The Casting of Jonah into the Sea
“Then said they unto him, What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us? for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous. A.nd he said unto them, Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you. Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring it to the land; but they could not: for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous against them. Wherefore they cried unto the Lord, and said, We beseech Thee, O Lord, we beseech Thee, let us not perish for this man’s life, and lay not upon us innocent blood; for Thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased Thee. So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea; and the sea ceased from her raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord, and made vows. Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.” — Jonah i. 11-17.
” Thou answerest them, 0 Lord our God; Thou wast a God that forgavest them, though Thou tooJcest vengeance of their inventions.” — Ps. xcix. 8. “Righteousness and peace have hissed each other.” — Ps. lxxxv. 10.
AS the marvels of this stirring scene heighten to their crisis, the conduct of all the parties concerned becomes truly noble, and in every respect worthy of much admiration. In all that is recorded of the prophet, nothing appears to us so exalted as the combination of godly meekness and godly boldness with which he faces and accepts the tremendous punishment of his transgression. And it is questionable whether a crew of his own highly favoured countrymen would have enacted a worthier part towards him than that which was adopted and carried out with so much propriety and dignity by the heathen sailors. Truly Jonah had even more good reason than Paul to use the language, “The barbarous people showed me no little kindness “(Acts xxviii. 2); while they, on the other hand, as they were about to consign him to a doom which turned out to be a period of” three days and three nights in the whale’s belly,” might not unjustly say of the prophet, what the centurian said of Jonah’s antitype, about to be committed” for three days and three nights to the
148 The Casting of yoiiah into the Sea.
heart of the earth; “— “Certainly this was a righteous man” (Luke xxiii. 47).
Altogether, there is in this scene, on all hands, an amount of veneration and deference rendered to justice, — to severe, but pure and perfect righteousness, — that cannot fail to render it veryimpressive to every right-minded reader of the passage. There is a calm, judicial dignity exhibited by all the parties, which speaks well for their character and bearing in a crisis so fitted to alarm and to unman them. And it forms a striking proof of the fact that it is righteousness alone that will bear men through the most fiery trials. Amiability, kindliness, capability of gentler and refined emotion, may grace and adorn the man; but it is righteousness, the love of truth and justice, which forms the foundation and the solid pillars of his character. In the hour of peace, and of gentle, undisturbed serenity, the amiable may be more acceptable than the sternly just. Nevertheless, — though it is true that, whereas “scarcely for a righteous man would one die, peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die,” — in critical hours of destiny it is righteousness that towers aloft above the storm, and — somewhat even like unto God Himself — is “mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.”
I. In this view, consider, first, the righteous procedure of the sailors in consulting with Jonah himself concerning the steps that were now rendered necessary. Something must be done — and they put the matter to the prophet. “Then said they unto him, What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us? for the sea wrought and was tempestuous.” The storm ceaseth not: the ship can hold out no longer: the cause of the storm has been revealed; for God hath disclosed it by the lot, and Jonah confessed it from his own conscience. And now that the cause is known, what shall be done for removing it? Evidently something must be done, if they are not all prepared to perish together. And they consult Jonah himself.
It says much for them that they do. He had been something more, and something worse, than a thorn in their side. And they might have been expected, as heathen men, to have had little scruple in taking brief -handed measures, and making short work with the troublesome stranger. For a perfect stranger he was to them. No ties of friendship, or acquaintance, or kin, or countrycould he plead; and the subject of a strange but strong God, bringing down his God’s wrath on them — verily, they had little to thank him for! And why make any difficulty in getting rid of him?
