Have you heard the phrase that God can hit straight with a crooked stick? That might be the most apt description of Jonah and his interactions with both the sailors in this passage and the people of Nineveh later in the book. Despite Jonah’s flight from Yahweh and his reluctance to obey God’s calling, the Lord “hits straight” when Jonah opens his mouth to tell the truth about the true God.

In today’s passage the sailors decide to “cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity” (v. 7). Casting lots is similar to throwing dice; it was a common mechanism in the ancient Near East for getting your questions answered by the gods. The idea was that since the person casting the lots cannot control how they land, people could be certain that their outcome was determined by the gods. The Old Testament described a similar tool for determining God’s will, called the Urim and Thummim (see Ex. 28:30). In the case of the sailors, God graciously showed them that Jonah was the culprit, even though they did not yet know the Lord.

Jonah, to his credit, does not shy away from the truth about who he is and who God is. He states, seemingly without hesitation, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land” (v. 9). This terrifies the sailors, who “knew he was running away from the LORD, because he had already told them so” (v. 10). We can take a few lessons from this interaction. First, God is gracious to show pagan sailors the truth about Jonah and the storm. Second, Jonah’s message to the sailors isn’t fancy or even particularly compelling, but it still pierces the sailors’ hearts.

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