Jonah's Flight: Its Meaning and Motive

“But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.” — Jonah i. 3.

“Trist in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy tvays acknoivledc/e Him, and He shall direct thy paths.”

—Prov. iii. 5, 6.

WHEN it is said that “Jonah rose up to flee imto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord,” it cannot be supposed that he meant or expected to withdraw himself from beyond the sight and absolute omnipotence of Jehovah. It is altogether inconsistent with that “fear of the Lord” with which the prophet was manifestly embued (Jonah i. 9), to suppose Him capable of entertaining any such idea. The wicked, indeed, habitually act as if God were not omnipresent. They feel it a relief, a positive relief, to escape from the eye of some fellow-creature whom they TDelieve to be penetrated with a profound hatred of their wicked purposes. And when they can contrive to hide them from all such, to keep them from the knowledge of all save those who happen to be as tolerant of sin as themselves, or more so, they are at their ease. A most conclusive demonstration that they either altogether disbelieve the plain and fundamental Scriptural truth that “God seeth all things,” or that, if they believe it, they have made up their minds to defy Him to His face! There are few more conclusive and continually operating proofs of the depravity and ungodliness of the carnal mind, than its strange, cool, unaccountable, and settled forgetfulness of the very existence and nature of God as an infinite and omnipresent Spirit. Well may it be said to the sinner, if there is anything to which you can give yourself, on Sabbath or on week-day, which you could not bear to have some holy man acquainted with, or in which you could not bear to have some holy man your spectator and companion, what are you better than an atheist? Are you

JonaJts Flight: its Meaning and Motive. 29

not practically denying a God altogether? for a Being not everywhere present, beholding the evil and the good, is no God, but an idol. How can you profess to have in you even the very beginnings of religion, if you habitually and coolly set aside the foundation of all personal piety? You are not even begun ta feel that Jehovah is the God with whom you have to do, unless you practically accept and labour to follow out that view of His glorious, all-inspecting omnipresence which David celebrates in the 139th Psalm, giving the very key-note of a pious man’s integrity: “O Lord Thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting and my up-rising, Thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down. Thou art acquaint with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord, Thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid Thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven. Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall Thy hand lead me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from Thee, but the night shineth as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to Thee” (Ps. cxxxix. 1-12).

Yes! though Jonah should take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there should the Lord’s hand lead him, and His right hand hold him. And that the prophet knoweth right well.

Why, then, is it said that he rose up to flee from the presence of the Lord? A comparison of one or two passages of Scripture may indicate the meaning. We reiad that, after the marvellous conversation that God held with the first murderer, immediately after he had killed his brother, “Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the Land of Nod, in the East of Eden” (Gen. iv. 16). That saying evidently implies that for the primitive worship which immediately succeeded the fall, some special locality was consecrated as the place where Jehovah’s name was placed; where His worshippers assembled: to which they brought their ofi’erings, that they might call upon His name

lo JonaJis Flight: its Meaning and Motive.

throuo-h sacrifice, and receive tokens of their acceptance, and fresh intimations, it may be, of the Lord’s will. Most probably, in the days of the first family of our race, the gate of the garden of Eden, where God placed the cherubims and the flaming sword, constituted the seat of sacred worship; occupying the place and serving the purpose which, in after generations, were occupied and served by the tabernacle in the wilderness and in Shiloh, and ultimately by the temple on Mount Moriah. Thither, to that gate from which they had been driven forth — even a God reconciled to them through the promised seed of the woman, taking vengeance on their inventions though forgiving their iniquity (Ps. xcix. 8), — thither would the humbled yet hopeful, the contrite and comforted worshippers draw near; and as they beheld “the flaming sword which turned every way to keep the tree of life,” would they feel the terrible exclusion which avenged their iniquity; while, feeling likewise the impossibility of making their own way to eternal life, they would be constrained to consider by faith the memorials of redemption which the cherubims presented, and to pray to a sovereignly gracious God, infinitely, terrifically holy, yet reconciled, “dwelling between the cherubims.” Here, therefore, was the face of the Lord — the presence of the Lord. Here substantiallj?- were all the elements of the temple worshii?, and of that worship which now by faith we conduct, entering into the temple on high — entering by hope within the veil by a new and living way, by the blood of Jesus. Here was the “sword,” fit emblem of the blood of death, of sacrifice: — “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow.” Here also was the throne of love guarded by the sword — equivalent to the mercy-seat sprinkled by the Ibiood, — the Lord dwelling between the cherubims, giving His o-racious presence to all who came in faith of Him, “the woman’s seed,” who should “bruise the serpent’s head,”