1. But God has imbued responsible man with a natural and profound horror of shedding his brother’s blood. Nor is this confined to those who are in possession of the Scriptures, those holy writings in which God said — at the very constitution of the world and of society, on re-arranging that constitution after it had been obliterated by the flood — “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” It is a feeling that has gone down all time, with all the families of Noah; and that, whether the covenant with Noah — whether the Scripture or that special command in it — has gone down to them or not. However much extreme hardening, through indulgence in sin, may sear the conscience, and go far, apparently, to obliterate this horror at the guilt of murder, it is more proper to say that such searing and hardening rather overpowers than obliterates it. For it abideth still; and it affords one of a multitude of harmonies between the religion of the natural conscience of man and the religion of the revealed will of God. For, — whatever may be said by some who would seem to seek a character for good feeling higher than God Himself, — as it is apart from and prior to the Bible, or any precept there, that man instinctively abhors the sin of murder; so, it was prior to any particular dispensation — any Mosaic economy, for instance, or Jewish theocracy — and as applied to all lands and all times, that God, in starting the world anew in the ark-saved family of the patriarch, gave forth the unrepealed command, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” Nor should it be forgotten, as sufficient for ever to silence the advocates for the abolition of capital punishment, that God has not only given an unrepealed command which He might have been pleased to rest on His own authority and will alone, but He has condescended to give the ground and reason of it; and so long as both the command remains unrepealed and the reason remains a fact, so long is the proposed abolition of capital punishment a daring insult against the Most High. God hath given us the reason why the shedding of man’s blood must be avenged by the murderer’s death — “for in the image of God made He man.” And until this truth becomes untrue, that is, until man cease to be a free, intelligent, responsible being, — fallen, indeed, and in a vast multitude of cases, alas! unrenewed, yet still responsible, intelligent and free, — capital punishment, both by God’s commanding will and by God’s assigned reason, is the murderer’s doom. And nature and reason sanction the sentence.
It was nature and reason, working in this very direction, that induced these sailors to pause ere they rid themselves of the source of their danger by casting their fellow-man to the waves.
2. But there was something more than this, doubtless, at the bottom of their judicious and righteous deliberation. They might be irritated by the rebellious subject of a strange God bringing all the anger of his God upon them in this fashion; but, behold 1 how great this new and strange God is! Evidently He is a strong God. May He not be the true God? — the one living and true God? Let them, therefore, pause and weigh well their doings, while evidently the prophet’s God is near.
For, have they ever found such a God among their own gods? Have they ever found a God who sitteth above the floods, and ruleth in the raging of the sea, and telleth by lot with whom He is displeased, and followeth up His displeasure with quick and quickening tempest? Is it not a new experience to them? That this great God is near unto them. His marvellous works are emphatically declaring. They feel this. They will stand in awe and sin not. They will do nothing rashly to provoke His anger against themselves. They will rather consult His prophet.
8. For, disobedient though he may be, Jonah, they perceive, is His prophet, and His servant still. Revering his God, they respect hir%. They feel that it is a solemn thing to have to do with anything that this God marks as His own — marks as His own even by His displeasure. Hence they pause. “With the well-advised there is wisdom.”
For these reasons, then, the mariners put the matter to Jonah himself. If something painful has to be done, they will at least consult with himself. If possible, they will secure his own concurrence. It may be they shall receive his own directions.
This generous and handsome style of procedure; how fitted was it to touch a chord in the prophet’s heart, and make him bitterly regret bringing danger and risk of death on men who could deal so nobly with him! Stimulated to rival the righteous and dignified procedure of those on whom he had brought such impending ruin, and who, — in the very crisis of it, and when they have discovered the instrument of that ruin and now have him in their power, — so forbearingly and respectfully abstain from retaliation, revenge, hatred, or haste; under the humbling and rectifying influence on his own mind which this fair and honourable treatment exerts: Jonah now seeks to emulate their rectitude and do them justice, as they are so disposed to do justice to him.
II. Hence his magnanimous proposal in reply: “Take me up and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.”
Could anything be more noble, upright, honourable? There is, first, a renewed acknowledgment — frank, free, and full — of his own obnoxiousness to the Divine anger, and of himself as the source and occasion of the present danger: — “For I know that for my sa,ke this great tempest is upon you.” There is, secondly, an unreserved surrender or appointment of himself to death, as the means of solving the appalling difficulty, and stilling the raging of the deep: “Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea.” And there is, thirdly, — what may be valued as coming from a prophet of that God “which made the sea and the dry land” — a prediction that the expedient will be efficacious: “So shall the sea be calm unto you.”
