Sermon Bible Commentary
Jonah 1:3
I. We cannot understand the conduct of Jonah fully. We cannot judge it fairly without considering some things which seemed to him to be reasons against compliance with the Divine call. (1) It was a long way, many hundreds of miles, and a great part of it through a desert. (2) The thing to be done was very difficult. (3) It would be natural that he should despair of any great success. (4) He may have thought that, in the event of attaining a spiritual success, failure must come in another way. (5) It is quite clear that the prophet had some dark forecast of evil to his own country, from the probable turn which matters would take, if his mission at Nineveh should be successful.
II. "He rose up to flee from the presence of the Lord." The meaning of that expression we take to be that he retired, or wished to retire, from the prophetic office, at least for a time, and from that peculiar and sacred nearness to God which a true prophet, in service, always had. He knew that if he continued in that presence it would move soon, as did the pillar of old, and that he must go eastwards to escape, if possible, from that necessity. He went out of the presence westwards as fast and as far as he could. It is certainly worthy of notice that the way he fled was almost the direct opposite of the way he would have gone if he had done God's bidding.
III. He went down to Joppa. Always, to leave the presence of God is to go down. Down from communion, from a conscious faith, from quietness and assurance, from steady, firm obedience. Down into strife without victory, into toil without fruit. Down into mere bargain-making, mere money-making, mere pleasure-seeking, mere time-wasting. The success and glory of true life can be found only by keeping the upwardroad, in hearing and following the voice which says perpetually, "Come up hither."
IV. Jonah tells us with a minuteness and particularity evidently intentional, "he found a ship going to Tarshish," and "paid the fare thereof, and went down into it," etc. What is the prophet's object in such careful minuteness? (1) It may have been to keep himself in remembrance, and tell all the world how many steps there were, so to speak, in his downgoing. (2) He may have meant to teach us that the outward aspects of providence to us at any one time constitute a very insufficient and unsafe guide in matters of moral duty.
A. Raleigh, The Story of Jonah,p. 52.
I. While Jonah works God waits. When Jonah falls asleep, God begins to work. The scene is thus arrestive and striking. The man hasting away for days from "the presence," out among second causes and exterior things, into a blank world of indifference. Then God, with a touch of His hand, raising up those second causes, which hitherto had seemed to favour the flight, into an irresistible combination for the arrest and recovery of the fugitive. Men dig pits and fall into them. They weave webs and by a touch of His hand they are snared and taken.
II. "The mariners were afraid and cried every man unto his god." Not all to one heathen deity, but each man to his own god. When God is forsaken, men forsake each other. They lose the power of mutual sympathy and help in the highest things. Only the true worshippers have that great power the power of social sympathy working in full strength among them. And yet we have no ground for uttering one word of reproach or blame against these men. They did all that could be expected of them. They prayed and wrought. They cried to their gods, and cast the wares out of the ship; a clear and good example to all men who are in straits.
III. Let us take our last lesson from the heathen captain. (1) He teaches us by his example. He is master of the ship, and he feels that, in an hour of peril especially, it lies within his province to incite and constrain all who sail in the ship, and who, therefore, as passengers or sailors, are under his care, to the discharge of their very highest duties. Remember that you have religious duties to the full breadth and length of your mastery. (2) He teaches us by his words. These words of his have aroused many a sleeper besides Jonah. They have been heard through the ages since, as watchman's cry, as trumpet's sound, to awaken and save souls from death.
A. Raleigh, The Story of Jonah,p. 76.
References: John 1:3. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xi., No. 622; Ibid., Evening by Evening,p. 56; E. Monro, Practical Sermons,vol. ii., p. 283; Preacher's Monthly,vol. ii., p. 270.