The Prophet Jonah: His Character and Mission to Nineveh

Mv explicit acknowledgiiicnts of help in the couiposition of this volume, are due to Calvin; whose ()ininentiirios on the Minor Projthets, as well as his otlur works, it would be y)resuniptioii in me to praise. 1 have no doubt, also, that traces will appear of my haviniT read Principal Fairbairn’s book on Jonah. I have a distinct recollection of derivintr much pleasure and profit from the perusal of it at the time of its publication. But as that is now about seventeen years ago, I am unable to specify my obligations.

Some of my readers may think that I have — to use the language of an intelligent friend — “taken Jonah’s lpart too much.” I can scarcely think that I have. It is a tacit tribute of honour that we pay to and Apostles, as still living powers in the Church, when we deny them the benefit of the maxim, Dr mortuis nil nisi Jxmun). But for that we ouirht to be all the iv Preface.

more careful to do them no injustice. And when I think of his wonderful prayer in the depths, — of his perfect candour with the mariners, — of his magnanimity in prescribing his own death as the means of their deliverance, — and of his perfect candour with God also, in laying open to Him to the last even all that was wrong in his startling and most sinful state of mind, I cannot help thinking that the memory of Jonah deserves more of esteem and affectionate reoard than has fallen to his lot. To the last we find his gracious Lord “not silent to him;” so that we see the prophet not left to “become like them that go down into the pit.” And though Jonah has closed the book of his prophecy without telling us what effect the Lord’s gracious remonstrance had in respect of bringing him to a better frame of mind, — thus, in manifest humility, I think, consenting to disappear from our view as under a cloud, — Divine charity, “believing all things,” will have little difficulty in believing that Jonah’s silence, like that of Job, would have its meaning expressed by the protestation: — “Once have I spoken; but I will not answer: yea, twice; but I will proceed no further.”

I wish my book had been greatly better than it is. For one thing, it would have allowed me to say something on what I hold to be the yet unexhausted resources, in respect of variety, and versatility, and literary construction, — of the kind of expository exercise of which

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this tbrms, in so far, a .s])uciiiun. Hut I forlxui-. Smli as it it is, I ilcsire to leavi’ the voluinc with him who, by His ministry witliiii tlir veil, can lender it of sweet smellinij;- savour unto (Jod, and lpy I lis ministry of the Spirit in the heart, can render it a savour of life unt<» life to tlif r-ader.

H. M.

EDLVBCRf.H, Ut Jnne 1S66.

There beincj a constant demand for Dr. Huofh Martin’s Works and this one having become scarce, the Publisher has reprinted it, and will shortly reissue Dr. Martin’s work entitled •’ The Shadow of Calvary.”

July 11 $9.

“A lUfht io lU)htt)i I’I’I- «,. (he (jlorxj of His people Israel.”

—Luke ii. 32.

Sl’EAIvING fjenerally, tlic prophet Jonah lived about midway IilLwcl-u the revolt of the ten tribes under Jeroboam and their fatal and final captivity by Assyria. The commencement of his ministry — whether that ministry was more stated or more occasional we do not know — seems to have been contemporaneous with the close of Elisha’s. And, like Elisha, Jonah prophesied in Israel — in the kin’dom of Samaria.

The only predicti(^n of his recorded is that mentioned in the 14th chapter of 2nd Kin«^s, which, indeed, is the only pjissajjc of Scripture in which our prophet is mentioned, except in the book which yues under his own name, and the allusions made to him by our Lord in the days of His flesh. In that chapter, at the 23rd verse, we read that, about 150 years after the disruption of the tribes, and about .S25 years before Christ, Jeroboam IL, “the son of Joash, king of Israel, befjan to reign in Samaria, and reiffned forty and one years. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord: he departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin. He restored the coast of Israel, from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain, according to the word of the Lord Ood of Israel, which He pj)ake yonaJis Mission: its Place

by the hand of His servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet, which was of Gath-hepher. For the Lord saw the affliction of Israel, that it was very bitter: for there was not any shut up, nor any left, nor any helper for Israel. And the Lord said not that He would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven; but He saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash.”

It thus appears that, while Israel were in a very wretched and oppressed condition, the Lord had employed His servant Jonah to predict an unmerited and most ^racious interposition of His power on their behalf, to restore to them the territory of which their enemies had deprived them. It is very remarkable that living, as the prophet did, in a time of abounding provocations when we might have expected his sole office in Israel would have been to denounce judgment on the apostate tribes and their ungodly rulers, the only one of his predictions on record is that of a most gracious and generous interposition on the part of Jehovah in defence of His afflicted people; when “seeing their affliction that it was very bitter,” He, as it were, forgot all their offensive neglect of His worship, and disobedience to His commands; and, unwilling to see their name blotted out — the name of Israel, the seed of Abraham, his friend, blotted out — from under heaven, He gave military strength and skill even to a wicked king, and “saved them by the hand of Jeroboam, the son of Joash.” Abundant evidence thus, in his ministry among a rebellious people, has Jonah of the Lord’s singular long-suffering; so abundant, indeed, that, unable to vindicate, any more than to search, its greatness, he seems to have been at fault and at a loss concerning it; to have been difficulted in considering the character of God, and cast into great confusion of mind by his very knowledge of God’s extraordinary patience. In fact, it is in this very difficulty that the explanation of Jonah’s most singular conduct, both in first fleeing from the duty assigned him, and in afterwards being displeased with the salvation of Nineveh, must be sought. “But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest Thee of the evil” (Jonah iv. 1, 2). However this

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