Here, then, was Jehovah’s presence, his presence-chamber, the place of His gracious manifestations of Himself, of the new revelations of His will, the announcements of His grace and truth. Here Cain refused that reconciliation which God offered to him, maintaininof his wrath acjainst his brother and his sullen dislike to his God, even in the face of the expostulations which the Lord condescended to press upon him,” Why art thou wroth? and why yonaJis Flight: its Meaning and Motive. 3 1

is thy countenance fallen? if thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire and thou shalt rule over him “(Gen. (iv. 6, 7). Here, again, Cain presented himself after he had stained his hands with his brother’s blood, and received that terrible sentence which rendered him a fusritive and vaofabond for ever, though it authoritatively guaranteed his life, setting aside by Sovereign dispensation that law of nature which instinctively teaches that “whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” From the place, then, where Jehovah thus made all His communications of His mind and will — from the place of the Lord’s special worship — the wretched fugitive went forth, when, as the history records, “Cain went forth from the presezce of the Lord.”

Or, to take an instance that will bring the matter closer to the point in hand. In 2nd Kings xiii. 22, we read thus: “But Hazael king of Syria oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz. And the Lord was gracious unto them, and had compassion on them, and had respect unto them, because of His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and would not destroy them, neither cast He them froin His ‘presence as yet.” Evidently by casting them from His presence, — a thing which He would ultimately be provoked to do, though not “as yet,” — the Lord alludes to their being carried captive by Assyria. It is in fact equivalent to saying He would not “as yet” cast them from the Holy Land. There, His name and glory were placed. There, especially. His presence was revealed. Hiding Himself as yet from the heathen, and confining His name and worship within the sacred territory. He speaks of that territory as the locality of His presence; and casting them forth from the land is therefore called casting them out of His presence. The same language is employed to predict the banishment and captivity of the house of Judah, when they also, as well as the kingdom of Samaria, were in their turn, after more than a century, carried captive to Babylon. The threatening was delivered from the Lord to them by Jeremiah: “Behold I, even I, will utterly forget you, and I will forsake you, and the city that I gave you and your fathers, and cast you out of my presence” (Jer. xxiii. 89). Thus, then, the holy place of God’s acceptable worship and the Holy Land itself, are clearly designated in Scripture as “the presence,” or place of the “presence of the Lord.” To be banished from the holy place, or from the holy territory, is equivalent to, is described as, being banished from the presence of the Lord. It was in this sense, accordingly, that Jonah sought to flee from the presence of the Lord. Especially if there be any truth in a tradition that the Jews believed the spirit of prophecy to be confined to the sacred territory, we see the reason why, on the supposition of Jonah being resolved to resist the heavenly command, he should desire to escape from the land of Israel. Open continually, while there, to a return of the Spirit and Word of the Lord, he could not face the conflict with them of which his intended disobedience would give him the painful prospect. To escape that conflict, he was content to betake himself to exile. If passing over the sea, to the lands of the uncircumcised and the unclean, might only carry him where the terrible “voice of words” might not any more be heard, — for the disobedient, at the repetition of the disregarded command, must “exceedingly fear and quake,” — Jonah is prepared to forego all the comforts of home, to endure all the hardships of exile, of exile even among those with whom he, a Hebrew, a fearer and a prophet of the God of Israel, could have no sympathy, nothingwhatsoever in common. So terrible is a man’s case when he is involved in a conflict with God; “Shall the thing formed strive with its Maker?” That he may no more hear the broken, violated injunction, — that he may escape the urgency of the prophetic Spirit — “Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.”

