CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY THE TIME AND CIRCUMSTANCES OF JONAH'S APPEARANCE AS A PROPHET IT is always of importance for a correct understanding of the prophetical scriptures, to know something of the time when they were indited, and of the persons to whom they were originally addressed. In the case of... [ Continue Reading ]
CHAPTER II. THE PROPHET'S COMMISSION TO GO TO NINEVEH WHY GIVEN? AND FOR WHAT ENDS? JONAH, we have already seen, was a prophet in the kingdom of Israel; and as the prophetical gift, like every other communication of the Spirit, was always bestowed for the special benefit of the visible church, we ca... [ Continue Reading ]
CHAPTER III. JONAH'S BEHAVIOUR ON RECEIVING THE DIVINE COMMISSION, AND THE EXTRAORDINARY MEANS TAKEN TO RECLAIM HIM FROM HIS BACKSLIDING IF it seemed strange, at first sight, that Jonah should have received a commission from the Lord to go to Nineveh, his conduct on receiving the commission appears... [ Continue Reading ]
We cannot but admire the frankness of Jonah's confession of guilt, and his willing surrender to the claims of justice, when the temptations were so great to an opposite course an evidence surely of something very different from a sophisticated mind or a seared conscience. When thus directly called i... [ Continue Reading ]
Therefore it never comes at all into notice here. When the mariners asked Jonah why he had done so, he was silent as to any justification of himself; their question is recorded, but not his answer, for he had none to give. And when they again asked him, “What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may... [ Continue Reading ]
But in what presently befell Jonah we are also called to behold the goodness of God; for no sooner is he cast out, as a victim of divine justice, into the raging deep, than a great fish was ready to swallow him up not for instant destruction, but for safe preservation. The peaceful elements of natur... [ Continue Reading ]