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Introduction
to Jonah
This summary of the book of Jonah provides information about the
title, author(s), date of writing, chronology, theme, theology, outline, a
brief overview, and the chapters of the Book of Jonah.
The book is named after its principal character, whose name means
"dove"; see the simile used of Ephraim in Hos
7:11 to portray the northern kingdom as "easily deceived and
senseless." See also Ps 68:13; 74:19 and notes.
Though the book does not identify its author, tradition has
ascribed it to the prophet himself, Jonah son of Amittai (1:1),
from Gath Hepher (2Ki 14:25; see note there) in Zebulun (Jos 19:10,13). In view of its many similarities
with the narratives about Elijah and Elisha, however, it may come from the same
prophetic circles that originally composed the accounts about those prophets,
perhaps in the eighth century b.c. (see Introduction to 1 Kings: Author,
Sources and Date).
In the half-century during which the prophet Jonah ministered
(800-750 b.c.), a significant event affected the northern kingdom of Israel:
King Jeroboam II (793-753) restored her traditional borders, ending almost a
century of sporadic seesaw conflict between Israel and Damascus.
Jeroboam, in God's good providence (2Ki 14:26-27), capitalized on Assyria's defeat
of Damascus (in the latter half of the ninth century), which temporarily crushed
that center of Aramean power. Prior to that time, not only had Israel been
considerably reduced in size, but the king of Damascus had even been able to
control internal affairs in the northern kingdom (2Ki 13:7). However, after the Assyrian campaign against
Damascus in 797, Jehoash king of Israel had been able to recover the territory
lost to the king of Damascus (2Ki 13:25). Internal troubles in Assyria
subsequently allowed Jeroboam to complete the restoration of Israel's northern
borders. Nevertheless, Assyria remained the real threat from the north at this
time.
The prophets of the Lord were speaking to Israel regarding these
events. About 797 b.c. Elisha spoke to the king of Israel concerning future
victories over Damascus (2Ki 13:14-19). A few years later Jonah
prophesied the restoration that Jeroboam accomplished (2Ki 14:25). But soon after Israel had triumphed,
she began to gloat over her newfound power. Because she was relieved of foreign
pressures -- relief that had come in accordance with encouraging words from
Elisha and Jonah -- she felt jealously complacent about her favored status with
God (Am 6:1). She focused her religion on
expectations of the "day of the Lord" (Am 5:18-20), when God's darkness would engulf
the other nations, leaving Israel to bask in his light.
It was in such a time that the Lord sent Amos and Hosea to announce
to his people Israel that he would "spare them no longer" (Am
7:8; 8:2) but would send them into exile "beyond
Damascus" (Am 5:27), i.e., to Assyria (Hos
9:3; 10:6; 11:5).
During this time the Lord also sent Jonah to Nineveh to warn it of the imminent
danger of divine judgment.
Since Jonah was a contemporary of Amos, see Introduction to Amos:
Date and Historical Situation for additional details.
For a number of reasons, including the preaching to Gentiles, the
book is often assigned a postexilic date. At least, it is said, the book must
have been written after the destruction of Nineveh in 612 b.c. But these
considerations are not decisive. The similarity of this narrative to the
Elijah-Elisha accounts has already been noted. One may also question whether
mention of the repentance of Nineveh and the consequent averted destruction of
the city would have had so much significance to the author after Nineveh's
overthrow. And to suppose that proclaiming God's word to Gentiles had no
relevance in the eighth century is to overlook the fact that already in the
previous century Elijah and Elisha had extended their ministries to foreign
lands (1Ki 17:7-24; 2Ki 8:7-15). Moreover, the prophet Amos (c.
760-750) set God's redemptive work in behalf of Israel in the context of his
dealings with the nations (Am
1:3 -- 2:16; 9:7,12). Perhaps the third quarter of the
eighth century is the most likely date for the book, after the public
ministries of Amos and Hosea and before the fall of Samaria to Assyria in
722-721.
Many have questioned whether the book of Jonah is historical. The
supposed legendary character of some of the events (e.g., the episode involving
the great fish) has caused them to suggest alternatives to the traditional view
that the book is historical, biographical narrative. Although their specific
suggestions range from fictional short story to allegory to parable, they share
the common assumption that the account sprang essentially from the author's
imagination, despite its serious and gracious message.
Such interpretations, often based in part on doubt about the
miraculous as such, too quickly dismiss (1) the similarities between the
narrative of Jonah and other parts of the OT and (2) the pervasive concern of
the OT writers, especially the prophets, for history. They also fail to realize
that OT narrators had a keen ear for recognizing how certain past events in
Israel's pilgrimage with God illumine (by way of analogy) later events. (For
example, the events surrounding the birth of Moses illumine the exodus, those
surrounding Samuel's birth illumine the series of events narrated in the books
of Samuel, and the ministries of Moses and Joshua illumine those of Elijah and
Elisha.) Similarly, the prophets recognized that the future events they
announced could be illumined by reference to analogous events of the past.
Overlooking these features in OT narrative and prophecy, many have supposed
that a story that too neatly fits the author's purpose must therefore be
fictional.
On the other hand, it must be acknowledged that Biblical narrators
were more than historians. They interpretatively recounted the past with the
unswerving purpose of bringing it to bear on the present and the future. In the
portrayal of past events, they used their materials to achieve this purpose
effectively. Nonetheless, the integrity with which they treated the past ought
not to be questioned. The book of Jonah recounts real events in the life and
ministry of the prophet himself.
Unlike most other prophetic parts of the OT, this book is a
narrative account of a single prophetic mission. Its treatment of that mission
is thus similar to the accounts of the ministries of Elijah and Elisha found in
1,2 Kings, and to certain narrative sections of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
As is often the case in Biblical narratives, the author has
compressed much into a small space; 40 verses tell the entire story (eight
additional verses of poetry are devoted to Jonah's prayer of thanksgiving). In
its scope (a single extended episode), compactness, vividness and character
delineation, it is much like the book of Ruth.
Also as in Ruth, the author uses structural symmetry effectively.
The story is developed in two parallel cycles that call attention to a series
of comparisons and contrasts (see Outline). The story's climax is Jonah's grand
prayer of confession, "Salvation comes from the Lord" -- the middle
confession of three from his lips (1:9;
2:9; 4:2). The last sentence emphasizes that the
Lord's word is final and decisive, while Jonah is left sitting in the hot, open
country outside Nineveh.
The author uses the art of representative roles in a straightforward
manner. In this story of God's loving concern for all people, Nineveh, the
great menace to Israel, is representative of the Gentiles. Correspondingly,
stubbornly reluctant Jonah represents Israel's jealousy of her favored
relationship with God and her unwillingness to share the Lord's compassion with
the nations.
The book depicts the larger scope of God's purpose for Israel:
that she might rediscover the truth of his concern for the whole creation and
that she might better understand her own role in carrying out that concern.
I.
Jonah Flees His Mission (chs. 1-2)
A.
Jonah's Commission and Flight (1:1-3)
II.
Jonah Reluctantly Fulfills His Mission (chs. 3
- 4)
──《New
International Version》
Introduction to Jonah
Jonah was a native of Galilee, 2Ki 14:25. His
miraculous deliverance from out of the fish, rendered him a type of our blessed
Lord, who mentions it, so as to show the certain truth of the narrative. All
that was done was easy to the almighty power of the Author and Sustainer of
life. This book shows us, by the example of the Ninevites, how great are the
Divine forbearance and long-suffering towards sinners. It shows a most striking
contrast between the goodness and mercy of God, and the rebellion, impatience,
and peevishness of his servant; and it will be best understood by those who are
most acquainted with their own hearts.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Jonah》
00 Overview
JONAH
INTRODUCTION
IT is very interesting and very instructive to scrutinise the faces
in a great gallery of portraits. The man who does so has before him materials
which should help him to gain a wide knowledge of human character. Here is a
countenance noble and winsome. The spectator is certain that it was a tender
and brave and faithful heart which beat beneath an exterior so fair. Features
like these could not cover any littleness of soul. Perhaps it is a soldier in
his coat of mail, whose likeness the artist has drawn, or it may be a woman’s
face that looks out from the canvas; but whoever it be, the onlooker is glad
that he has seen the picture. But a painting of a different kind attracts him
next--that of one who has evidently had many fierce battles with temptation,
and who has not come out of them all scathless. This much the spectator learns
from the sad expression which rests on the features; and yet, as he examines
them more carefully, he sees that dissatisfaction and sorrow are not their most
prominent characteristics. There is peace stamped on the face as well as
trouble--peace which seems in the end to have gained the mastery over the
trouble. There are no portraits like those which have been painted for us in
the pages of the Bible. They have been drawn by the hand of a Master, and they
are very varied in the types of character which they represent. In the goodly
fellowship of the prophets--to think meanwhile of no others--what differences
of natural disposition, and of spiritual attainments, there are I Some, like
Joel, and Amos, and Hosea, are without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
Beside them we see our own shortcomings, and know what manner of men our Lord
would have us to be. And others, like Jonah, are far from faultless. They are
genuine servants of God, but servants who sin and fall, whose loyalty is not
steadfast and immovable, who carry to this day dark blots on their fair name.
We are encouraged ourselves to make trial of His compassion and His grace. That
Jonah, after his wilful disobedience and foolish querulousness, was healed of
all the diseases of his spirit--that, like many a wayward child, he learned to
sorrow over his self-will, and came home with a penitent and reproachful heart
to his Father’s house--who
of us can doubt? I take it that he was himself the author of the book which
bears his name, though some have thought of it as the embalming by a subsequent
writer of an ancient and venerable tradition. £ I can see no reason for
doubting that the prophet penned with his own hand these four short chapters.
Before his life closed he sat down to recount for the generations that should
follow the story of his memorable journey to Nineveh. And how does he tell the
story? Very humbly, we shall admit, and very impartially. They are bitter
things which he writes in it against himself. He extenuates nothing. He unveils
all his hardness of heart, all his Jewish exclusiveness, all his murmuring
against the Lord. He is relentless in his self-condemnation, whilst over
against the confession of his lack of obedience and of charity he places the
record of God’s loving-kindness and tender mercy. The book exalts God, indeed,
and rebukes and punishes Jonah. It is a book of Confessions which Jonah has
written, not an Apologia pro vim sua. He acknowledges publicly the
wrongness of his thinking and acting. When we read his chapters we are reminded
of Peter going out to weep bitterly, and afterwards inspiring the Gospel of
Mark, which tells more fully than any of the other evangelical records how he
sinned and fell; of Augustine, composing the narrative of his foolish youth; of
John Bunyan, declaring how grace had abounded in his experience to the chief of
sinners. Jonah must have been a new man, with a heart within him from which the
old pride and unkindness and disobedience had been driven quite away, before he
could pen the book which bears his name. The Book of Jonah is not like other
prophetic writings. It is not a recital of discourses, but a vivid narrative of
a strange episode in its author’s life. It has been described as a drama in
three acts, each of which is full of interest and replete with instruction.