In small compass, how complete is Jonah’s reply! It meets the case; it meets all the case. Yet it has all the brevity of a sentence of judgment delivered from the bench.
And so, indeed, it is. Under God, and at the mouth of God, Jonah becomes judge in his own case; and he judges, even in his own case, with all the relentless righteousness which the sternest judge in any case could exhibit. No half measure, no compromise, no delay, no alternative; the one clear, immediate, complete, irrevocable, final doom: “Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea.”
Now, try and conceive of the height of true moral grandeur to which Jonah at this moment rises. He is clearly and consciously facing Eternity; and oh! how very far is he from doing so in the revolting blasphemy of one who can take the infinitely awful movement as one would take a leap on chance and in the dark! No: he “fears God.” He has been a regular, habitual fearer of God; and he truly fears God still. He has offended the Most High of late. He has fled from Him. He has seen, for some time, little of the light of His countenance. He has tasted little that the Lord is gracious. Nay, rather, the Lord’s wrath has waxed hot against him; His hand hath pressed him sore. At this very moment he hath terrible experience of the power wherewith his Almighty God can prosecute an oflfence against His honour, and bring the offender to punishment. “Deep calleth unto deep, and at the noise of God’s waterspouts all his billows go over him,” while he flees in disobedience “from the land of Jordan.” And yet he will “remember the Lord from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar.” And he will take no crooked way of dealing with God, or evading His hand and justice. The storm is to him the voice of God; awful as to Adam in the garden in the cool of the day; crying, “Jonah, where art thou?” — more terrible than the still small voice on Horeb after a strong wind, after the earthquake, after the fire, “What doest thou here, Elijah?” — “What doest thou here, Jonah?” Yet Jonah’s integrity quails not. He denies not his own guilt. He denies not the Lord’s righteousness.
When he entered the ship, — his conscience tumultuating with guilt, his heart throbbing with the hurry of his flight, — worn out with agitation and excitement, and going down like a hunted and harassed one to find rest in “the sides of the ship,” — how wide the contrast between the storm in his soul and the placid sea on which the happy bark, unconscious of its burden, set sail! Now the sea storms and is tempestuous: but the contrast is as great. For, as the result of repentance and returning duty, Jonah’s soul is placid, meek, and mild as a weaned child — calmly strong in righteousness also, as a mighty man of power rising above all impending evils.
Are you thus upright before the Lord? Are you truly penitent for all sin; for the sin that doth more easily beset you; for the sin which God may be pursuing wuth His displeasure? Do you own the justice of all His dealings with you? Do you indeed yield the victory to God, according to that oracle, “Yea let God be true and every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged?” You can do so only through the intervention of the great atonement and your faith therein. Never can you face all righteousness till you flee to the cross of Jesus. There, He by whom all things were made, both in heaven and in earth, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers, suffered under the hand of Divine justice, and satisfied Divine justice. That cross is the only school where an immortal, responsible man can face all righteous questions, and solve them, and accept the true solution. Have you been there and settled all your own case with the Judge of the quick and of the dead; settled it on the terms that are so honourable to the character of God, and that must now and ultimately be so remedial to yours? Have you fled for refuge to the hope set before you in the Gospel? Have you the anchor of the soul within the veil, designed and fitted to enable you to ride out the storm? In one word, have you peace with God on the righteous footing of an imputed righteousness, and a perfect reconciliation by sacrifice? Then see that you evermore face what is righteous, and turn to no crooked way, no evasion, no subterfuge, no refuge of lies, no path of compromise or of deceit. Walk humbly, yet walk boldly and firmly, with God. Though He slay you, still trust in Him. Your chiefest trials are designed to teach you this. Your agony of conflict with infirmities is designed to teach you this. The apparent contradiction between providences very sore and promises most sweet is designed to teach you and train you to this. Though the fig-tree shall not blossom, though there be no fruit in the vine, though the labour of the olive fail; though your house be not so with God; though heart and flesh faint and fail; though God Himself slay you with His sore displeasure: still it is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that His own Son died for sinners and rejoices to save them; that he that believeth in Him shall never die; nor from such an one shall the covenant of God’s peace or the promise of God’s presence and protection be removed, world without end. Therefore, in any circumstances, never doubt that the path of duty, — though it seem to be the path of anguish, of agony, of darkness, or of death, — is yet the way of life, light, and comfort; and however to fiesh and blood it may be hard,
154 ^-^^ Casting of yoiiah into the Sea.