But why was this commanded duty so painful, so unacceptable to Jonah? so unacceptable that, rather than render obedience, he consented to forego the land of his nativity, and the place of the gracious presence of the God of his salvation?

J I. Shall we say that Jonah was alarmed at its difficulties? It would not have been wonderful if he had been. It was indeed a mission environed with difficulties. And the difficulties are summed up in the two, which the Lord Himself depicted to Jonah in giving him the commission.

1. The city was great: “that great city.” God Himself being the judge, who in all things judgeth accurately, this was true; for it is the statement of God’s own opinion that we have to go upon. It was He who said, “Go to Nineveh, that great city.” The third chapter of this book confirms this fact, and states it still more emphatically and minutely: “Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey” (Jonah iii. 3). In the last verse of the prophecy also, a hundred and twenty thousand is stated as the proportion of infants in the population! “That great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons, that cannot discern between their right hand and their left;” a proportion such as to give an entire population of about two millions. Profane history reports it as a well fortified city; “its walls were a hundred feet high, and so broad on the top that three chariots could run abreast, adorned with fifteen hundred towers, each two hundred feet high.” In building this city it is said that no less than one hundred and forty myriads of men were employed for eight years. A myriad being ten thousand, the number must have been one million four hundred thousand. “Such a city none has ever built since,” was the declaration of the historian, referring even to those early times when the tremendous despotisms of the East could command the labour of millions of slaves. “There is not probably on record an account of such a city. That it had large gardens and even fields within its walls there can be no doubt.” * Indeed, this last statement of history is confirmed by the last clause of the prophet’s book, or rather by the Lord’s own words there recorded — “that great city, wherein there is also much cattle” (Jonah iv. 11).

Now for a man to proceed, as the herald of one who to them was an unknown God, the God. of another nation, and unsupported, single-handed and alone, to proclaim amidst the teeming multitudes that a day of destruction is at hand: — is it not as if absurdity could not be carried further? Is it not as if the man were mad? What response could he expect but ridicule at least — if not alsolute violence? What! Nineveh destroyed in forty days? Where are the armies that shall break down its walls, storm its lofty towers, or waste with famine its rich and well-stored garrison? What likelihood of this pitiful and wayworn dreamer’s dreams being fulfilled?” Come ye, let us eat,

* See note by translator of Calvin on Jonah: Calvin Translation Society; Minor Prophets, vol iii. p. 22.

34 JonaJis Flight: its MeantJig and Motive.

drink, and be merry — to-morrow shall be as this day and much more abundant.” And as for this crazed enthusiast and fool, let him have out his say; and ere he tells his story, as he says he must, throughout and around our city, he will find, mayhap, that he has had enough of it!

Certainly Jonah could not but foresee that some such reception in “that great city” was about the most friendly he could anticipate. To be despised and simply laughed at, as a fanatic and fool, must have appeared to him inevitable, if indeed his fate should not be worse.

2. Besides, secondly, the city was “wicked:” pre-eminently, emphatically, intolerably wicked. The Prophet Nahum, — who about one hundred and fifty years afterwards denounced among the Jews that final destruction of Nineveh which their repentance in the days of Jonah postponed, but only postponed, — closes, actually closes up his prophecy, allows its animated and indignant strains to die away, with this terrible challenge and condemnation: “On whom hath not thy wickedness come continually?” (Nahum iii. 19). And the whole of that prophecy indicates the horrible extent to which the pride of greatness, military pomp, luxury, licentiousness, and violence prevailed. “Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not; the noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the prancing horses, and the chariot bounding! The horseman urging onward, and the flame of the sword, and the lightning of the spear; and the number of the slain, and the the mass of the carcases. And there is no end to her dead bodies; they stumble on their carcases. Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord. And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and set thee as a gazing-stock. I will make thy grave; for thou art vile” (Nahum iii. 1-6)

