The Blogs: Jonah and Hallel: Similar Songs, Distinct Messages

While reading Hallel (Psalms 113-118) recently, I was struck by how many of its phrases seemed to echo the story of the sea in the book of Jonah (chapters 1–2). At first glance, this might not be surprising. Hallel contains psalms of praise and thanksgiving, and in Jonah’s story, both the sailors and Jonah praise God after being saved from danger at sea.

But the similarities go deeper than that. Many of the same themes appear in both works:

God controls the sea (Jonah 1:4; Psalms 114:3,5)
Death is encroaching (Jonah 2:3; Psalms 116:3)
Calling out in distress (Jonah 2:3-4; Psalms 116:4)
Deliverance by God (Jonah 2:10; Psalms 118:14)
Reversal of misfortune – imagery of lifting up (Jonah 2:7; Psalms 113:7)
Vows for thanksgiving offerings (Jonah 1:16, 2:10; Psalms 116:14,17)
Nations acknowledging God (Jonah 1:16; Psalms 117:1–2)

Even more striking than these themes are the repeated words and phrases that tie the two together. Some expressions appear almost identically; others share rare Hebrew roots found in both passages. Taken together, these suggest not just shared imagery, but a deliberate intertextual connection, with one text engaging with the other.

Below are several examples:

God of Heaven

“I worship the Lord, the God of Heaven” (Jonah 1:9)
“Our God is in Heaven” (Psalms 115:3)

What shall be done to me

“What shall we do to you, that the sea may be calm for us?” (Jonah 1:11)
“The Lord is for me, I shall not fear. What shall be done to me by man?” (Psalms 118:6)

God’s will always prevails

“For You, O Lord, that You desire You do.” (Jonah 1:14)
“Our God is in Heaven; all that He desires, He does.” (Psalms 115:3)

Thanksgiving offerings and vows

“The men feared the Lord greatly; they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.” (Jonah 1:16)
“And I, with a voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to You. What I have vowed I will pay.” (Jonah 2:10)
“I will sacrifice a thanksgiving offering to You and invoke the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all His people.” (Psalms 116:17–18)

Calling out in distress / In Sheol / Hearing my voice

“In my distress I called to the Lord, and He answered me. From the belly of Sheol I cried out, and You heard my voice.” (Jonah 2:3)
“In distress I called on the Lord; the Lord answered me and brought me relief.” (Psalms 118:5)
“The torments of Sheol overtook me” (Psalms 116:3)
“For He hears my voice” (Psalms 116:1)

Surrounded and encompassed

“The waters encompassed me (afafuni), the deep surrounded me (yesoveveni).” (Jonah 2:6)
“The bonds of death encompassed me (afafuni).” (Psalms 116:3)
“They swarmed round me; oh they surrounded me (sevavuni).” (Psalms 118:11)

Even Jonah’s name – Yonah ben Amitai (Jonah 1:1) – finds an echo in ben amatecha, “the son of Your maidservant” (Psalms 116:16).

With so many parallels, one might expect the two texts to convey the same message: the psalms offering a general model of thanksgiving, and Jonah’s story serving as a concrete narrative example. Yet one key difference reveals that they are not fully aligned. Two verses that stand in marked opposition show how each text conveys a distinct understanding of the divine vision of truth and repentance.

In Jonah’s prayer, a note of criticism appears amid his gratitude:

“They who cling to empty lies, forsake their mercy.” (Jonah 2:9)

Here Jonah condemns idolaters, claiming they abandon the possibility of mercy from God. Yet Psalms, especially in Hallel, teaches that God’s mercy is eternal (for example, Psalms 118:1). Jonah also portrays these idolaters as deceitful, “clinging to empty lies.” But the psalmist reaches the opposite conclusion, acknowledging that he had been rash in questioning people’s sincerity:

“I said in my haste: All men are liars.” (Psalms 116:11)

The psalmist’s admission not only contrasts with Jonah’s denunciation of those who cling to empty lies but also repudiates his entire worldview. Jonah was fixated on truth. His very name, ben Amitai (“son of my truth”), reflects that preoccupation. He could not accept the possibility of repentance by Nineveh, convinced that any change would surely be insincere. If their words were false, he reasoned, they had forfeited their right to divine mercy.