hold to the motto which men of the world may have devised and may admire, but which men of God alone can rightly go through with, “Let justice be done, though the heavens rush to ruin.” *
“It is the Lord: let him do with me as seemeth good in His siffht.” It is the Lord: the same who hath counted me faithful and put me into the office of His prophet; the same to whom I have been unfaithful; from whom I have fled; from whom I have deserved so ill. “Righteous art Thou, 0 Lord; yet let me talk with Thee of Thy judgments.” Yea, let me ask from Thee faith and courage and strength to bear them. It is the Lord; the Judge of all the earth: and “He will do that which is right.” It is the Lord: and if His hand is strong to smite, ’tis also strong to save. Let Him do with me as seemeth good in His sight. Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him. “Take me up and cast me forth into the sea.”
III. This emulation of generous and righteous and extremely handsome action between Jonah and the mariners goes forward yet another stage. The mariners admirably meet the prophet again. If he responded generously to their righteous and dignitied deliberation in consulting with himself, or rather in leaving the matter in his own hands, they reciprocate no less beautifully to the meek and subdued spirit of the prophet when he prescribes his own death as the only means of appeasing the sea.
Touched with kindliest feelings of humanity, and touched with admiration of the minoled solemnitv and righteous boldness with which the prophet can propose the sacrifice of his own life to their safety, the men evidently resolve that only in the last and direst extremity shall they act as he has indicated to them; and that extremity, they rule, has not yet come. Till then, they will make every eflbrt. “Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to bring it to the land; but they could not: for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous against them,”
It was well that it was in their heart. The Lord denied them their desire; but it was well that it was in their heart. It showed their humanity; their solemn fear of shedding innocent blood; their profiting under that fear of God which Providence had been
* Fiat justitia, mat ccelum.
inspiring into their minds. It gave Jonah the opportunity of being still more satisfied that the proposal he had made was the only one that could meet the case. And it brought more clearly to light the solemn fact that God was indeed pursuing this matter to His own appointed issue, and would allow no effort, however well meant, to baffle His purpose. God had righteously destined the prophet to be cast into the sea; — yea, we may say, to suffer death for his offence in fleeing from his duty. For however God. interposed at a later stage, and miraculously’ saved the prophet’s life, it was nevertheless so much an interposition of miraculous goodness and miraculous power, that his restoration from the deep was more a resurrection than an escape. For certainly it is one clear inference we may draw from the analogy suggested by our Lord: — “As Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth;” — that it was a resurrection-life that Jonah afterwards possessed, as well as the Son of Man. Surely Jonah like the Son of Man, was appointed unto death, With death, then, we say, had God resolved to punish Jonah’s sin. And the strength of the Divine purpose is the more terribly brought to light when every effort to save Jonah’s life comes to nought. “The men rowed hard to bring it to the land but they could not.”
No; they could not. For the counsel of the Lord, it shall stand; and he will do all His pleasure. And the Lord executeth righteous judgment.