I. First of all,
the prophecy deals with Jonah himself. Very little is known regarding him
beyond what we learn from these chapters. There is, however, one other mention
of him in the Old Testament. We read, in the Second Book of Kings, about
Jeroboam II., the powerful and able and sinful ruler of the Northern tribes
under whom Amos and Hosea lived and preached, that “he restored the coast of
Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain, according to the
word of the Lord God which He spake by the hand of His servant Jonah, the son
of Amittai, the prophet, who was of Gath-hepher.” Jonah was a native, then, of
Lower Galilee, a child of the tribe of Zabulon, born in a little village among
the hills not far from Nazareth. And his first message as a prophet was a
message of gladness, in which he took delight, and which brought him honour and
esteem. He had foretold the success of the king of Israel, how he should regain
provinces that had been lost, how he should win back for a short space the
glory of his empire. It is strange that one whose ministry began under such
bright auspices should end it under a cloud, and should be presented to us not
as a model but as a beacon. It is a warning to take heed lest we fall--an
illustration of the truth that even the saints of God are weak and brittle in
themselves, in constant danger of losing the crown, and needing always the
support of a higher hand. We can scarcely be surprised that legend should have
busied itself about Jonah, and should have tried to augment our scanty
knowledge of his earlier years. There is the old tradition, for example, that
he was the son of the widow of Zarephath, the boy whom Elijah brought back from
death to life. And indeed it would be pleasant to think that the first apostle
of the Gentiles, sent on a mission of mercy to a heathen people, was himself a
Gentile on the mother’s side; £ and that he stood in so interesting a relation
to the great prophet who fought single-handed the battle of God against Baal.
But the very pleasantness of the fancy is its condemnation. It fits in too
neatly with our preconceptions and desires. Whether, during the years when he
lived at home in the Northern Kingdom, Jonah had other announcements given him
to publish to his countrymen beside that happy announcement of victory and
national enlargement, we cannot say. The time was very evil, and the land was
sick unto death. What we do know is, that to the prophet, dwelling among his
own people, there came one day a message from God which startled him, and for
which he had no liking. He was commanded to leave his kindred, and journey to
Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire. There he was to proclaim the
Lord’s judgments. When God pointed in one way, he moved in exactly the opposite
direction. What made him so rebellious? Partly it may have been fear. He was
appalled at the greatness and the hazardous nature of the task allotted him. He
forgot that God’s servants, who do His will, are kept by Him safe in the hollow
of His hand. But there was another reason for his disobedience, as he tells us
himself. He could not help feeling that though he was sent to Nineveh with a
fearful woe on his lips, his mission was in reality one of love. He understood
well that often his God threatened in order that He might afterwards spare, and
that His terrors were meant to drive to Himself, for forgiveness and healing,
those who would not be won by gentler methods. And Jonah had no desire to go on
an errand of compassion to Nineveh. A mistaken patriotism prompted him to
recoil from seeking the good of the metropolis of Assyria. He would rather a
thousand times that it should be left to its fate--that it should sink beneath
God’s hand to rise no more for ever. We can sympathise in some measure with
him. We know how the hearts of our own fathers were filled with a stern joy
when the tremendous power of the first Napoleon, which hung like a thundercloud
over Europe, was dispelled and dissipated. They thought it no shame to triumph
in his downfall. The instinct of self-preservation and the love of country
kindled these emotions within them. So it was with Jonah; and indeed he had
even better ground for the feelings he cherished. For Assyria was a heathen
empire, while Israel was the land which God had blessed, the home of His chosen
people. Why should an effort be made to save the foes of the true faith?
Therefore he disobeyed. He thought himself wiser than God. He imagined that he
had the interests of God’s peculiar people more truly at heart. But whither
shall a man go from the Spirit of the Lord? or whither shall he flee from His
presence? If he dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall God’s
right hand hold him. The traveller who climbs a high mountain in the tropics
passes through many zones of temperature, leaving the luxuriant vegetation of
the plain to enter a land of pine forests and of colder skies, and finding
himself at length in a region where God giveth snow like wool and casteth forth
His ice like morsels. If we imagine the order reversed, we shall understand the
progress of Jonah’s prayer. It starts from the cold and gloomy wilderness, and
it ends in the bright and warm sunshine. “Salvation is of the Lord,” salvation
even for souls so unworthy as mine--that is the last triumphant note. “The Lord
spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.” Thus the
first section of the book closes. And this is the truth which it teaches us,
the comfortable message which it brings, that the goodness of our God passeth knowledge.
There can be no sin so grieving to Him as the sin of His chosen servants--those
whom He has brought into His kingdom and entrusted with its high and honourable
work. He expects much from them because they have received much from Him; and,
when they disappoint Him, He must be wounded to the very heart. He must feel
their disloyalty, as David felt the treachery of Ahithophel, his own familiar
friend, and the rebellion of Absalom, the son whom he loved most fondly; as
Christ felt the cruelty and faithlessness of Peter, the foremost of His
disciples. Yet He forgives these worst offenders; He restoreth their souls. Is
not this the very acme and climax of His mercy? Is not this what distinguishes
Him from the best of men? They are unwilling to permit a servant who has failed
them once to have an opportunity of retrieving himself; they will hardly allow
him a second chance. Even Paul, the very noblest and tenderest of the apostles,
refused to trust John Mark when he turned away from the work, and looked askance
on him for many a day.
II. So we come to
the second division of the narrative, that which concerns itself with Nineveh.
It is a brief and yet most graphic account which is given us of the grandeur of the
city. Its vast size is described; and the imagination is left to complete the
scene, to fill in the wide area with royal palaces and crowded markets and
vineyards and gardens, to summon up to view the most magnificent of all the
capitals of the ancient world. The city was great, great not only to man’s
thinking but to God’s, for that is the meaning of the Hebrew phrase. Looking
down from heaven upon it, the Lord of all things admired its extent and
stateliness and strength. But He sorrowed over its sin; and He bade His prophet
travel all the way from Israel to warn it of its danger. His injunction,
deliberately slighted at first, was graciously renewed; and, when it came the
second time, Jonah made haste and delayed not to keep God’s commandment. It is
like what Josephus tells us of Jesus, the son of Anan, the unlettered rustic
from the wilderness, who shortly before Jerusalem was destroyed burst in upon
the people at the feast of tabernacles with the piercing and oft-repeated cry,
“A voice from the East, a voice from the West, a voice from the four winds, a
voice on the bridegroom and the bride, a voice on the whole people.” The
magistrates and the cold and cynical historian himself thought that there was
something preternatural here. But Jerusalem’s day of grace was past; happily
Nineveh’s was not altogether gone; it was the eleventh hour indeed, yet there
was time still for repentance. And the city knew the things which belonged to
its peace. Critics have sought to throw discredit on the Book of Jonah, because
of the physical miracle of the prophet’s preservation within the great fish
which the book narrates. But it recounts a more wonderful miracle still--the
moral miracle of the sudden and complete repentance of all Nineveh. In part, no
doubt, the reason may be found in the superstitious bent and tendency of their
minds. Like the ancient Athenians, they were very religious. They would listen
eagerly to any word which purported to come from the unseen world. Then, too,
they had heard of the God of Israel. They knew something of the marvellous
deeds He had wrought on behalf of His people. They may have felt that, although
He ruled over an alien race, it would be dangerous to disregard a message which
reached them from Him. But Christ hints at a deeper cause for their penitence.
They had learned in one way or in another the miraculous history of Jonah’s
mission. He was “a sign” to them, our Lord affirms. They were aware that he had
passed through death to a new life, in order that he might publish God’s word
in their city; and his deliverance seemed to hold out a prospect of their
deliverance, too, if like him they sought pardon and salvation ere it was too
late. In this second part of the tale we read of two repentances--that of
Nineveh and that of God; and the one is consequent on the other. God turns from
the infliction of threatened punishment, because Nineveh turns from its sin. It
is always so. Shallow minds have misunderstood these passages which tell us of
God’s repenting. They have said, “Then He cannot be immutable; He must be
fickle and unstedfast, of one mind to-day, of another mind to-morrow.” Why
should there be such a discrepancy, they have asked, between His words and His
deeds--between His announcement of a purpose of evil and His abstention from
the execution of that purpose? The matter is mysterious; but of this we may be
certain, that there is no caprice in our God. Nay, it is because He is
unalterably the same, because His government is so uniformly righteous and just
and true, that He must change His procedure toward men when their relation
toward Him is changed. Righteousness and judgment are the foundation of His
throne. If we abhor ourselves and repent in dust and ashes--if we sorrow over
our disobedience with a godly sorrow--He will lose none of His consistency when
He forgives us. He will remain a just God while He is a Saviour; rather, He
will prove Himself a just God simply because He shows Himself a Saviour.
III. The third
section of the history takes us back to Jonah. We should have supposed that,
after the experience through which he had gone, he would never again murmur
against God; but the old nature dies hard in all of us, even in the prophets
and ministers of the Lord. Jonah, with that proud Hebrew heart within him, was
utterly displeased at the result of his mission. He grew weary of life itself.