Full truly did the Lord execute His vengeance on Nineveh for her “wickedness;” and precisely in the form of judgment threatened: He “made her grave,” and it has been reserved to the days of this present generation, after more than two millenniums, to see that grave discovered and opened, and Nineveh’s graven images cut ofi” out of the house of her gods, as Nahum prophesied — cut off, hoisted up in chains, exhibited as “gazingstocks” to the whole civilized world.*

* See Layard’s Nineveh.

In such a place of military hardness and haughtiness, of luxurious contemptuousness and pride, of unbridled licentiousness and violence, what could a poor preacher of Jehovah’s holiness and anger do? It was bad enough in Israel. Little comfort, little encouragement, could any faithful man find there. But a history, a covenant, a record also of God’s marvellous deeds might be appealed to there; and something like a national conscience survived. When ready to faint in his own land, and to say concerning his call and his commission perhaps substantially, what Jeremiah said so pathetically: “Ah, Lord God! I cannot speak” (Jer. i. 6), or to say as Moses in the deep anguish of his spirit was tempted to say: “O my Lord, send, I pray Thee, by the hand of him whom Thou wilt send” (Exod. iv. 13), — the prophet had still this to call to remembrance as His comfort, that they were God’s peculiar people; that the memory of His mighty deeds had not been completely obliterated among them; that all their provocations had not made void the covenant by which Jehovah chose them to be His people; and that, even if the tree seemed stript of all its foliage, yea, all its leaves and branches, yea, swept utterly away from the face of the land, still its roots were safe though hidden, and “through the scent of water they would bud again” (Job xiv. 9). But when he looked towards Nineveh, the great and wicked city, well might his heart faint and die utterly away within him. Well might despondency and despair utterly unman him, and tempt him to act neither the man, nor the fearer, nor the prophet of the Lord.

Had these been the feelings that were gaining dominion over him, what would have been his proper course? What would have been the remedy? Intercourse with God concerning them; a full statement in secret to his Father who is in secret, and who would in that case have rewarded him openly with a triumphant victory over the very evils of his own unbelieving heart. He had only to appear as the feet of his Master; to spread out there the fears, anxieties, and perplexities which were unmanning him; to appear there, let us say, not as a man, if he were unmanned, nor delay repairing thither till he had regained his nerve, his manhood, and his courage; but as a little helpless child, as a poor orphan in the world, weak as a fainting woman, if such were his great prostration; and waiting there on Him who hath said,

36 JonaJis FligJit: its Meaning and Motive.

“Call upon Me in the time of trouble, I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me,” to give up every wayward feeling and every traitorous and unbelieving fear, and, obtaining instead the fresh and re-assuring favour of the Lord, and the fresh and re-invigorating strength of the ‘Lord, to re-address himself to his difficulties, and in God’s sight go quietly forward to them and quietly through them. That was the course that lay open to him, and that still lies open continually to every child of Abraham. “I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord” (Ps. xxvii. 13, 14). And though the believer have to wait, and wait long, ere his deliverance come, certain it is at least that he has not any time to wait for the promise. The promise waiteth already for him: “My grace is sufficient for thee. My strength is made perfect in weakness.” And with that word, true faith, recovering its ground and action, rests content. “Therefore if the vision tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, and will not tarry.” And in the meantime, and till it come, “Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: hut the just shall live by faith” (Habak. ii. 3, 4).

There is, however, not the slightest trace of any evidence to prove that Jonah was alarmed at the difficidties of the work.