Young man! bear this in mind. You may go certain lengths aside from the ways of wisdom, integrity, temperance, truth; and to some extent, and in a certain sense, your friends may interpose and bring you off”. Hearts beating somewhat towards you like God’s heart — “How shall I give thee up, 0 Ephraim!” — may be at your service, even in your evil plight. Prayers and intercessions, counsels and rebukes, and kindliest efforts of righteousness and love, may take your feet out of the net, and place you in a somewhat even path again, giving you a fresh start and a new chance of better things. But beware. Embrace it if it is so. Embrace it now, and improve it. Thank God for it and improve it. Cast yourself on Him — His grace. His word, His Christ, His Spirit, His providence, His fatherly love and righteous will.
“As for me I will serve the Lord.” “Depart from me, ye evil doers: for I will keep the commandments of my God.” And let this be vigorous; in lively fear before the Lord; in humble penitence and firm faith of that mercy which is in the heavens; and let it be daily, dutifully, faithfully, manfully followed up.
For, turning aside again, or going certain other lengths, may land you, ere you are aware, in a position from which no one will bring you off. However many more true friends you may have than you deserve, and with whatever zeal and love they lay all oars in the water in your service, it may utterly baffle them to bring you off. For there are laws, physical, social, moral, from the effects and influence of which no one can bring you off. Remember that word of the Spirit: “Every man shall bear his own burden.” To your own master, in the long run, you must stand or fall. Bless God that He is able to make you stand. But also, when finally provoked. He is able to seal your doom. And if you so provoke Him, then, — as to the interposition and efibrts of your friends, — “The men rowed hard to bring it to the land, but they could not!”
IV. The admirable bearing of all parties in this drama becomes, if possible, still more engaging.
It becomes manifest that Jonah’s doom is inevitable; that Jonah’s hour is come. “The sea wrought, and was tempestuous.” And its “tempest,” and its “working,” and its demands were — for hi7)i. Doubtless, while the men had betaken themselves to pains, Jonah had secretly been engaged in prayer. But the pains taken by them are useless; for still “the sea works and is tempestuous.” And to the prayers of the prophet every thundering billow, — as “the sea works and is tempestuous,” — gives him back his stern and ominous answer, as if saying for God, as God Himself said to Moses, — “Speak to Me no more of this matter, for thou honouredst Me not.”
So Jonah’s hour is come.
It is a solemn moment. Apart even from some of its most appalling circumstances, it is a solemn moment. The funeral of the dead at sea is solemn. Though the waters around and the heavens above be all serene, it is a trying hour when the remains of the much-loved friend, or of the mere acquaintance, or even of a very stranger, have to be committed to the deep. And hardened indeed must that heart be that can pass unmoved through the hour when, with mournful funeral service, and from the hands of comrades or of crew, the sea receives another to “the dead that are in her.” But when we try in imagination to stand on the reeling deck beside this man of God, offending, yet honourable and honoured, and see alike the firm resignation, combining meekness and moral majesty, with which the prophet faces the waves roaring for him as the lion ravening for the prey, and the mournful admiration and regret with which these heathen men look upon their guest, — revealing that high appreciation of his character which, even though known to them only in connection with his offence against God and his occasion of extreme distress to them, they have irresistibly been drawn to entertain, — we are overpowered with the impression that high above the floods sitteth an unseen One who is carrying out a righteous award, and who, while He hath said, “Touch not Mine anointed, and do My prophets no harm,” would appear to have said so, not merely to procure them protection when they are right, but because He Himself will chastise them when they err. Silence is our best expositor here. Another such funeral service truly neither the sea nor the dry land ever witnessed. For here are men, not accustomed to call on Jehovah’s name, and from whom little, in a sense, could be expected, going through with a duty the most agonising that can ever fall to a creature’s hand, in a spirit of godly deliberation and — one almost feels constrained to think — of truly gracious prayerf ulness; and following it up with sacrificing and vowing to the Lord; as if they now gave themselves as wholly to His grace as they have given His offending servant to His justice. “Wherefore they cried unto the Lord, and said. We beseech Thee, O Lord, we beseech Thee, let us not perish for this man’s life, and lay not upon us innocent blood: for Thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased Thee. So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord, and ma-de vows.”