He prayed Chat he might die. He built a little booth on the hills to the east
of Nineveh, and sat under its shadow for forty days, still hoping for the
worst--sat there, pitiless and revengeful, “till he might see what would become
of the city.” And God was grieved that His child should be of such a mind, and
should foster so carefully a spirit the very opposite of His own. He would cure
him of this bitterness of soul. So He caused a wide-spreading plant--the Palma
Christi, botanists call it--to spring up and cover with its refreshing
shade the prophet’s booth, out there on the hot and parched hillside. But Jonah
had scarcely commenced to rejoice in the welcome shelter when God sent some
destructive insects against the tall and graceful Palmchrist, to strip it of
its leaves and to make it pine away. Now was God’s opportunity. He spoke to His
prophet, not angrily but yet most effectually. He asked him a significant
question. “Thou couldst have pity on a short-lived plant,” He said, which cost
thee nothing, which thou hadst not trained or watered; thou art displeased on
account of its loss; and shall not I, who am Maker and King of all, have
compassion on a great city full of souls that are ready to perish? “Are not
these much better than the gourd?” And Jonah adds not a word more. He drops his
pen when he has recorded God’s tender and pregnant reproof. It is a most
impressive contrast which this Divine question draws between man’s pity and
God’s. We think with kindliness of the objects of the natural world--of the
flowers so blue and golden which are the stars in the firmament of the lower
earth, of the trees which shelter us from the heat of the noonday sun. It is
true that these flowers and trees have but a short life at the longest. It is true
also that we did not call them into being of ourselves. We have not laboured
for them, neither made them to grow. Yet we are interested in them. We love
them after a true fashion. But God, while He forgets none of His works, is most
deeply concerned about His human creatures. Jonah might sorrow over the gourd;
Jonah’s Lord sorrowed over the souls of the Ninevites. It was but one; and they
were many, “a whole cityful” of men and women and children. It had been sent to
him without any thought or toil of his; but God had given them their being;
they were His sons and daughters. He was their Father. Still, it is chiefly for
souls like yours and mine, gifted with many great powers and with an undying
life, that God yearns. Their redemption He accounts precious. To bring about
their salvation He plans and pleads and strives. He has His richest joy when
His children who were dead live again, and when the lost are found. And shall
we not give Him this joy? Shall we not look unto Him and be saved? These, then,
are the three parts of the Book of Jonah, The great difficulty in reference to
the book is this:
Is it historical? Is it a narrative of what actually happened? Or is it an
allegory, a fable fraught with important meaning? The strange events which it
describes--did they really occur, or had they an existence only in the mind of
him who wrote them down? To me there is one reason which is sufficient to prove
that these chapters are a true history. Our Lord Jesus Christ spoke of them as
such. He declared that the imprisonment of the ancient prophet in the depths of
the sea typified His own death and burial and resurrection. “As Jonas was three
days and three nights in the whale’s belly,” He said, “so shall the Son of Man
be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” The one event was
symbolic of the other. And once again, He affirmed that the men of Nineveh
condemned by their repentance the men of His own generation. But how could He
have instituted such a comparison if Jonah had never passed through the streets
and squares of the Assyrian city, startling its inhabitants from their lethargy
by his terrible cry? Christ must have reckoned this Old Testament prophecy a
reliable narrative of actual occurrences. The great lesson of the book is the
lesson that God loves all men--Greek and Jew, Barbarian and Scythian, bond and
free. The prophet did not think that it was so. With the spiritual pride--the
grudging narrow-mindedness--of his people strong in his breast, he imagined
that only the chosen race was dear to God. He did not dream that Nineveh could
be great in His sight. “He sought the honour of Israel, the son,” an old rabbi
said, “rather than the honour of Jehovah, the Father.” But he was taught the
truth by little and little through the vicissitudes of his history. Let us
believe it and rejoice in it. God would have all men to be saved. His love is
infinite, like Himself. “In every nation he that feareth Him and worketh
righteousness is accepted with Him.” Yes, and oar hearts will show likest His
when they despair of none, and hold aloof from none, and seek and save all.
That is the spirit inculcated upon us by the Gospel of the New Testament; but
the Old Testament, too, is full of the rich, free, evangelical Gospel. It rings
with the same music. (Original Secession Magazine.)
The Book of Jonah
One thing that strikes the careful reader of the Book of Jonah is
its difference from the other books in the canon of Scripture among which it is
classed, and in the midst of which it is placed. It does not consist of any
connected series of prophetic discourses bearing upon the future of God’s
kingdom and the nations of the earth, such as are found in the Books of Hosea
and Amos; neither does it consist of one distinct prophecy, such as that
contained in the Book of Obadiah, by which it is immediately preceded. It
rather bears the character of a history of a special mission to a heathen city,
which was laid upon one of the prophets. The biographical element in it is
stronger than in other prophetic books, and surrounds it with a peculiar
interest and attraction. This position in the canon of Scripture indicates the
view taken of it by those who arranged it; and this view has, with very few
exceptions, been adopted by both the Jewish and Christian Church. In discussing
the book we may first state this view, and then deal with the objections which
have been urged against it. In this old view there is embraced these four
points--
1. That the facts it narrates possess a symbolico-typical meaning. If
it had been only the record of events that happened to the prophet in the
fulfilment of a divinely intrusted mission there could be no valid reason for
its being placed among the prophetic books. It would have found a more fitting
place in the historical books, where we have mention of one prophecy that was
given through Jonah. It is in this connection that we have the record of
remarkable incidents in the lives of the great prophets Elijah and Elisha. From
its being found where it is, the Book of Jonah must have been regarded as a
practical prophecy, and the facts which it narrates must have been viewed as
invested with a symbolical and typical meaning. This is the character it has
sustained in the opinion of the great majority of both Jewish and Christian
interpreters. “The book is,” in the language of one who has well expressed this
view,” in a great measure historical, but in such a manner that, in the history
itself, there is
hidden the mystery of the greatest prophecy, and that Jonah proves himself to
be a true prophet by the events that happened to him not less than by his
utterances.” It is easy to understand how those facts connected with Jonah’s
mission to Nineveh bore against the exclusiveness and bigoted isolation in
which the Jews shut themselves up. That there was mercy for the Gentile world
was taught from the very first, for the promise to Abraham ran in these terms: “In thee and in thy
seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” But Jonah was the first
to teach it plainly and directly to the Jews, and it was taught himself by the
wonderful incidents connected with his mission to Nineveh. But this is not all
the teaching of the book according to common Christian interpretation. There
was in this mission not only a prefiguring or foreshadowing of the time when
mercy would be extended to the Gentile world, but also a prefiguring of the way in which this was to
be brought about. When Jonah rebels against the communal to go to Nineveh, and
seeks by flight to escape from the duties of his prophetic office, he is overtaken
by a terrific storm. It is only allayed by his being thrown into the angry
waves, and he remained entombed within a living grave beneath the waters for
three days. After his resurrection from this living grave he goes to Nineveh,
the inhabitants of which repent at his preaching and escape the threatened and
impending judgment of God. In this there was a type of Christ’s burial and
resurrection, the subsequent preaching of the Gospel among the nations, and the
conversion of the Gentiles. According to this view, then, there is embodied in
the facts narrated in the book a hidden prophecy of Christ’s work, the meaning
of which was not made plain until He came.
2. Regarded in this light, the book has been received as historically
true. It is in marvellous events which actually took place in the prophet’s own
experience--and not in vision only--that the prophecy lies. Just as in the
birth of Isaac, Samson and Samuel we have a foreshadowing of the miraculous
birth of Christ:
in the death of Abel, and the substitute for Isaac, there was prefigured
Christ’s death. These typical events are all regarded as historical--as having
transpired in the region of actual life, and not in the region of vision.
3. The position of this book in the canon indicates that it belongs
to the earliest or Assyrian period of Scripture prophecy. In the collection of
the minor prophets it is placed among those who prophesied during this period.
Some have even thought that it was placed immediately after Obadiah, because
Jonah was regarded as “the ambassador to the heathen” mentioned in his
prophecy.
4. This assignation of the book to an early period was connected with
the belief that Jonah himself was its author. Objection has been taken to its
historical truthfulness, first, on the ground of the miraculous element
contained in it. As might have been anticipated, it became a special object of
attack on the part of those who sought to explain Scripture narratives on
rationalistic principles and to eliminate from them the element of the supernatural
Some at first were disposed to regard it as a Jewish adaptation of heathen
legends about the deliverance of heroes from sea monsters. But it was soon
perceived that this account of the story was an absurd one, and that there was
not the slightest probability of its being derived either mediately or
immediately from heathen fables. The likelihood is all the other way, if there
is any connection at all between them. The fact that Jerome states that near
Joppa lay rocks which were pointed out to him as those to which Andromache was
bound when exposed to the sea monster gives some maintenance to the thought
that the story of Jonah may have passed through Phoenicia in corrupted form to
Greece. Modern rationalists incline to the view that it is simply a parable or
tale designed to teach an important lesson. It is not regarded by them as a
record of actual events, but simply as a parable or myth attached to a
historical name by which are inculcated truths important for the age in which
it was written. All miracles, either in actual event or in prophetical
intimation, are taken out of it. The design of the book, which on this view
must have been written long after the time of Jonah, was simply to teach Israel
lessons that were being too much forgotten, and not to foreshadow or foretell
any coming event. Ewald thinks that it was designed to show how the true fear
of God and repentance bring salvation, first in the case of the heathen
sailors, then in the case of Jonah, and lastly in the case of the Ninevites. Block
conceives it to have been written by an intelligent liberal-minded Jew for the
purpose of exposing the narrow religious particularism which prevailed among
his countrymen. It was, as we have mentioned, the miraculous element in the book that, in the first
instance, led to the adoption of this theory Not only does it record miracles,
but, without an understanding of the prophet’s design, miracles of the most
strange and startling description. It is a true principle that God never wastes
His power--never works any miracles except for purposes worthy of Himself. But
in this circumscribed view of the book there appears to be a useless
expenditure of miraculous power. These lessons could surely have been taught
without the prophet’s being required to pass through such wonderful
experiences. Even to those who have no philosophical objections to miracles in
themselves, the working of such miracles for this end can hardly but appear
uncalled for and unnecessary. But when we view the book as essentially a practical
prophecy designed to prefigure by typical events the burial and resurrection of
Christ, and through this the opening of the gates of mercy to the Gentile
world, there can be no difficulty on the part of any who believe miracles
possible to accept those recorded here as true. No one will venture to say that
Jonah’s preservation in the belly of the great fish, and his remarkable
deliverance, viewed as charged with typical and prophetical meaning, was an
unnecessary exhibition of Divine power. No one will venture to say either that
the miraculous growth and miraculous destruction of the gourd was needless--if
by it God’s mercy to the heathen world was vindicated, and its truth placed in
the very forefront of the prophetic writings. Many have thought, not without
reason, that in this book we have the oldest written prophecy, and that it is
because this truth is so prominent here that it is so conspicuously exhibited
in all subsequent prophetic writings. It gives the keynote to them all, and, as
serving this purpose, the miracles recorded in it cannot be regarded as useless
manifestations of supernatural power. The miracles themselves too have
oftentimes been so presented as to make faith as difficult as possible. It is
not everyone that can say that though it had been recorded that Jonah had
swallowed the whale it would not have affected or shaken their faith in the
story. Faith, though it may soar high above reason, cannot accept what plainly
contradicts its teachings and exceeds the utmost bounds of possibility.
Attempts have been made to show that it is altogether impossible for the
whale--which is the fish spoken of by our Lord when referring to the sign of
Jonas--to have accomplished the feat here ascribed to it unless some remarkable
change had been affected upon its structure. Some have allowed these attempts
to weigh so much with them that they have intensified the miracle by insisting
either that this change was affected or that a special fish was created by God
for the emergency. The miracle proper seems to have consisted in the
preservation of Jonah in his living grave for three days, and then being
vomited unhurt upon the land. The sudden growth and destruction of the gourd
becomes, on closer examination, merely a supernatural quickening of the power of
nature. But objections have been taken to the old view of the book, not only on
the ground of its miraculous element, but also on the ground of its literary
construction and features. It bears a resemblance to the myths or parables that
spring up in the course of a nation’s literature and become attached to
historical names. An example of this may be found in the tales which have
gathered around our Saxon King Arthur, in the last development of which by
Tennyson there is believed to be embodied moral and spiritual truth. Because of
this resemblance this book is assigned to this class of literary production. On
this view it must have been written as a parable with the design of rebuking
the narrowness and exclusiveness of the Jewish people. The cause of its being
connected with Jonah may have been some tradition of his having beau sent to
Nineveh on an errand of mercy. In regard to this view of the book we may note,
that were it thoroughly established it would not destroy its prophetic value.