II. Shall we say, then, that he was alarmed at its dangers — that he was afraid of his life?

Little wonder though he had. It was a most irritating message he was charged to deliver — to a most proud, headstrong, irritable people. Short work might they make of the poor prophet preaching death for their evil ways. Was it this that terrified the man of God? Was he very much afraid of death? Was he deeply in love with many days! A very deep misunderstanding of his character it must be that should lead any one to think so; and a very heartless, shallow insensibility and incapacity to sympathise with or comprehend this greatly tried child of God. There was little love of long life, little terror of death, in him who calmly did his duty in the storm, when” 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 yonaJis Flight: its Meaning and Motive. 37

this great tempest has come upon you” (chap. i. 12), And again, did he not say unto the Lord in the bitterness of his soul — the bitterness of death being past — “Therefore, now, O Lord, take, I beseech Thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live” (chap, iv. 3)? And again “he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said. It is better for me to die than to live” (chap. iv. 8). Whatever may have to be said of the sinful excesses of grief which characterised and dictated these most passionate and mournful exclamations, they abundantly enough bear out this, that it was not the fear of being put to death that weighed with the prophet in forming his unhappy purpose to flee from the presence of the Lord. An unholy man like Balaam might indeed have acted from such a motive. The craven fear and tell-tale conscious misgivings which dictated in his mouth the desire, “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my latter end be like His” (Num. xxiii, 10), comported well with the imbecility which the prospect of death would have struck into such a mind as Balaam’s. But any loyal and leal-hearted prophet in Israel must have been quite familiarised with the expectation of being almost at any time called to lay down this present perishable life and be gathered to his fathers. A people of whom the Lord of glory, in the days of His own commission among them, could say, “Which of the prophets have not your fathers slain?” must have quite accustomed their prophets, and Jonah among the rest, to reckon their life the most insecure of all their possessions; and if they had not made up their minds to count it so, and be contented, their hearts must have been discouraged, and their hands weakened every day, and in all the work of God continually. The boldness with which a prophet in Israel could rebuke and reprove their wild rebellions against God, and their gross violence among themselves, must have sprung in all cases from a prior and conclusive triumph over the fear of death. Let no one go forth from the schools of the prophets in Israel, save the man that has learnt to take his life in his hand — “counting not his life dear unto him.”

And, indeed, with regard to every true Christian, is not this one of those things in which he will find his character making progress, if indeed he be thriving in spiritual prosperity at all, viz., deliverance from the slavish fear of death? Will he not

^S y onaJi s Flight: its Meaning and Motive.

have growing reason to feel that it is “better to depart and be with Christ”? Reconciled in the blood of that sacrifice whose unspeakable glory and unspeakably soul-refining power he can never taste to the full extent he would desire; and renewed by that Spirit whose glorious love and power he cannot cherish in his heart as he would; living with God on the terms of a covenant which has placed his eternal happiness on the security of an all-precious purchase, and of an all-faithful promise; and finding himself utterly incapable of entertaining the full and ever-glowing gratitude which the placing of it on such a footing is worthy to call forth; he knows that he never will be at rest — never will be at the goal and aim towards which his deepest principles and feelings carry him, till, in the unclouded serenity and glory of the world above, he shall pour forth the wdiole energy of a perfected and sinless nature in the song which in heaven alone can do justice to his feelings, wdien, with “the ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands,” he too at last gets the long-desired opening of the mouth to sing, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing;” when with every creature that is in heaven he unites in raising high again the echoing psalm of heaven’s ceaseless family worship, choiring back evermore the rapturous refrain: “Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever” (Rev. v. 12, 18).

