Hebrew Word Study – It Existed – Yehi – יְהִי֙ Yod Hei Yod 

Jonah 1:3 “But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.”  KJV

I remember as a six year old sitting in Sunday School in the Beginner’s Department listening to my Sunday School teacher tell the story of Jonah. I recall how my Sunday School teacher said that Jonah ran away from God. She then said: “Now children, you know you cannot run away from God.” I shook my head in the positive fashion. Yes, I knew that.  I also thought: “Gee, I’m smarter than Jonah. Jonah must have been pretty stupid. Why I am only six years old and I know more than Jonah. I know you can‘t run away from God.” But, so did Jonah for that matter.

Let’s face it, Jonah was a prophet, a man of God for crying out loud. He should have known you can’t out run God. If you look carefully at this passage, even in the King James Version, it does not say that Jonah ran away from God, it says that Jonah ran from the “presence of God.” The problem with that rendering is that it contradicts Psalms 139:7 “Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?”

To avoid this contradiction the NIV ignored the word pani in the Hebrew text which is rendered as face or presence. Ok, to be fair they did not exactly ignore it, they simply said that pani could be translated as before which it can and therefore Jonah fled from before the Lord. In other words, David fled from standing before the Lord as a minister and servant of God. Other commentators suggest that he was fleeing from the temple of God where the presence of God rested. The problem with that is that Jonah lived in the Northern Kingdom and the temple was not embraced as religiously as those who lived in Judah where Jerusalem was their capital city and the place where the temple stood.  True, however, he ran North which was further away from the temple. Although, I am not sure what difference that would make. Still, the Northern Kingdom was part of Israel, the promised land and worshipping Jehovah was the major religion of that nation so everything about the land reminded Jonah of God and he felt from fleeing the country he would at least not be reminded of God. 

So, Jonah was not fleeing just from the presence of God, but from an overwhelming presence of God. That is everything that reminds him of God which causes him to consider and contemplate God and the message God was delivering to his heart. Hence, he fled the nation, country and land of God. The place where all the religious men were wearing their religious garments, performing their religious duties and the women performing their religious obligations. It would be much like walking through a Middle Eastern country like Iran where all the women wore their hijab or burkas and the men wearing their kufis or turbans.  Fleeing to Tarshish, which was a mercantile pagan city, would be somewhere where he would not be forced to contemplate God or be reminded of God.

Notice how the book of Jonah starts out. Jonah 1:1: “Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,” The word used for “Word” of the Lord in Hebrew is dabar which are specific words coming from the heart. The very first word in this verse and in this book of Jonah is vayehi which is rendered by most translations as coming, but vayehi comes from the root word hayah which is the same root that the sacred name of God YHWH comes from which means I am, I was and I will be. Hayah means to exist. The word vayehi is in an imperfect form with a Vav conversive. The Vav conversive changes this to a perfect or completed action but many Hebrew scholars say that the Vav conversive is used to also indicate both past and present, sort of like a participle and thus this would literally be rendered as the Word from the heart of God existed in Jonah. Now stop and consider, this is a Word from heart of God that is existing in the heart of Jonah and it is actually living. Remember that this word has a life giving force in it. 

. I recall a story that took place in Romania many years ago when the Communist came in and took over a small Romania village. They went into the church and removed all the sacred objects, the Bibles, hymn books, prayer books, crosses etc. and threw them into a bonfire and then they burned the church down. One of the communist soldiers grabbed one of the Christians and made him look at their destruction and said: “See there, we are going to destroy your God and everything that reminds you of your God.” That Christian just looked up and began to smile. It made the soldier angry and shouted at the Christian, “Didn’t you hear me, we are going to destroy your God and everything that reminds you of your God.” This Christian just answered: “I was just wondering how you’re going to manage to get the stars down.”  

The Word of the Lord exist in all of us who have invited The Word,  Jesus Christ, to live inside of us. It is life giving and gives us our direction and purpose in life. However, like Jonah, that purpose or mission might not be what another part of us wants so we may just try to run away from it by filling our lives with things that do not remind us of God. 

Note: This is only an abridged portion on this study. Join us on our All Access site where you will find the full audio version of this study under In Depth Study – Heart to Heart (Part 4 of the Journey to God’s Heart series).  

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