The parable, instead of the actual miraculous events, as in the old view, would
become prophetic. It would teach the boundless mercy of God, by prefiguring the
burial and resurrection of Christ, the subsequent calling of the Gentiles, and
their reception into the kingdom of God. “It would be,” as has been said, “an
epitome of prophecy, of the mediatorial work of Christ.” The difficulties in
the way of accepting this new critical view seem to us many and insurmountable.
I. We cannot
regard the argument from the literary construction of the books of the Bible
and their resemblance to the literary works of other nations as very safe or
conclusive. It may be quite valid and conclusive for those who accept the Bible
simply as the growth of Hebrew literature--simply as the product of the
national mind and consciousness in the various stages of its growth and decay;
but not for those who accept it as a supernatural revelation of the God of the Hebrews. The
supernatural element not only in narrative, experience, and prophecy, but also
in the very composition itself, must be taken into account. This puts a vast
difference between the literature of the nation of Israel, along the whole line
of its history, and the literature of any other nation. It is a growth, but it
is not the product of genius or mere piety. It is the result of a continued
revelation and inspiration. To refer again to King Arthur, the growth of
legends around his name has led many to question if he was a historical person
at all, and we cannot believe that God would give countenance to anything that
would tend to lead to this confusion. The employment of parables in itself is
not wrong, for Christ Himself frequently took advantage of this mode of
instruction. But it was always done by Him openly, and so that His hearers
understood that His statements were parabolical. There was no difficulty in
distinguishing between the parts of His teaching that were parabolical and
those parts which were historical. He never attached any of His parables to
historical names.
II. We may say that
this new view of the book tends to shake our faith in other historical parts of
Scripture. It bears a resemblance, both in its form and contents, to the
narratives of remarkable incidents in the lives of Elijah and Elisha. If this
be a parable, why may we not regard the others as possessing the same mythical
character?
III. This book bears
many marks of being authentic history. It is, indeed, fragmentary, and does not
furnish us with full information on all points about which our curiosity is aroused.
It does not tell us anything about Jonah’s life and labours previous to his
call to go to Nineveh. It does not tell us anything about the spot where he was
vomited by the fish upon the dry land, nor describe his journey to Nineveh; and
some have seen in this evidence that it is not true history, but fable. “But,”
as Keil has remarked, “the assertion that completeness in all external
circumstances which would serve to gratify curiosity rather than help to an
understanding of the true facts of the case, is indispensable to the truth of
any historical narrative, is one which might expose the whole of the historical
writings of antiquity to criticism, but can never shake their truths. There is
not a single one of the ancient historians in whose works such completeness as
this can be found; and still less do the Biblical historians aim at
communicating such things as have no close connection with the main object of
the narrative, or with the religious significance of the facts themselves.”
This lack of detail in the narrative may also be accounted for by its prophetic
character. It is not the
design of the writer simply to give a historical account of Jonah’s mission to
Nineveh, but to present those incidents in connection with it which have a
typical and prophetical signification. But while the narrative is by no means
complete, there seems to us to be an unmistakable touch of reality in the
experience of Jonah as here described. In the description of his feelings and
conduct, when the call came to him to go to Nineveh; in his prayer in his
wonderful grave; and in the record of his feelings and conduct under the
unwished for and disappointing success of his mission, there is something so
strange and yet so natural as to place them outside the domain of fiction. And
when the narrative touches upon points on which any light can be thrown by the
researches into antiquity, these researches have confirmed its truthfulness.
The attempt to show from the statement in the third verse of the third chapter, “and
Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey,” that the
greatness of Nineveh was a thing of the past when the book was written, has
been perfectly futile. The plain meaning of the words is, as granted even by the
rationalistic critics themselves, that Nineveh was a city of vast dimensions
when Jonah reached it, in the prosecution of his heaven-given mission. Its
dimensions as thus indicated have been found to correspond with the description
of ancient profane historians, and with recent examination of the ruins of this
city. The command too, issued by the King of Assyria, in proclaiming a national
fast to put sackcloth on the beasts and flocks and make them fast, is quite in
accordance with the customs which are known to have prevailed in the ancient Persian
Empire. The book thus bears traces of having been written by one who had seen
Nineveh in its greatness and glory, and who had gained some acquaintance with
its customs.
IV. We would simply
mention that the book was received as historical by the Jews. The fact is
indisputable, whatever weight may be attached to it in determining its literary
character.
V. The book was
regarded as historical by our Lord Himself. In this reference there is also
established the reality of the marvellous circumstances attending the mission.
He Speaks to us of Jonah’s being in the belly of the great fish as a sign, σημεῖον, a term which is often applied to His own miraculous deeds, in
which, through deliverance from bodily diseases, was typified His great work of
spiritual salvation. It was thus spoken of by Him as a real miracle, and
designed by God to be a type of the still greater miracle of His own
resurrection. And receiving the book as historical, the most likely author is
Jonah himself. The objection against assigning it to so early a period because
of the Aramaic colouring of its language has been so admirably dealt with by
Dr. Payne Smith that we will conclude by quoting his answer to it. “This
argument proves nothing; for scholars are not by any means agreed whether these
Aramaisms belong or not to the declining age of Jewish literature, or whether
they may not have been the patois or vernacular dialect of the country people.
There is very much to make it probable that pure Hebrew was the language only
of people of the highest caste, the kings and princes, the priests and prophets of
Jerusalem, or at most of Judah; and that the mass of the people spoke Aramaic,
or a debased Hebrew full of Aramaic words. Even with us many phrases which
strike us as Americanisms are thoroughly good English forms, which, however,
have not been used in literature, but belong to certain country districts
where, if some poet had arisen, or writer of repute, they would, from his
pages, have won their way into the language of scholars. Now, Jonah was of
Gath-hepher, a village far away to the North in the tribe of Zabulon. If he had
used no words except such as were employed by Isaiah, critics might with good
reason have disputed the authenticity of the book. They might fairly have said,
‘This book was not written by a man brought up in the provinces, but by one of
the literati of Jerusalem; some practised hand there has employed the
legend of Jonah as a vehicle for much pleasing instruction, and has constructed
out of it a very admirable allegory.’“ (R. Morton.)
Is the Book of Jonah true history?
Let us examine the question critically, but fairly: Was there ever such a
man as Jonah? I answer, there is just as good evidence of his being a real
personality as is found in the case of any other of the prophets; and if we
assume him to be a mythical character we may as well make a like assumption
respecting almost any other personality brought before us in the Old Testament.
He is distinctly mentioned in 2 Kings 14:25. Here he is mentioned
in an incidental way (which is the most convincing); his father’s name is also
given, and he is designated as “the prophet.” The identification is complete.
He is also spoken of in Tobit, one of the apocryphal books, dating about 200
b.c. But far overtopping all other evidence, and in itself of sufficient force
to settle any question whatever with those who accept the New Testament history
and Christ’s commission as the Son of God, is what is recorded in Matthew 12:38-41, and also in Luke 11:29-32. Let the reader please
notice that Christ does not say, “as Jonah was represented as,” etc., as
if this book were a fictitious story. Neither does He refer to any moral lesson
that this book might be intended to teach; but He simply refers to the facts
recorded in the book. That Christ believed and accepted the genuineness and
truthfulness of this history is too plain for argument. And was He mistaken in
regard to it? If He did not know, what becomes of His Messiahship? Did Christ
refer to some Munchausen fiction when He gave Jonah’s history to the generation
in which He lived as an infallible sign of His Messiahship; and that He should
rise from the dead on the third day? Are we to compare the whole teaching of
the Gospel respecting Christ’s resurrection to Gulliver’s travels? That is just
what Christ Himself did if there be only a wild piece of fiction in the Book of
Jonah. As it was with Jonah, so shall it be with the Son of Man, says Christ.
Whoever makes Jonah to be a dream makes the resurrection of Christ to be also a
dream. I call attention to the form of introducing the book as being the same which is found in
other books of the prophecies. For example, “the word of the Lord that came
unto Hosea, the son of Beeri”; “the word of the Lord that came unto Joel, the
son of Pethuel”; “the word of the Lord which came unto Zephaniah, the son of
Cushi”; “the word of the Lord unto Zechariah, the son of Berechiah”; and so
“the word of the Lord that came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai.” The writer of
this book evidently intended that the reader should accept it as genuine
history; and he is justly chargeable with intentional deception if it is not
so. I may state further that the Jews always regarded this book as true history
(Josephus, 9:11.
sec. 2). And so the Christian Church has esteemed it such with great unanimity.
One who spends hours and days in the catacombs of Rome sees the representation
of this history on the walls many times repeated. I come in the next place to
argue for the truth of this history from what it says about Nineveh. And this
Book of Jonah has been illuminated and illustrated and substantiated by the
discoveries of the nineteenth century, so that what sceptics used to say about
it no one would think of saying now. They argued up to 1841 that there could
not possibly have been such a city as is described in this book, because the
historians and geographers (Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and Ptolemy) made no
mention of it, and certainly they would have spoken of it if there had been a
city of three days’ journey around it; and one containing one hundred and
twenty thousand infants who did not know their right hand from their left. So
they said, Alexander would have found it and fought it. But what now? This
city, after having been buried up for more than twenty-five hundred years, was
discovered in 1841; and every competent judge knows now that it was as large as
this book represents it. It might easily have contained more than one hundred
and twenty thousand infants. Marvellous are the testimonies of these uncovered
monuments at Nineveh; and only a small part, probably, of the whole is yet in
our hands. But already Hiram, king of Tyre, 1000 b.c., is recognised in these
records at Nineveh. Benhadad and Jehu, 900 b.c., Hezekiah, king of Judah,
Sennacherib and Lachish reappear. Demonstrations of high civilisation but
monumental wickedness abound. We understand now why the Greek historians and the
Roman say nothing about great Nineveh. Simply because they knew nothing about
it. For although it was spared more than one hundred and fifty years after
Jonah’s day, it had been blotted out more than three hundred years before
Alexander was born; more than two hundred years before Herodotus was born;
nearly three hundred years before Xenophon was born; more than five hundred
years before Ptolemy, Diodorus Siculus, or Strabo had learned their alphabet.
It had been founded more than 2000 b.c. In Genesis 10:11 we read, “Out of that land
went forth Asshur and builded Nineveh.” It was standing in the day of its
greatest glory in Jonah’s time. It was finally destroyed about 713 b.c., in
accordance with the terrible words of prophecy uttered by Nahum. For two years
it was besieged by the Medes and Babylonians, and at that time was completely
devastated. Herodotus passed over the site two hundred and fifty years later,
but makes no mention of even any visible ruins. Neither does Xenophon. Is it
incredible that Jonah should have been sent to such a city on such an errand of
mercy? Is it incredible that he should have hesitated to undertake the mission?