In proportion as a believer’s integrity, amidst life’s many trials and the holy discipline of Providence and the growing enjoyment of ordinances, becomes to himself, through Divine grace, more and more manifest; and as he dutifully realises the attitude of one pressing toward the mark; the prize of his high calling brightens in its glory to his view: he is no longer afraid as he was when an unsettled controversy with God hung gloomily over him — no longer afraid to look at that prize, as if conscious that it is for others but not for him; the fascinating joy of real eternal life has broken on his weary heart; he turns with deepening intensity of interest and increasing self-jealousy to examine the foundations on which his hopes are reposing; and though not always confident, in reflex thought, as to his own state, he is growingly confident and satisfied in direct contemplation of Christ and the everlasting covenant; the simple action of faith, whose chiefest glory and very essence it is to be satisfied with Christ alone — with Christ’s sacrifice and covenant and word alone, when no other grounds appear — the simple action of faith becomes more and more intense, and the things that are unseen and eternal consequently then unveil and unfold themselves to his joyful encouragement. Inevitably, in such a case, it is for the sake of others, and not his own, that this man will care for living long on the earth. He will “have a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better” (Phil. i. 23). And only if it be “more needful” for others, whether for their temporal or spiritual advantage, will he be reconciled “to abide in the flesh,” at a distance from that full peace and full likeness to Christ which he has learnt to count his own satisfaction: — “As for me, I shall see Thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake with Thy likeness” (Ps. xvii. 15). The physical pains of death are, after that, the only thing he has to dread; growing confidence in his Father’s adorable wisdom — which may assign him protracted suffering, but may wrap him in translation’s haste and glory into the kingdom of the blest — will enable him to trust the ordering of his last hours to Him; and thereafter, save for others, the love of life here is gone; “We are confident, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” (2 Cor. V. 8).

If to such considerations as these we add the fact that this holy man of God had a very difficult office to discharge among that portion of the tribes that soonest and most deeply revolted from God and righteousness, and among whom, therefore, like all who had that lot assigned them, Jonah must have found himself almost continually uncomfortable, and altogether and continually destitute of sympathy, we have probably said more than enough in the way of showing that the dread of losing life was not the motive which prompted the inexcusable act of fleeing from the presence of the Lord.

III. Shall we say, then, thirdly, that astonishment and perplexity as to .being sent to the Gentiles operated on his mind, and led him to refuse a mission to the heathen?

We have already spoken at length on the singular relations.

in the development of the history of redemption, subsisting between Israel and the Gentile world. And in that subject it would not have been wonderful though the prophet’s mind had found enough to fill him with darkness and confusion. Indeed, it must have been a severe trial to his confidence in God to be appointed a preacher to those whom all along he had understood to be in the meantime given over of the Lord. That seemed generally understood — yea, conclusively settled. It seemed a settled point that the heathen were, for the time being, abandoned; that on them the prophetic office had no bearing. Did not our Lord’s own declaration point to this when He said, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. XV. 24)? Was it not a strange thing to a converted soul to be told, “Depart, for I will send thee far hence to the Gentiles” (Acts xxii. 21)? And we remember how completely even such an one as Simon Peter, whom Jesus, even in the days of His flesh, had taught to call nothing outward “unclean,” was puzzled and perplexed at the heavenly vision, and at the command connected with it, that he should go to the Gentile Cornelius and preach the gospel to him (Acts x. 15-28). And if Peter expostulated on this subject, even in the face of a vision illustrating the truth, and had his doubts, apparently, when sent for by an honourable man who had also been instructed by a heavenly vision and a visit of an angel from glory, how much more might Jonah have felt confounded at the sudden and unexplained command to go forth as God’s prophet to the chiefest city of the Gentiles!

Yet there is not a trace of this as the explanation or the motive of his disobedience.

IV. It remains, therefore, that we now state — and we can at present do little more than state — the real cause. Jonah himself, in the utmost possible candour, has disclosed it and recorded it; and there is not the slightest reason to imagine the existence or operation of any other cause. When Nineveh was spared, Jonah “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 wast a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repented Thee of the evil” (Jonah iv. 2).