Thus did these men. They awoke to know the living and the true God. They prayed to Him. They appealed to Him. The storm, they clearly saw, was in His hand: a reason for it, they saw, was in His heart. And that reason they saw as clearly as they saw the storm. His hand, they saw, was ahuighty. His heart, they saw, was righteous. In brief time, they learned not a little of the living and the true God. They felt His anger. They even became executioners of His wrath. They emphatically justify their deed as being constrained to become executioners of the wrath of the living God. It is a solemn initiation into the knowledge of His name.
And now their guest, their passenger, is gone. The sea has closed over him; and the sea has “ceased from her raging.” Yes: if they doubted that a Living One was moving the storm by the power of His hand and according to the purpose of His heart, they can now, at least, doubt no more. The sudden appeasing of the tempest tells its own tale. They fear God in the calm “exceedingly,” — more than in the tempest. And now, under no stress of weather, under no strain of terror, they vow, not an extorted, mercenary vow, but a free and voluntary dedication of themselves to the Lord. One would fain say these men were converted to the God of Israel. One would fain hope they lived and died in His fear and in His favour.
It is a calm. The clouds have parted. The waves are hushed. The heavens are beautiful and blue. Onward the strange vessel flits, beating her quiet tack; unconscious of her matchless story; but her crew aware “that a prophet of the Lord has been among them “!
And thus died Jonah. To them, at least, thus died Jonah; — the death of a criminal pursued by justice; yet the death of a repentant and righteous man; in death triumphing over death; committing himself to God in singular meekness and faith; acknowledging the justice of his doom, and relying on Divine pardon and protection; committing his body to the sea and his soul to the God whom he feared, — the God of heaven, and of the sea, and of the dry land. Thus died Jonah.
So the story reads. And — save for the inspiring Spirit of God continuing His revelations — so the story would end. To all this the mariners could bear witness; and here their witness-bearing, their story would end. And in this there is a precious lesson.
The Casting of y onali into the Sea. 159
In God’s people and His prophets, their offence and their chastisement may be capable of being reported; the knowledge o£ them common property. For, their offence and their chastisement may be upon the surface; and upon the surface there may be nothing more. But the story may not end thus. There may be deliverance, forgiveness, marvels of grace and prayer, and love and joy and communion with God, beneath the surface or behind the scenes. Beneath the surface and behind the scenes, there may be such salvation as the world shall never know.
“Thus died Jonah;” — so these mariners, on reachinof land, and rehearsing the story, would say as they brought the marvellous narrative to a close. Literally, beneath the surface, God carried on the marvellous story more marvellously still; bringing in His own unique, peculiar work of — Life in the midst of death; His ever glorious work of justice satisfied by being executed, and grace reigning through righteousness unto life from the dead. “Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.”
Oh, fear the Lord at all times. There is no want to them that fear Him. Accept no deliverance at the expense of righteousness or truth or duty. There is a better deliverance for you. On, therefore: on, rather: fronting the righteousness; facing your duty; trusting your God. Is anything too hard for Him? and is not His faithfulness in the very heavens? Not His dark dispensations, but His clear and ever bright word of covenant grace and truth, is the ground and warrant of your faith. And, therefore, though He slay you, you may trust in Him still.
On His face, — a frown of deep displeasure for your offence! In His hand, — a raging storm, relentless, waiting tor you! Could your case well be worse? Thus much upon the surface. Thus, to sense and reason.
But to faith — what? Beneath the surface, while He holds the storm in His left hand, with His right hand “the Lord has prepared” a deliverance. And behind the frown, in the depths of the Lord’s heart — what? Protecting, redeeming, life-giving love! “Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”
Oh, all ye that fear the Lord! keep ye judgment at any cost: the Lord hath “prepared” His salvation. “Thus saith the Lord, Keep ye judgment, and do justice: for my salvation is near to come. I bring near my righteousness; and my salvation shall not tarry.”