Is it incredible that he should have taken a ship for Joppa? He was born only
sixty miles from that city, at Gath-hepher. Is it incredible that a storm
should have overtaken him? It was in those same waters that Paul went through
the trying experiences narrated in the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth
chapters of Acts. Is there anything incredible in the account of the sailors
praying to their respective gods? Is there anything incredible in a sea monster
following a ship, ready to swallow a man if he should be thrown overboard? This
story is often spoken of as the story of “Jonah and the whale,” but the Hebrew
word “dagh” is one of wide import. Our translation in the Old Testament calls
it “a great fish”; in the New Testament it is called a “whale.” Just five years
ago in the Chicago Inter-Ocean, vouched for by the editors, was a
communication from a sea captain, saying that it was a mistake to maintain that
the “great fish” could not have been a whale; and he went on to say that he had
no interest in defending Jonah, or in defending our New Testament translation;
but in the interest of natural science and of simple truth he stated that,
having been for some years the captain of a whaling vessel, he knew that the
sperm-whale could easily swallow a man whole; that one member of his crew,
weighing one hundred and seventy pounds, had repeatedly crawled through a
whale’s throat (different whales at different times) as the throat lay on the
deck of the ship. And then he proceeded to narrate a particular case of
personal experience in which a man weighing one hundred and sixty-five pounds
was one of his helpers; and one day they were in an exciting chase after some
whales, when one of the boats was struck by one of the whales and the men were
thrown out. All of them were successful in getting back into the boat save one,
whom they missed on calling the roll after they had captured the monster they
were pursuing. They gave him up for lost; but on cutting up the whale the next
day they found him inside--unconscious, but alive. He was restored, and was
still living, and was following his vocation at the time the captain wrote.
Courbet, in Cosmos, of March 7, 1895, writes (and let the reader observe
that this is not “a fish story” by a romancer, nor “a sailor’s yarn,” but the
report of a scientific expedition; and such substantially are all the
testimonies which I quote):
“The discoveries of the Prince of Monaco were such as to relieve me of all
difficulty in believing the Bible story that a whale swallowed Jonah.” A writer
in the Academy of Sciences--M. Joubin--says: “A sperm whale can easily swallow an animal
taller and heavier than a man.” And he adds: “The animals when swallowed can keep alive
some time in the whale’s stomach.” Lyman Abbott is reported as stirring up the
mirth of his congregation a while ago by alluding to the “half-digested man
Jonah.” But if Lyman Abbott will study physiology a little he will learn that,
although the gastric fluid is a remarkably powerful solvent, capable of
dissolving many solid substances, yet it has no power whatever over living
substances. And if he used a very little logic, superadded to his physiology,
he would see that unless this were true the gastric fluid would at once assail
the coats of the stomach itself, and render all animal life impossible. This is
one of those wonderful proofs of the Divine wisdom in the working of living
organisms. Jonah must first die before digestion could even begin. If we deny
all miracles, then we must away with all revelation and all the supernatural.
“But,” says one, “I am prepared to admit miracles wherever there is a
justifying reason; but what reason is there here?” Think a moment; think a
moment. Here was a wicked city going to destruction. God so loved them that He
bade His servant give them warning; and when he obeyed the Divine voice the
whole city was moved to turn away from their sins, and as a matter of history,
prolonged their existence for the space of more than a hundred years. And no
doubt Jonah’s wonderful experience proved to be as the mighty power of God in
bringing about the result. What a preacher Jonah must have been after that
living burial! The Lord knows when it is worth while to work a miracle; and a
more satisfactory mason for one than is found in this history no man ought to
ask. Jonah was worth saving; the Ninevites were worth saving; the one hundred
and twenty thousand infants especially were worth saving. (E. B. Fairfield,
D.D.)
JONAH
INTRODUCTION
IT is very interesting and very instructive to scrutinise the
faces in a great gallery of portraits. The man who does so has before him
materials which should help him to gain a wide knowledge of human character.
Here is a countenance noble and winsome. The spectator is certain that it was a
tender and brave and faithful heart which beat beneath an exterior so fair. Features
like these could not cover any littleness of soul. Perhaps it is a soldier in
his coat of mail, whose likeness the artist has drawn, or it may be a woman’s
face that looks out from the canvas; but whoever it be, the onlooker is glad
that he has seen the picture. But a painting of a different kind attracts him
next--that of one who has evidently had many fierce battles with temptation,
and who has not come out of them all scathless. This much the spectator learns
from the sad expression which rests on the features; and yet, as he examines
them more carefully, he sees that dissatisfaction and sorrow are not their most
prominent characteristics. There is peace stamped on the face as well as
trouble--peace which seems in the end to have gained the mastery over the
trouble. There are no portraits like those which have been painted for us in
the pages of the Bible. They have been drawn by the hand of a Master, and they
are very varied in the types of character which they represent. In the goodly
fellowship of the prophets--to think meanwhile of no others--what differences
of natural disposition, and of spiritual attainments, there are I Some, like
Joel, and Amos, and Hosea, are without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
Beside them we see our own shortcomings, and know what manner of men our Lord
would have us to be. And others, like Jonah, are far from faultless. They are
genuine servants of God, but servants who sin and fall, whose loyalty is not
steadfast and immovable, who carry to this day dark blots on their fair name.
We are encouraged ourselves to make trial of His compassion and His grace. That
Jonah, after his wilful disobedience and foolish querulousness, was healed of
all the diseases of his spirit--that, like many a wayward child, he learned to
sorrow over his self-will, and came home with a penitent and reproachful heart
to his Father’s house--who
of us can doubt? I take it that he was himself the author of the book which
bears his name, though some have thought of it as the embalming by a subsequent
writer of an ancient and venerable tradition. £ I can see no reason for
doubting that the prophet penned with his own hand these four short chapters.
Before his life closed he sat down to recount for the generations that should
follow the story of his memorable journey to Nineveh. And how does he tell the
story? Very humbly, we shall admit, and very impartially. They are bitter
things which he writes in it against himself. He extenuates nothing. He unveils
all his hardness of heart, all his Jewish exclusiveness, all his murmuring
against the Lord. He is relentless in his self-condemnation, whilst over
against the confession of his lack of obedience and of charity he places the
record of God’s loving-kindness and tender mercy. The book exalts God, indeed,
and rebukes and punishes Jonah. It is a book of Confessions which Jonah has
written, not an Apologia pro vim sua. He acknowledges publicly the
wrongness of his thinking and acting. When we read his chapters we are reminded
of Peter going out to weep bitterly, and afterwards inspiring the Gospel of
Mark, which tells more fully than any of the other evangelical records how he
sinned and fell; of Augustine, composing the narrative of his foolish youth; of
John Bunyan, declaring how grace had abounded in his experience to the chief of
sinners. Jonah must have been a new man, with a heart within him from which the
old pride and unkindness and disobedience had been driven quite away, before he
could pen the book which bears his name. The Book of Jonah is not like other
prophetic writings. It is not a recital of discourses, but a vivid narrative of
a strange episode in its author’s life. It has been described as a drama in
three acts, each of which is full of interest and replete with instruction.
I. First of all,
the prophecy deals with Jonah himself. Very little is known regarding him
beyond what we learn from these chapters. There is, however, one other mention
of him in the Old Testament. We read, in the Second Book of Kings, about
Jeroboam II., the powerful and able and sinful ruler of the Northern tribes
under whom Amos and Hosea lived and preached, that “he restored the coast of
Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain, according to the
word of the Lord God which He spake by the hand of His servant Jonah, the son
of Amittai, the prophet, who was of Gath-hepher.” Jonah was a native, then, of
Lower Galilee, a child of the tribe of Zabulon, born in a little village among
the hills not far from Nazareth. And his first message as a prophet was a message
of gladness, in which he took delight, and which brought him honour and esteem.
He had foretold the success of the king of Israel, how he should regain
provinces that had been lost, how he should win back for a short space the
glory of his empire. It is strange that one whose ministry began under such
bright auspices should end it under a cloud, and should be presented to us not
as a model but as a beacon. It is a warning to take heed lest we fall--an
illustration of the truth that even the saints of God are weak and brittle in
themselves, in constant danger of losing the crown, and needing always the
support of a higher hand. We can scarcely be surprised that legend should have
busied itself about Jonah, and should have tried to augment our scanty knowledge
of his earlier years. There is the old tradition, for example, that he was the
son of the widow of Zarephath, the boy whom Elijah brought back from death to
life. And indeed it would be pleasant to think that the first apostle of the
Gentiles, sent on a mission of mercy to a heathen people, was himself a Gentile
on the mother’s side; £ and that he stood in so interesting a relation to the
great prophet who fought single-handed the battle of God against Baal. But the
very pleasantness of the fancy is its condemnation. It fits in too neatly with
our preconceptions and desires. Whether, during the years when he lived at home
in the Northern Kingdom, Jonah had other announcements given him to publish to
his countrymen beside that happy announcement of victory and national
enlargement, we cannot say. The time was very evil, and the land was sick unto
death. What we do know is, that to the prophet, dwelling among his own people,
there came one day a message from God which startled him, and for which he had
no liking. He was commanded to leave his kindred, and journey to Nineveh, the
capital of the Assyrian empire. There he was to proclaim the Lord’s judgments.
When God pointed in one way, he moved in exactly the opposite direction. What
made him so rebellious? Partly it may have been fear. He was appalled at the
greatness and the hazardous nature of the task allotted him. He forgot that
God’s servants, who do His will, are kept by Him safe in the hollow of His
hand. But there was another reason for his disobedience, as he tells us
himself. He could not help feeling that though he was sent to Nineveh with a
fearful woe on his lips, his mission was in reality one of love. He understood
well that often his God threatened in order that He might afterwards spare, and
that His terrors were meant to drive to Himself, for forgiveness and healing,
those who would not be won by gentler methods. And Jonah had no desire to go on
an errand of compassion to Nineveh. A mistaken patriotism prompted him to
recoil from seeking the good of the metropolis of Assyria. He would rather a
thousand times that it should be left to its fate--that it should sink beneath
God’s hand to rise no more for ever. We can sympathise in some measure with
him. We know how the hearts of our own fathers were filled with a stern joy
when the tremendous power of the first Napoleon, which hung like a thundercloud
over Europe, was dispelled and dissipated. They thought it no shame to triumph
in his downfall. The instinct of self-preservation and the love of country
kindled these emotions within them. So it was with Jonah; and indeed he had
even better ground for the feelings he cherished. For Assyria was a heathen
empire, while Israel was the land which God had blessed, the home of His chosen
people. Why should an effort be made to save the foes of the true faith?
