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Prophecies]

OBADIAH.

and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem, even thou wast as one of them.

12 But thou should est not have looked on the day of thy brother in the day that he became a stranger; neither shouldest thou have rejoiced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction; neither shouldest thou have spoken proudly in the day of distress.

13 Thou shouldest not have entered into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity; yea, thou shouldest not have looked on their affliction in the day of their calamity, nor have laid hands on their substance in the day of their calamity;

14 Neither shouldest thou have stood in the crossway, to cut off those of his that did escape; neither shouldest thou have delivered up those of his that did remain in the day of distress.

15 For the day of the LORD is near upon all the heathen: as thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee: thy reward shall return upon thine own head.

16 For as ye have drunk upon my holy mountain, so shall all the heathen drink continually; yea, they shall drink,

[against Edm. and they shall swallow down, and they shall be as though they had not been.

17 But upon mount Zion shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness; and the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.

18 And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble, and they shall kindle in them, and devour them; and there shall not be any re maining of the house of Esau; for the LORD hath spoken it.

19 And they of the south shall possess the mount of Esau; and they of the plain the Philistines: and they sha possess the fields of Ephraim, and the fields of Samaria: and Benjamin shall possess Gilead.

20 And the captivity of this host of the children of Israel shall possess that of the Canaanites, even unto Zarephath; and the captivity of Jer salem, which is in Sepharad, shall pos sess the cities of the south.

21 And saviours shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount Esau; and the kingdom shall be the LORD's. (A)

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JONAH.

INTRODUCTION.

JONAH, a native of Gath-hepher, in Galilee, and a type of our Saviour in his resurrection, is the most ancient of those Prophets whose writings are preserved in the sacred canon. He is supposed to have prophesied to the ten tribes towards the beginning of Jehoahaz's reign; or, according to others, in the reign of his grandson, Jeroboam. (See the Table of the Prophets, p. 262.) His prophecy is a simple narrative, containing nothing poetical, excepting his thanksgiving ode (chap. ii.), which is most beautiful and sublime. The first mention we have of Jonah is in 2 Kings xiv. 25.

The narrative before us has been allegorized in different ways. The late Mr. Robert Robinson, of Cambridge, explains the fish that swallowed Jonah, to be a fishery connected with a subterranean river, into which he was carried by one great swell of water, and by another, returned safe again to shore. Mr. C. Taylor (the late ingenious Editor of Calmet) supposes this “ great fish" to have been a fishing-vessel, a dogger, as he calls it (with a fish at the head of it, from which it received its name), by which Jonah was carried safely to shore. To us, however, it appears that no scheme of interpretation is so natural and simple as the most literal, allowing only the possibility of a miracle, which every believer in divine revelation must allow.

CHAP. I.

NOW
OW the word of the LORD came
unto Jonah the son of Amittai,

saying,

2 Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.

3 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.

4 But the LORD sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken.

5 Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god, and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of them. But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep.

6 So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not.

7 And they said every one to his fellow, Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah.

8 Then said they unto him, Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us; What is thine occu

NOTES.

CHAP. I. Ver. 1. Jonah-in Greek, "Jonas." Matt. xii. 39.

Ver. 2. Nineveh, that great city the capital of Assyria. See ch. iii. 3; iv. 11; also Nahum iii. Ver.3. Unto Tarshish-Either Tartessus in Spain, or Tarsus in Cilesia: not the Indian Tarshish.

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pation? and whence comest thou? what is thy country? and of what people art thou?

9 And he said unto them, I am an Hebrew; and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land.

10 Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou done this? for the men knew that he fled from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them.

11 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.

12 And 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.

CHAP. I.

[by a fish.

13 Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring it to the land; but they could not for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous against them.

14 Wherefore they cried unto the LORD, and said, We beseech thee, 0 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.

15 So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging.

16 Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the LORD, and made vows.

17 Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah, And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. (A)

EXPOSITION.

(A) Jonah is sent to Nineveh, but flies to Tarshish, and is swallowed by a great fish.Jonah being sent with a threatening of some great calamity that should overwhelm the capital of Assyria, flies a contrary way to avoid the mission, and that for the most extraordinary reason that ever influenced a prophet, or even a good man. He confesses afterwards (ch. iv. 2), it was not from the fear of personal danger; but lest God should relent from his threatening, and he should be thought a false prophet. He flies, however, in vain. A storm arrests him in his career, and a fish brings him back again. And here we have an answer to all the objections which infidelity can raise against the fact. God" had prepared great fish" but what could this fish be? a whale, it is said, could not swallow a man, and the teeth of a shark would crush him to atoms. Perhaps not. He that prepared the whale could surely provide it with a sufficient gullet; or, if it were a shark, he who shut the mouths of Nebuchadnezzar's lions, could doubtless secure the teeth of a shark from biting.

We must not proceed, however, without

remarking the contrast between this Hebrew Prophet, and the pagan mariners. Jonah, as if totally insensible of his situation and his crime, goes fast asleep: the pagan mariners, on the contrary, are all alive to their situation, and each one calls upon his god; and when they hear of Jonah's God, they call upon him also, and earnestly implore his mercy. Nor is this all: they evince more humanity, as well as more piety, than the Prophet. He is content to give up one of the largest cities then existing with all its inhabitants, to plague or earthquake; they are struggling to save the life of a single individual, and that individual the very man whose sin and folly had brought them into danger.—How or what they sacrificed, we are not told; but it is evident they were ready to sacrifice any thing to pacify the angry deity, while the Prophet remained stupid and insensible, till he sunk to the roots of the mountains, and the bottom of the ocean. But how long did he remain there? The text says "three days and three nights;" but the same expression is applied to our Lord's continuance in the grave, which we know was only one whole day, and a small part of two others. (See Matt. xii. 40.)

