The Gospel accounts report that Jesus mentioned the “sign of Jonah” several times. Sometimes it was quite clear that he was referring to the resurrection:
Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.”
Matthew 12:39: But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
(Matthew 12:38-39)
But that is not the only use of this sign. Matthew reports another instance where Jesus gave this answer:
And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven.
He answered them, “When it is evening, you say, It will be fair weather, for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening. You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.”
So he left them and departed.
(Matthew 16:1-4)
The interesting thing about this is the context in which this second episode appears. The previous chapter tells about three incidents:
- The healing of the Canaanite woman’s daughter (Matthew 15:21-26).
- Great crowds being healed and “glorifying the God of Israel” (Matthew 15:29-31).
- The feeding of four thousand (Matthew 15:32-39).
The common feature of these incidents is that they all deal with Gentiles. This is obvious in the case of the Canaanite woman, but perhaps not so obvious in the other two cases.
The clue that Gentiles are involved in the second account is the fact that after the healing the people “glorified the God of Israel.” The phrase “God of Israel” appears only here in Matthew, and it is rare in the rest of the New Testament. Why mention the God of Israel? Because the people there worshiped other gods than that of Israel — they were Gentiles.
There is further evidence in the third account. Jesus is dealing with the same group of people. In the previous instance of feeding (Matthew 14:15-21), he fed five thousand with five loaves and two fish. Five is a significant Jewish number, representing the five books of Torah. Then twelve baskets of leftover pieces were collected, and twelve obviously evokes the thought of the twelve tribes of Israel.
In this second instance of feeding, Jesus feeds four thousand with seven loaves, collecting seven baskets. These numbers are not representative of Israel; they represent the whole earth.
After this Jesus got into a boat and went to “the region of Magadan”, which is on the west side of the sea of Galilee. This confirms our hypothesis that Jesus, after leaving the region of Tyre and Sidon, had gone to the east side of the sea of Galilee, which is a Gentile area. From all this we conclude that Jesus had been ministering to Gentiles to this point.
This is when the Pharisees, wanting to “test him”, asked him for a sign. This is the second time Matthew reports that they had asked for a sign, and Jesus replied in a similar fashion, referring to Jonah. But in the first case he explicitly connected the sign of Jonah with the resurrection. In this case he does not make that connection. Does he mean the same thing?
I don’t think he did. The reason is that he prefaced his remarks with telling them that they failed to read “the signs of the times.” What did he mean by this? What was this further implication of the sign of Jonah?
Recalling the story of Jonah we remember that the point of Jonah’s assignment was to preach to Ninevah. And he did — and they repented. Along with this, the sailors who were with him in the boat also “feared the Lord” and offered sacrifices and made vows to him.
Thus this sign of Jonah is the Gentiles coming to God. Jesus is saying that, just as Jonah failed to see the work of God in bringing Gentiles to repentance, the Pharisees fail to see the significance of Jesus bringing Gentiles to repentance. They are missing out on what God is doing, and in doing so they miss their purpose as being part of those through whom God would bless the whole earth (Genesis 12:1-3).