Therefore he disobeyed. He thought himself wiser than God. He imagined that he
had the interests of God’s peculiar people more truly at heart. But whither
shall a man go from the Spirit of the Lord? or whither shall he flee from His
presence? If he dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall God’s
right hand hold him. The traveller who climbs a high mountain in the tropics
passes through many zones of temperature, leaving the luxuriant vegetation of
the plain to enter a land of pine forests and of colder skies, and finding
himself at length in a region where God giveth snow like wool and casteth forth
His ice like morsels. If we imagine the order reversed, we shall understand the
progress of Jonah’s prayer. It starts from the cold and gloomy wilderness, and
it ends in the bright and warm sunshine. “Salvation is of the Lord,” salvation
even for souls so unworthy as mine--that is the last triumphant note. “The Lord
spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.” Thus the
first section of the book closes. And this is the truth which it teaches us,
the comfortable message which it brings, that the goodness of our God passeth
knowledge. There can be no sin so grieving to Him as the sin of His chosen
servants--those whom He has brought into His kingdom and entrusted with its
high and honourable work. He expects much from them because they have received
much from Him; and, when they disappoint Him, He must be wounded to the very heart.
He must feel their disloyalty, as David felt the treachery of Ahithophel, his
own familiar friend, and the rebellion of Absalom, the son whom he loved most
fondly; as Christ felt the cruelty and faithlessness of Peter, the foremost of
His disciples. Yet He forgives these worst offenders; He restoreth their souls.
Is not this the very acme and climax of His mercy? Is not this what
distinguishes Him from the best of men? They are unwilling to permit a servant
who has failed them once to have an opportunity of retrieving himself; they
will hardly allow him a second chance. Even Paul, the very noblest and
tenderest of the apostles, refused to trust John Mark when he turned away from
the work, and looked askance on him for many a day.
II. So we come to
the second division of the narrative, that which concerns itself with Nineveh.
It is a brief and yet most graphic account which is given us of the grandeur of the
city. Its vast size is described; and the imagination is left to complete the
scene, to fill in the wide area with royal palaces and crowded markets and
vineyards and gardens, to summon up to view the most magnificent of all the
capitals of the ancient world. The city was great, great not only to man’s
thinking but to God’s, for that is the meaning of the Hebrew phrase. Looking
down from heaven upon it, the Lord of all things admired its extent and
stateliness and strength. But He sorrowed over its sin; and He bade His prophet
travel all the way from Israel to warn it of its danger. His injunction, deliberately
slighted at first, was graciously renewed; and, when it came the second time,
Jonah made haste and delayed not to keep God’s commandment. It is like what
Josephus tells us of Jesus, the son of Anan, the unlettered rustic from the
wilderness, who shortly before Jerusalem was destroyed burst in upon the people
at the feast of tabernacles with the piercing and oft-repeated cry, “A voice
from the East, a voice from the West, a voice from the four winds, a voice on
the bridegroom and the bride, a voice on the whole people.” The magistrates and
the cold and cynical historian himself thought that there was something
preternatural here. But Jerusalem’s day of grace was past; happily Nineveh’s
was not altogether gone; it was the eleventh hour indeed, yet there was time
still for repentance. And the city knew the things which belonged to its peace.
Critics have sought to throw discredit on the Book of Jonah, because of the
physical miracle of the prophet’s preservation within the great fish which the
book narrates. But it recounts a more wonderful miracle still--the moral
miracle of the sudden and complete repentance of all Nineveh. In part, no
doubt, the reason may be found in the superstitious bent and tendency of their
minds. Like the ancient Athenians, they were very religious. They would listen
eagerly to any word which purported to come from the unseen world. Then, too,
they had heard of the God of Israel. They knew something of the marvellous
deeds He had wrought on behalf of His people. They may have felt that, although
He ruled over an alien race, it would be dangerous to disregard a message which
reached them from Him. But Christ hints at a deeper cause for their penitence.
They had learned in one way or in another the miraculous history of Jonah’s mission.
He was “a sign” to them, our Lord affirms. They were aware that he had passed
through death to a new life, in order that he might publish God’s word in their
city; and his deliverance seemed to hold out a prospect of their deliverance,
too, if like him they sought pardon and salvation ere it was too late. In this
second part of the tale we read of two repentances--that of Nineveh and that of
God; and the one is consequent on the other. God turns from the infliction of
threatened punishment, because Nineveh turns from its sin. It is always so.
Shallow minds have misunderstood these passages which tell us of God’s
repenting. They have said, “Then He cannot be immutable; He must be fickle and
unstedfast, of one mind to-day, of another mind to-morrow.” Why should there be
such a discrepancy, they have asked, between His words and His deeds--between
His announcement of a purpose of evil and His abstention from the execution of
that purpose? The matter is mysterious; but of this we may be certain, that
there is no caprice in our God. Nay, it is because He is unalterably the same,
because His government is so uniformly righteous and just and true, that He
must change His procedure toward men when their relation toward Him is changed.
Righteousness and judgment are the foundation of His throne. If we abhor
ourselves and repent in dust and ashes--if we sorrow over our disobedience with
a godly sorrow--He will lose none of His consistency when He forgives us. He
will remain a just God while He is a Saviour; rather, He will prove Himself a
just God simply because He shows Himself a Saviour.
III. The third
section of the history takes us back to Jonah. We should have supposed that,
after the experience through which he had gone, he would never again murmur
against God; but the old nature dies hard in all of us, even in the prophets
and ministers of the Lord. Jonah, with that proud Hebrew heart within him, was
utterly displeased at the result of his mission. He grew weary of life itself.
He prayed Chat he might die. He built a little booth on the hills to the east
of Nineveh, and sat under its shadow for forty days, still hoping for the
worst--sat there, pitiless and revengeful, “till he might see what would become
of the city.” And God was grieved that His child should be of such a mind, and
should foster so carefully a spirit the very opposite of His own. He would cure
him of this bitterness of soul. So He caused a wide-spreading plant--the Palma
Christi, botanists call it--to spring up and cover with its refreshing
shade the prophet’s booth, out there on the hot and parched hillside. But Jonah
had scarcely commenced to rejoice in the welcome shelter when God sent some
destructive insects against the tall and graceful Palmchrist, to strip it of
its leaves and to make it pine away. Now was God’s opportunity. He spoke to His
prophet, not angrily but yet most effectually. He asked him a significant
question. “Thou couldst have pity on a short-lived plant,” He said, which cost
thee nothing, which thou hadst not trained or watered; thou art displeased on
account of its loss; and shall not I, who am Maker and King of all, have
compassion on a great city full of souls that are ready to perish? “Are not
these much better than the gourd?” And Jonah adds not a word more. He drops his
pen when he has recorded God’s tender and pregnant reproof. It is a most
impressive contrast which this Divine question draws between man’s pity and
God’s. We think with kindliness of the objects of the natural world--of the
flowers so blue and golden which are the stars in the firmament of the lower
earth, of the trees which shelter us from the heat of the noonday sun. It is
true that these flowers and trees have but a short life at the longest. It is
true also that we did not call them into being of ourselves. We have not
laboured for them, neither made them to grow. Yet we are interested in them. We
love them after a true fashion. But God, while He forgets none of His works, is
most deeply concerned about His human creatures. Jonah might sorrow over the gourd;
Jonah’s Lord sorrowed over the souls of the Ninevites. It was but one; and they
were many, “a whole cityful” of men and women and children. It had been sent to
him without any thought or toil of his; but God had given them their being;
they were His sons and daughters. He was their Father. Still, it is chiefly for
souls like yours and mine, gifted with many great powers and with an undying
life, that God yearns. Their redemption He accounts precious. To bring about
their salvation He plans and pleads and strives. He has His richest joy when
His children who were dead live again, and when the lost are found. And shall
we not give Him this joy? Shall we not look unto Him and be saved? These, then,
are the three parts of the Book of Jonah, The great difficulty in reference to
the book is this:
Is it historical? Is it a narrative of what actually happened? Or is it an
allegory, a fable fraught with important meaning? The strange events which it
describes--did they really occur, or had they an existence only in the mind of
him who wrote them down? To me there is one reason which is sufficient to prove
that these chapters are a true history. Our Lord Jesus Christ spoke of them as
such. He declared that the imprisonment of the ancient prophet in the depths of
the sea typified His own death and burial and resurrection. “As Jonas was three
days and three nights in the whale’s belly,” He said, “so shall the Son of Man
be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” The one event was
symbolic of the other. And once again, He affirmed that the men of Nineveh
condemned by their repentance the men of His own generation. But how could He
have instituted such a comparison if Jonah had never passed through the streets
and squares of the Assyrian city, startling its inhabitants from their lethargy
by his terrible cry? Christ must have reckoned this Old Testament prophecy a
reliable narrative of actual occurrences. The great lesson of the book is the
lesson that God loves all men--Greek and Jew, Barbarian and Scythian, bond and
free. The prophet did not think that it was so. With the spiritual pride--the
grudging narrow-mindedness--of his people strong in his breast, he imagined
that only the chosen race was dear to God. He did not dream that Nineveh could
be great in His sight. “He sought the honour of Israel, the son,” an old rabbi
said, “rather than the honour of Jehovah, the Father.” But he was taught the
truth by little and little through the vicissitudes of his history. Let us
believe it and rejoice in it. God would have all men to be saved. His love is
infinite, like Himself. “In every nation he that feareth Him and worketh
righteousness is accepted with Him.” Yes, and oar hearts will show likest His
when they despair of none, and hold aloof from none, and seek and save all.
That is the spirit inculcated upon us by the Gospel of the New Testament; but
the Old Testament, too, is full of the rich, free, evangelical Gospel. It rings
with the same music. (Original Secession Magazine.)
The Book of Jonah
One thing that strikes the careful reader of the Book of Jonah is
its difference from the other books in the canon of Scripture among which it is
classed, and in the midst of which it is placed. It does not consist of any
connected series of prophetic discourses bearing upon the future of God’s
kingdom and the nations of the earth, such as are found in the Books of Hosea
and Amos; neither does it consist of one distinct prophecy, such as that
contained in the Book of Obadiah, by which it is immediately preceded. It rather
bears the character of a history of a special mission to a heathen city, which
was laid upon one of the prophets. The biographical element in it is stronger
than in other prophetic books, and surrounds it with a peculiar interest and
attraction. This position in the canon of Scripture indicates the view taken of
it by those who arranged it; and this view has, with very few exceptions, been
adopted by both the Jewish and Christian Church. In discussing the book we may
first state this view, and then deal with the objections which have been urged
against it. In this old view there is embraced these four points--
1. That the facts it narrates possess a symbolico-typical meaning. If
it had been only the record of events that happened to the prophet in the fulfilment
of a divinely intrusted mission there could be no valid reason for its being
placed among the prophetic books. It would have found a more fitting place in
the historical books, where we have mention of one prophecy that was given
through Jonah. It is in this connection that we have the record of remarkable
incidents in the lives of the great prophets Elijah and Elisha. From its being
found where it is, the Book of Jonah must have been regarded as a practical
prophecy, and the facts which it narrates must have been viewed as invested
with a symbolical and typical meaning. This is the character it has sustained
in the opinion of the great majority of both Jewish and Christian interpreters.