NOTES-Chap. I. Con.

Ver. 7. To his fellow-Heb. "Neighbour." Ver. 10. Exceedingly afraid-Heb. "They feared with great fear."

Ver. 11. Calm unto us-Marg. "Silent from us;" literally, "from above us;" i. e. cease from dashing its billows over us. So ver. 12.-WroughtHeb."Grew more and more tempestuous." So ver. 13. Ver. 13. Roned-Heb. "Digged hard :" i. e. with

their oars.

Ver. 16. Ceased-Heb. "Stood” from her (or it! raging. And offered-Heb. "Sacrificed a sacrifice, and vowed vows."

Ver. 17. The belly-Heb. "Bowels," or entraits. It is applied particularly to the womb of wome*, Gen. xxv. 24; Ruth i. 11. The LXX call this s ketos, which word is adopted by St. Matthew, and properly signifies a whale, but may certainly be applied to any sea-monster,

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CHAP. II.

[the whale's belly.

7 When my soul fainted within me I remembered the LORD: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple.

8 They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.

9 But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD.

10 And the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land. (B)

CHAP. III.

AND the word of the LORD came

ing,

unto Jonah the second time, say

2 Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.

3 So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city, of three days journey.

EXPOSITION.

(B) Jonah's prayer and thanksgiving.This Ode is not to be considered as composed (much less written) in the belly of the whale; but it expresses the feelings of his mind in that distressing situation, as well as his gratitude afterwards, when he was again safe on dry land.-It has been remarked that it contains no confession of his guilt, in disobeying the divine command. It intimates, however, that he had repented, and made vows (as well as the mariners), which vows we have no reason to doubt but he performed. The Ode before

us also, containing only eight verses, can he supposed to contain but a small part of his reflections or devotions, since it appears that he retained the full possession of his senses during the whole time of his confinement.

Some have supposed that this miraculous deliverance of Jonah might have great effect in promoting the repentance of Nineveh; but we have no proof that they ever heard of it, and the natural taciturnity of Jonah leads us to think the contrary. It is more natural, as well as more scriptural, to attribute their repentance wholly to a divine influence on their minds.

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Ver.5, 6. Weeds (i. e. sea-weeds) were wrapped. -I went down to the bottom-Heb. "Cuttings ff," or fragments. The sea, where fathomable, is generally covered with vegetation, springing up amidst the fragments of rocks, which form the bottom. Ver. 8. Lying vanities-that is, idols. Deut. xxxii. 21; Ps. xxxi. 7.

Ver. 10. Spake-that is, issued his command. Ps. xxxiii. 9. Upon the dry land-that is, at Joppa, from which he set out; and there are traditional re

ports, that the bones of a vast fish were there found, which some attribute to the monster that threatened Andromeda, and others, to the whale that swallowed Hercules; a story which doubtless originated in this narrative of Jonah. See Orient. Lit. No. 1081.

CHAP. III. Ver. 2. Preach unto it the preaching -Heb. "Cry (or proclaim) unto it the proclamation." The primitive idea of preaching is taken from the office of a public crier. Isa. xl. 2, 6. Jonah was not sent to deliver orations, but a proclamation, as in ver. 4.

Ver. 3. An exceeding great city - Heb. "A city great toward (or before) God." Comp. Gen. xiii. 13. And Diodorus describes this city as an oblong square of 150 stadia by 90; or about 60 miles in circumference.

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4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh

shall be overthrown.

5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.

6 For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat

in ashes.

7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:

8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.

9 Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?

10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not. (C)

CHAP. III.

[and its success.

CHAP. IV.

BUT it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.

2 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 filed 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.

3 Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.

4 Then said the LORD, Doest thou well to be angry?

5 So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city.

6 And the LORD God prepared gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.

7 But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.

8 And it came to pass, when the

EXPOSITION.

(C) Jonah's preaching and its success.— Our Lord confirms the fact, that the Ninevites repented at the preaching of Jonah, though a stranger and a foreigner, whilst his own preaching to the Jews, accompa nied as it was with many miracles, produced upon the nation, as such, no salutary effects. It is true that this reform

was only temporary, and so are all national reforms. In the next generation they gain degenerated, and were eventually de stroyed; yet this repentance, which in¦ many individual cases was probably per manent and saving, was also to the nationa great "lengthening of their tranquillity probably to the extent of a century and a half.

NOTES-Chap. III. Con.

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CHAP. IV. Ver. 3. Better for me to die than to live -Heb. "My death is better than my life." Ver. 4. Doest thou well to be angry?-Newcome,

"That (thine anger) is kindled?" Marg. “Art then very much grieved? or angry?"

Ver. G. Prepared a gourd-Heb. kikaion; Mare "Palma Christi" Newcome," A plant." The d putes about the species of this plant are as fuble as those respecting the whale. If God prepared a ish, a plant, or a worm, for any special purpose, it w no doubt fitted for that purpose; but there must something miraculous in the rapidity with which it grew and withered. Jonah had made himsel a booth, but the shade must have been imperfect, this plant shot up, and filled up all the interst through which the noon-day sun might smite b -Was exceeding glad Heb. Rejoiced w great joy."

Ver. 9. Doest thou well?-See ver. 4.

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