Jonah took many of the proper steps after his rescue, recognizing God’s role and vowing to offer sacrifices. Yet he never acknowledged that he was rash in saying that the people of Nineveh were liars. He judged them too quickly and never underwent the internal transformation that the psalmist did.

While Jonah continued to view sinners as liars, even when they attempted to repent, God does not. The psalmist confirmed this in his psalm. I encountered the same idea in a different context…

Ma’avir Rishon Rishon

Several years ago, as Yom Kippur approached, I found myself asking a question that had been troubling me for a long time: how can someone truly repent if they keep returning to the same sins? What does it mean to confess them yet again, and how can anyone expect to leave Yom Kippur “cleansed” when the repentance will almost certainly be imperfect?

I sent this question to a number of rabbis, and one answer that stayed with me came from Rabbi Yoel Bin Nun. He pointed to the phrase ma’avir rishon rishon, which appears in the Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 17a) and in the selichot prayers. Traditionally it’s explained to mean that God “sets aside the first sin first.” As Rashi comments on the Talmudic passage, when a person’s merits and sins are exactly balanced, God removes one sin from the side of guilt so the merits can tip the scale. The sin isn’t erased. If the sins later outweigh the merits, the removed sin returns. But God’s mercy is shown in giving someone a chance to be judged favorably.

Rabbi Bin Nun built on that idea and explained the phrase differently. In his reading, ma’avir rishon rishon means that God “passes over [each sin] as if it were the first.” Sins, he said, tend to accumulate into bundles, becoming part of a person’s ongoing identity. But confession and regret, even if they don’t uproot a sin forever, can detach it from the bundle. Once it stands on its own, the sin can be seen not as part of an entrenched pattern but as a first offense, and as such it can be set aside and forgiven. Just as the Talmud described God setting aside the first sin, Rabbi Bin Nun extended this to every sin: each time a person distances themselves from wrongdoing, God carries that sin across into the space of a single, separate act. By treating every lapse as a new beginning rather than part of a fixed chain, God leaves room for forgiveness even for someone who struggles again and again.

This understanding sheds new light on Jonah’s story. From God’s perspective, the people of Nineveh weren’t liars. By their acts of repentance, they had disconnected from their sins and received a fresh start. Would it be a fleeting change, as Jonah feared? Perhaps. But they weren’t “clinging to their lies,” so God viewed their repentance as honest. We can only hope the same for us in our yearly acts of repentance before Yom Kippur.

The Danger of Labeling

Just as God doesn’t view “all men as liars,” we too must resist the urge to define others by their faults. If God is ma’avir rishon rishon, we should also try.

My father, Dr. Richard Curwin, was an expert in discipline and motivation. He warned against the dangers of labeling children, seeing it as one of the most damaging habits in education. When children are given labels, especially negative ones like “lazy” or “troublemaker,” they begin to see themselves through those words, often fulfilling the exact expectations adults have placed on them. Labels also narrow a teacher’s perception, turning momentary behaviors into assumed character traits. Instead, he urged educators to describe what a student does rather than who they are, focusing on specific actions that can change and offering language that preserves the student’s dignity and potential for growth.

The danger of labeling doesn’t only apply to our children and students. It’s a pervasive problem in society today, and perhaps its most harmful form is calling someone a liar. Across the world, and certainly in Israel and America, we’re quick to accuse those we disagree with of dishonesty. We question their intentions, assume hidden motives, and doubt their sincerity. “They say they believe X, but they really believe Y.” Aside from the fact that we can’t read anyone’s mind and know what they truly believe, we all need to learn from the psalmist’s example. He reminds us not to be hasty and assume people are liars. And even if they may be insincere at times, that shouldn’t define who they are. Each act or statement should be considered on its own, rather than being bundled into a person’s overall character. If we can try to do that with our adversaries, then there’s a good chance they might do the same for us. And if we all make that effort, hopefully God will do the same. At a time when, like Jonah, we are surrounded by distress and in need of God’s rescue, we should strive to fulfill all the conditions found in Hallel, so that we too may merit to sing our songs of thanksgiving.