“The book is,” in the language of one who has well expressed this view,” in a
great measure historical, but in such a manner that, in the history itself,
there is hidden
the mystery of the greatest prophecy, and that Jonah proves himself to be a
true prophet by the events that happened to him not less than by his utterances.”
It is easy to understand how those facts connected with Jonah’s mission to
Nineveh bore against the exclusiveness and bigoted isolation in which the Jews
shut themselves up. That there was mercy for the Gentile world was taught from
the very first, for the promise to Abraham ran in these terms: “In thee and in thy
seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” But Jonah was the first
to teach it plainly and directly to the Jews, and it was taught himself by the
wonderful incidents connected with his mission to Nineveh. But this is not all
the teaching of the book according to common Christian interpretation. There
was in this mission not only a prefiguring or foreshadowing of the time when
mercy would be extended to the Gentile world, but also a prefiguring of the way in which this was to
be brought about. When Jonah rebels against the communal to go to Nineveh, and
seeks by flight to escape from the duties of his prophetic office, he is
overtaken by a terrific storm. It is only allayed by his being thrown into the
angry waves, and he remained entombed within a living grave beneath the waters
for three days. After his resurrection from this living grave he goes to
Nineveh, the inhabitants of which repent at his preaching and escape the threatened
and impending judgment of God. In this there was a type of Christ’s burial and
resurrection, the subsequent preaching of the Gospel among the nations, and the
conversion of the Gentiles. According to this view, then, there is embodied in
the facts narrated in the book a hidden prophecy of Christ’s work, the meaning
of which was not made plain until He came.
2. Regarded in this light, the book has been received as historically
true. It is in marvellous events which actually took place in the prophet’s own
experience--and not in vision only--that the prophecy lies. Just as in the
birth of Isaac, Samson and Samuel we have a foreshadowing of the miraculous
birth of Christ:
in the death of Abel, and the substitute for Isaac, there was prefigured
Christ’s death. These typical events are all regarded as historical--as having
transpired in the region of actual life, and not in the region of vision.
3. The position of this book in the canon indicates that it belongs
to the earliest or Assyrian period of Scripture prophecy. In the collection of
the minor prophets it is placed among those who prophesied during this period.
Some have even thought that it was placed immediately after Obadiah, because
Jonah was regarded as “the ambassador to the heathen” mentioned in his
prophecy.
4. This assignation of the book to an early period was connected with
the belief that Jonah himself was its author. Objection has been taken to its
historical truthfulness, first, on the ground of the miraculous element
contained in it. As might have been anticipated, it became a special object of
attack on the part of those who sought to explain Scripture narratives on
rationalistic principles and to eliminate from them the element of the
supernatural Some at first were disposed to regard it as a Jewish adaptation of
heathen legends about the deliverance of heroes from sea monsters. But it was
soon perceived that this account of the story was an absurd one, and that there
was not the slightest probability of its being derived either mediately or immediately
from heathen fables. The likelihood is all the other way, if there is any
connection at all between them. The fact that Jerome states that near Joppa lay
rocks which were pointed out to him as those to which Andromache was bound when
exposed to the sea monster gives some maintenance to the thought that the story
of Jonah may have passed through Phoenicia in corrupted form to Greece. Modern
rationalists incline to the view that it is simply a parable or tale designed
to teach an important lesson. It is not regarded by them as a record of actual
events, but simply as a parable or myth attached to a historical name by which
are inculcated truths important for the age in which it was written. All
miracles, either in actual event or in prophetical intimation, are taken out of
it. The design of the book, which on this view must have been written long
after the time of Jonah, was simply to teach Israel lessons that were being too
much forgotten, and not to foreshadow or foretell any coming event. Ewald thinks
that it was designed to show how the true fear of God and repentance bring
salvation, first in the case of the heathen sailors, then in the case of Jonah,
and lastly in the case of the Ninevites. Block conceives it to have been
written by an intelligent liberal-minded Jew for the purpose of exposing the
narrow religious particularism which prevailed among his countrymen. It was, as
we have mentioned, the miraculous element in the book that, in the first instance, led to the
adoption of this theory Not only does it record miracles, but, without an
understanding of the prophet’s design, miracles of the most strange and
startling description. It is a true principle that God never wastes His
power--never works any miracles except for purposes worthy of Himself. But in
this circumscribed view of the book there appears to be a useless expenditure
of miraculous power. These lessons could surely have been taught without the
prophet’s being required to pass through such wonderful experiences. Even to
those who have no philosophical objections to miracles in themselves, the
working of such miracles for this end can hardly but appear uncalled for and
unnecessary. But when we view the book as essentially a practical prophecy
designed to prefigure by typical events the burial and resurrection of Christ,
and through this the opening of the gates of mercy to the Gentile world, there
can be no difficulty on the part of any who believe miracles possible to accept
those recorded here as true. No one will venture to say that Jonah’s
preservation in the belly of the great fish, and his remarkable deliverance,
viewed as charged with typical and prophetical meaning, was an unnecessary
exhibition of Divine power. No one will venture to say either that the
miraculous growth and miraculous destruction of the gourd was needless--if by
it God’s mercy to the heathen world was vindicated, and its truth placed in the
very forefront of the prophetic writings. Many have thought, not without
reason, that in this book we have the oldest written prophecy, and that it is
because this truth is so prominent here that it is so conspicuously exhibited
in all subsequent prophetic writings. It gives the keynote to them all, and, as
serving this purpose, the miracles recorded in it cannot be regarded as useless
manifestations of supernatural power. The miracles themselves too have
oftentimes been so presented as to make faith as difficult as possible. It is
not everyone that can say that though it had been recorded that Jonah had
swallowed the whale it would not have affected or shaken their faith in the
story. Faith, though it may soar high above reason, cannot accept what plainly
contradicts its teachings and exceeds the utmost bounds of possibility.
Attempts have been made to show that it is altogether impossible for the
whale--which is the fish spoken of by our Lord when referring to the sign of
Jonas--to have accomplished the feat here ascribed to it unless some remarkable
change had been affected upon its structure. Some have allowed these attempts
to weigh so much with them that they have intensified the miracle by insisting
either that this change was affected or that a special fish was created by God
for the emergency. The miracle proper seems to have consisted in the
preservation of Jonah in his living grave for three days, and then being
vomited unhurt upon the land. The sudden growth and destruction of the gourd
becomes, on closer examination, merely a supernatural quickening of the power
of nature. But objections have been taken to the old view of the book, not only
on the ground of its miraculous element, but also on the ground of its literary
construction and features. It bears a resemblance to the myths or parables that
spring up in the course of a nation’s literature and become attached to
historical names. An example of this may be found in the tales which have
gathered around our Saxon King Arthur, in the last development of which by
Tennyson there is believed to be embodied moral and spiritual truth. Because of
this resemblance this book is assigned to this class of literary production. On
this view it must have been written as a parable with the design of rebuking
the narrowness and exclusiveness of the Jewish people. The cause of its being
connected with Jonah may have been some tradition of his having beau sent to
Nineveh on an errand of mercy. In regard to this view of the book we may note,
that were it thoroughly established it would not destroy its prophetic value.
The parable, instead of the actual miraculous events, as in the old view, would
become prophetic. It would teach the boundless mercy of God, by prefiguring the
burial and resurrection of Christ, the subsequent calling of the Gentiles, and
their reception into the kingdom of God. “It would be,” as has been said, “an
epitome of prophecy, of the mediatorial work of Christ.” The difficulties in
the way of accepting this new critical view seem to us many and insurmountable.
I. We cannot
regard the argument from the literary construction of the books of the Bible
and their resemblance to the literary works of other nations as very safe or
conclusive. It may be quite valid and conclusive for those who accept the Bible
simply as the growth of Hebrew literature--simply as the product of the
national mind and consciousness in the various stages of its growth and decay;
but not for those who accept it as a supernatural revelation of the God of the Hebrews. The
supernatural element not only in narrative, experience, and prophecy, but also
in the very composition itself, must be taken into account. This puts a vast
difference between the literature of the nation of Israel, along the whole line
of its history, and the literature of any other nation. It is a growth, but it
is not the product of genius or mere piety. It is the result of a continued
revelation and inspiration. To refer again to King Arthur, the growth of
legends around his name has led many to question if he was a historical person
at all, and we cannot believe that God would give countenance to anything that
would tend to lead to this confusion. The employment of parables in itself is
not wrong, for Christ Himself frequently took advantage of this mode of
instruction. But it was always done by Him openly, and so that His hearers
understood that His statements were parabolical. There was no difficulty in
distinguishing between the parts of His teaching that were parabolical and
those parts which were historical. He never attached any of His parables to
historical names.
II. We may say that
this new view of the book tends to shake our faith in other historical parts of
Scripture. It bears a resemblance, both in its form and contents, to the
narratives of remarkable incidents in the lives of Elijah and Elisha. If this
be a parable, why may we not regard the others as possessing the same mythical
character?
III. This book bears
many marks of being authentic history. It is, indeed, fragmentary, and does not
furnish us with full information on all points about which our curiosity is
aroused. It does not tell us anything about Jonah’s life and labours previous
to his call to go to Nineveh. It does not tell us anything about the spot where
he was vomited by the fish upon the dry land, nor describe his journey to
Nineveh; and some have seen in this evidence that it is not true history, but fable.
“But,” as Keil has remarked, “the assertion that completeness in all external
circumstances which would serve to gratify curiosity rather than help to an
understanding of the true facts of the case, is indispensable to the truth of
any historical narrative, is one which might expose the whole of the historical
writings of antiquity to criticism, but can never shake their truths. There is
not a single one of the ancient historians in whose works such completeness as
this can be found; and still less do the Biblical historians aim at
communicating such things as have no close connection with the main object of
the narrative, or with the religious significance of the facts themselves.”
This lack of detail in the narrative may also be accounted for by its prophetic
character. It is not the
design of the writer simply to give a historical account of Jonah’s mission to
Nineveh, but to present those incidents in connection with it which have a
typical and prophetical signification. But while the narrative is by no means
complete, there seems to us to be an unmistakable touch of reality in the
experience of Jonah as here described. In the description of his feelings and
conduct, when the call came to him to go to Nineveh; in his prayer in his
wonderful grave; and in the record of his feelings and conduct under the
unwished for and disappointing success of his mission, there is something so
strange and yet so natural as to place them outside the domain of fiction. And
when the narrative touches upon points on which any light can be thrown by the
researches into antiquity, these researches have confirmed its truthfulness.