yonaJis Flight: its JMeaning and Motive. 4 1

Though we cannot at present open up very fully what is implied in this singular and artless confession, or the precise nature of the sin thus disclosed, we may not fancy that we have made little or no advance in considering the character of this most wonderful man. We see not a little into the marvellous power of Divine grace in him, when we see that the gigantic obstacles and difficulties of his mission did not, and never would have hindered him; that the fear of death was not a fear to which he was in any degree a slave; and that even the perplexities which, in so unspeakably more favourable circumstances, all but drove an enlightened apostle from his propriety and duty, even in the gospel age and in the fulness of Pentecostal times, had no weight to stagger the noble heart of this much misunderstood servant of God, To do iliat, it needed a deeper difficulty than ordinary minds need. It needed more subtle and more spiritual temptation than the grosser cast of minds are even capable of feeling. Little credit as he may get, his God gave him credit for being moved to disobedience by no such commonplace motive as the dread of difficulties, the love of life, or the mystery of the relation of Jew and Gentile. He could appeal to God that another motive than any of these was at work in his sorely tried spirit. The Lord acknowledged the truth of Jonah’s own representation; and so, surely, may we. The Lord exonerated him from the charge of everything mean, sordid, and of the kind that sways the worldly, and even oftentimes the more unrefined and low-toned Christian spirit. The Lord gave him credit for being influenced by a motive, no doubt mistaken, and leading him into sin, but still the motive which none but a highly honourable and keenly sensitive child of God, very loyal to his King, very tender to his Father’s glory, could possibly have been influenced by, or able even to imagine, save from his own truthful consciousness of its influence.

We learn, therefore, these lessons from the subject: — 1. “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” Especially judge not hastily the motives of any whom you have reason to believe to be godly men. Godly men especially lie open to have misconstructions put, and wrong judgments passed, upon their conduct. If we heard their private prayers, we might get the true explana-

42 JonaJis Flight: its IMeaning and Motive.

tion of what may seem otherwise inexplicable. We do overhear a prayer of Jonah when his spirit was overwhelmed within him — when his soul was too agitated to speak anything but the bursting, burning truth. Were it not for that prayer and the explanation it affords, all manner of false motives might have been heaped upon the misjudged character of this most noble prophet. We learn from his communion with God — what the ever-blessed God did not for a moment cast doubt upon, for He is very gracious, and owneth all sincerity even where it may be sadly struggling to assert and keep its ground — we learn from his secret communion with God, as it is recorded by the spirit of inspiration, that not even hindrances of the most painful, powerful, perplexing character, did, or would have, induced him to be disobedient to the heavenly command. And it is just this little remnant of his prayers, saved and put on record to all generations, which vindicates him from the imputation of all manner of poor, pitiful, and sordid, and commonplace motives, such as any rude, gross mind, measuring the prophet’s capacity by its own, might have been pleased to cast upon him.

2. We learn how utterly worthless as a guide in duty man’s own wisdom must ever be, even though acting in combination with the most exalted natural nobility, or even gracious refinement of spirit. We have said that none but a soul of high-toned spiritual dutifulness would have been open to the risk of being perplexed by the idea that suggested itself to Jonah. Holy zeal for the honour of God in a very singular crisis and movement of His government; great fear lest, sparing Nineveh after the unmitigated threatening, God might be regarded as a changeable God; fear, not at all for himself, but fear lest his God might be misjudged; these things weighed with his anxious heart, as on none but a regenerated heart could they practically have weighed at all. Yet even in these circumstances, and amidst gracious desires of the most self-denying and self-forgetting kind, his own ideas ought to have been all trampled under foot; and he ought simply and immediately to have gone to “Nineveh, that great city, and cried against it,” believing that, without his anxiety and without his aid, Jehovah could vindicate His own character in His own way. Unquestioning obedience to God is, therefore, most emphatically taught in this passage. Leave all things to

JonaJis FligJU: its Meaning and Motive. 43

Him. Let His word of command be enough for thy duty — His word of promise enough for thy faith. Whatsoever more thou shalt in any case seek shall turn out thy thorn and thy trouble. But the word of the Lord is very pure: therefore let His servants love it (Ps. cxix. 140).