfect as they were, do anything but listen?