The attempt to show from the statement in the third verse of the third chapter, “and
Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey,” that the
greatness of Nineveh was a thing of the past when the book was written, has
been perfectly futile. The plain meaning of the words is, as granted even by the
rationalistic critics themselves, that Nineveh was a city of vast dimensions
when Jonah reached it, in the prosecution of his heaven-given mission. Its
dimensions as thus indicated have been found to correspond with the description
of ancient profane historians, and with recent examination of the ruins of this
city. The command too, issued by the King of Assyria, in proclaiming a national
fast to put sackcloth on the beasts and flocks and make them fast, is quite in
accordance with the customs which are known to have prevailed in the ancient
Persian Empire. The book thus bears traces of having been written by one who
had seen Nineveh in its greatness and glory, and who had gained some
acquaintance with its customs.
IV. We would simply
mention that the book was received as historical by the Jews. The fact is
indisputable, whatever weight may be attached to it in determining its literary
character.
V. The book was
regarded as historical by our Lord Himself. In this reference there is also
established the reality of the marvellous circumstances attending the mission.
He Speaks to us of Jonah’s being in the belly of the great fish as a sign, σημεῖον, a term which is often applied to His own miraculous deeds, in
which, through deliverance from bodily diseases, was typified His great work of
spiritual salvation. It was thus spoken of by Him as a real miracle, and
designed by God to be a type of the still greater miracle of His own
resurrection. And receiving the book as historical, the most likely author is
Jonah himself. The objection against assigning it to so early a period because
of the Aramaic colouring of its language has been so admirably dealt with by
Dr. Payne Smith that we will conclude by quoting his answer to it. “This
argument proves nothing; for scholars are not by any means agreed whether these
Aramaisms belong or not to the declining age of Jewish literature, or whether
they may not have been the patois or vernacular dialect of the country people.
There is very much to make it probable that pure Hebrew was the language only
of people of the highest caste, the kings and princes, the priests and prophets of
Jerusalem, or at most of Judah; and that the mass of the people spoke Aramaic,
or a debased Hebrew full of Aramaic words. Even with us many phrases which
strike us as Americanisms are thoroughly good English forms, which, however,
have not been used in literature, but belong to certain country districts
where, if some poet had arisen, or writer of repute, they would, from his
pages, have won their way into the language of scholars. Now, Jonah was of
Gath-hepher, a village far away to the North in the tribe of Zabulon. If he had
used no words except such as were employed by Isaiah, critics might with good
reason have disputed the authenticity of the book. They might fairly have said,
‘This book was not written by a man brought up in the provinces, but by one of
the literati of Jerusalem; some practised hand there has employed the
legend of Jonah as a vehicle for much pleasing instruction, and has constructed
out of it a very admirable allegory.’“ (R. Morton.)
Is the Book of Jonah true history?
Let us examine the question critically, but fairly: Was there ever such a
man as Jonah? I answer, there is just as good evidence of his being a real
personality as is found in the case of any other of the prophets; and if we
assume him to be a mythical character we may as well make a like assumption
respecting almost any other personality brought before us in the Old Testament.
He is distinctly mentioned in 2 Kings 14:25. Here he is mentioned
in an incidental way (which is the most convincing); his father’s name is also
given, and he is designated as “the prophet.” The identification is complete.
He is also spoken of in Tobit, one of the apocryphal books, dating about 200
b.c. But far overtopping all other evidence, and in itself of sufficient force
to settle any question whatever with those who accept the New Testament history
and Christ’s commission as the Son of God, is what is recorded in Matthew 12:38-41, and also in Luke 11:29-32. Let the reader please
notice that Christ does not say, “as Jonah was represented as,” etc., as
if this book were a fictitious story. Neither does He refer to any moral lesson
that this book might be intended to teach; but He simply refers to the facts
recorded in the book. That Christ believed and accepted the genuineness and
truthfulness of this history is too plain for argument. And was He mistaken in
regard to it? If He did not know, what becomes of His Messiahship? Did Christ
refer to some Munchausen fiction when He gave Jonah’s history to the generation
in which He lived as an infallible sign of His Messiahship; and that He should
rise from the dead on the third day? Are we to compare the whole teaching of
the Gospel respecting Christ’s resurrection to Gulliver’s travels? That is just
what Christ Himself did if there be only a wild piece of fiction in the Book of
Jonah. As it was with Jonah, so shall it be with the Son of Man, says Christ.
Whoever makes Jonah to be a dream makes the resurrection of Christ to be also a
dream. I call attention to the form of introducing the book as being the same which is found in
other books of the prophecies. For example, “the word of the Lord that came
unto Hosea, the son of Beeri”; “the word of the Lord that came unto Joel, the
son of Pethuel”; “the word of the Lord which came unto Zephaniah, the son of
Cushi”; “the word of the Lord unto Zechariah, the son of Berechiah”; and so
“the word of the Lord that came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai.” The writer of
this book evidently intended that the reader should accept it as genuine
history; and he is justly chargeable with intentional deception if it is not
so. I may state further that the Jews always regarded this book as true history
(Josephus, 9:11.
sec. 2). And so the Christian Church has esteemed it such with great unanimity.
One who spends hours and days in the catacombs of Rome sees the representation
of this history on the walls many times repeated. I come in the next place to
argue for the truth of this history from what it says about Nineveh. And this
Book of Jonah has been illuminated and illustrated and substantiated by the
discoveries of the nineteenth century, so that what sceptics used to say about
it no one would think of saying now. They argued up to 1841 that there could
not possibly have been such a city as is described in this book, because the
historians and geographers (Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and Ptolemy) made no
mention of it, and certainly they would have spoken of it if there had been a
city of three days’ journey around it; and one containing one hundred and
twenty thousand infants who did not know their right hand from their left. So
they said, Alexander would have found it and fought it. But what now? This
city, after having been buried up for more than twenty-five hundred years, was
discovered in 1841; and every competent judge knows now that it was as large as
this book represents it. It might easily have contained more than one hundred
and twenty thousand infants. Marvellous are the testimonies of these uncovered
monuments at Nineveh; and only a small part, probably, of the whole is yet in
our hands. But already Hiram, king of Tyre, 1000 b.c., is recognised in these
records at Nineveh. Benhadad and Jehu, 900 b.c., Hezekiah, king of Judah,
Sennacherib and Lachish reappear. Demonstrations of high civilisation but
monumental wickedness abound. We understand now why the Greek historians and the
Roman say nothing about great Nineveh. Simply because they knew nothing about
it. For although it was spared more than one hundred and fifty years after
Jonah’s day, it had been blotted out more than three hundred years before
Alexander was born; more than two hundred years before Herodotus was born;
nearly three hundred years before Xenophon was born; more than five hundred
years before Ptolemy, Diodorus Siculus, or Strabo had learned their alphabet.
It had been founded more than 2000 b.c. In Genesis 10:11 we read, “Out of that land
went forth Asshur and builded Nineveh.” It was standing in the day of its
greatest glory in Jonah’s time. It was finally destroyed about 713 b.c., in
accordance with the terrible words of prophecy uttered by Nahum. For two years
it was besieged by the Medes and Babylonians, and at that time was completely
devastated. Herodotus passed over the site two hundred and fifty years later,
but makes no mention of even any visible ruins. Neither does Xenophon. Is it
incredible that Jonah should have been sent to such a city on such an errand of
mercy? Is it incredible that he should have hesitated to undertake the mission?
Is it incredible that he should have taken a ship for Joppa? He was born only
sixty miles from that city, at Gath-hepher. Is it incredible that a storm
should have overtaken him? It was in those same waters that Paul went through
the trying experiences narrated in the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth
chapters of Acts. Is there anything incredible in the account of the sailors
praying to their respective gods? Is there anything incredible in a sea monster
following a ship, ready to swallow a man if he should be thrown overboard? This
story is often spoken of as the story of “Jonah and the whale,” but the Hebrew
word “dagh” is one of wide import. Our translation in the Old Testament calls
it “a great fish”; in the New Testament it is called a “whale.” Just five years
ago in the Chicago Inter-Ocean, vouched for by the editors, was a
communication from a sea captain, saying that it was a mistake to maintain that
the “great fish” could not have been a whale; and he went on to say that he had
no interest in defending Jonah, or in defending our New Testament translation;
but in the interest of natural science and of simple truth he stated that,
having been for some years the captain of a whaling vessel, he knew that the
sperm-whale could easily swallow a man whole; that one member of his crew,
weighing one hundred and seventy pounds, had repeatedly crawled through a
whale’s throat (different whales at different times) as the throat lay on the
deck of the ship. And then he proceeded to narrate a particular case of
personal experience in which a man weighing one hundred and sixty-five pounds
was one of his helpers; and one day they were in an exciting chase after some
whales, when one of the boats was struck by one of the whales and the men were
thrown out. All of them were successful in getting back into the boat save one,
whom they missed on calling the roll after they had captured the monster they
were pursuing. They gave him up for lost; but on cutting up the whale the next
day they found him inside--unconscious, but alive. He was restored, and was
still living, and was following his vocation at the time the captain wrote.
Courbet, in Cosmos, of March 7, 1895, writes (and let the reader observe
that this is not “a fish story” by a romancer, nor “a sailor’s yarn,” but the
report of a scientific expedition; and such substantially are all the
testimonies which I quote):
“The discoveries of the Prince of Monaco were such as to relieve me of all
difficulty in believing the Bible story that a whale swallowed Jonah.” A writer
in the Academy of Sciences--M. Joubin--says: “A sperm whale can easily swallow an animal
taller and heavier than a man.” And he adds: “The animals when swallowed can keep alive
some time in the whale’s stomach.” Lyman Abbott is reported as stirring up the
mirth of his congregation a while ago by alluding to the “half-digested man
Jonah.” But if Lyman Abbott will study physiology a little he will learn that,
although the gastric fluid is a remarkably powerful solvent, capable of
dissolving many solid substances, yet it has no power whatever over living
substances. And if he used a very little logic, superadded to his physiology,
he would see that unless this were true the gastric fluid would at once assail
the coats of the stomach itself, and render all animal life impossible. This is
one of those wonderful proofs of the Divine wisdom in the working of living
organisms. Jonah must first die before digestion could even begin. If we deny
all miracles, then we must away with all revelation and all the supernatural.
“But,” says one, “I am prepared to admit miracles wherever there is a
justifying reason; but what reason is there here?” Think a moment; think a
moment. Here was a wicked city going to destruction. God so loved them that He
bade His servant give them warning; and when he obeyed the Divine voice the
whole city was moved to turn away from their sins, and as a matter of history,
prolonged their existence for the space of more than a hundred years. And no
doubt Jonah’s wonderful experience proved to be as the mighty power of God in
bringing about the result. What a preacher Jonah must have been after that
living burial! The Lord knows when it is worth while to work a miracle; and a
more satisfactory mason for one than is found in this history no man ought to
ask. Jonah was worth saving; the Ninevites were worth saving; the one hundred
and twenty thousand infants especially were worth saving. (E. B. Fairfield,
D.D.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》