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6. So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him, What meanest thou, 10 sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will 2 think upon us, that we perish not.

7. And they said every one to his fellow, Come, and let us cast 3 lots, that we may know 4 for whose cause this evil is upon us. So 5 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 occupation? and whence comest thou? what is thy country? and of what people art thou?

1 Eph. 5: 14.

2 Ps. 40: 17. Gen. 8: 1.

3 Lev. 16:8. 51 Sam. 14:42.

1 Sam. 10: 20.
Esther 3:7.

4 Acts 1: 26. John 4: 7. Acts 28: 4.

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conscious of guilt shrink from companionship." Into the sides of the ship. In the back part of the cabin. Crosby. "Down below." This shows that Jonah sailed in a decked vessel.-Perowne. And was fast asleep. It is profoundly natural: he had come a long journey in haste; he was weary; he was remorseful; he had nothing now to do; he would not dare to think. - Raleigh. Sorrow and remorse completed what fatigue began. — Pusey. The sleep, not of heartlessness, but of heavy-heartedness.- Chrysostom. Drowned in stupor and stupid insecurity. - Jerome. In careless self-security. - Keil. Our Lord's sleep (Mark 4: 38) furnishes at once a comparison and a contrast.

A DOWNWARD TENDENCY (5) IN DIGNITY. 6. The shipmaster. The captain. Perowne. The upper steersman. — - Keil. Coming upon Jonah, probably, while looking to the straining planks, he is thus an example of diligent care to all persons who hold offices of trust (see Eccl. 2: 14). His words have roused many sleeping souls. It was the prophet's office to call the heathen to prayer. God reproved the Scribes and Pharisees by the mouth of the children who cried " Hosanna," Jonah by the shipmates, David by Abigail, Naaman by his servants. Pusey (see Luke 11:35). What meanest thou? "What aileth thee?"-Pusey. "How canst thou sleep soundly?"- Keil. Arise, call upon thy God. This address of the shipmaster is equally applicable to you who are yet in your natural, unregenerate state, for your situation is far more dreadful and alarming than Jonah's. Like him, you are exposed to the storm of divine wrath, which every moment pursues and threatens to overtake you; like him, you are asleep, and insensible of your danger. - Payson. If so be that God will think upon us. God's thinking of a person involves the idea of assistance. Keil. God. The God.-Keil. The heathen retained a vague idea, starting into prominence in times of distress, of one supreme God, by whose providence the world is governed. - Perowne. Here the world is turned upside down: the sheep leadeth the shepherd, the patient cureth the physician, the scholar doth teach the master. All maketh against thee, Jonah, that this heathen man should be more devout in his superstition than thou in thy true religion. I pray God the old Gentiles, Aristides, Plato, Socrates, condemn us not in that great and terrible day. - Abbott.

II. Continued Disobedience Leads to Ruin.-Vers. 7-12. 7. That Jonah obeyed the call is self-evident. Every one to his fellow. The expression of the common feeling. Let us cast lots. In ancient times, a solemn appeal to God; but its use is never mentioned in the Bible after the day of Pentecost. It would seem to have been superseded by the gift which conferred "a right judgment in all things."-Perowne. For whose cause. "On account of whom." It is a testimony to the work of conscience that the storm was attributed to divine displeasure. The ancient Greek tragedy was founded on that idea. Is upon us. Even the heathen believe that one guilty man involves all his associates, though innocent, in punishment.-Perowne. Horace objected to such a man putting to sea in the boat with him. One sinner destroyeth much good. — Solomon. So they cast lots. Homer describes the lots as shaken together in a helmet, until one fell out. The lot fell upon Jonah. By the will of him who governs uncertain lots.- Jerome (Prov. 16: 33). It was not possible for him to escape where such a one had the handling of it, as is the Lord of heaven and earth.-Abbott (see Heb. 4: 13; Ps. 90: 8; 50: 21). There had already (ver. 5) been a RUIN OF PROPERTY; now came a worse RUIN OF REPUTATION. 8. The subject of this verse is the public investigation of a private life, sometimes impertinent, but under these circumstances entirely justifiable. The mariners were no doubt surprised that the lot should fall upon Jonah; his appearance was the most unsuspicious, his dress the most respectable, and his manners the most refined. Exell. They gave him opportunity for clearing himself or of making confession. The judicial fairness and calmness

9. And he said unto them, I am a Hebrew; and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, which 1hath made the sea and the dry land.

10. Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, 2 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, 3 Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my 4 sake this great tempest is upon you.

1 Ps. 146:6. Acts 17: 24.

2 Gen. 4: 10.

3 John 11: 50.

4 Hab. 3:8.

of these heathen men, their abstinence from anger and reproach, their sense of the sanctity of human life, their fear of punishing the innocent, are very strikingly brought out in the whole of this exciting scene.. - Perowne. One might see in the scene a terrible tribunal, for the ship was the court of justice, the judges were the sailors, the executioners were the winds, the prisoner at the bar was the prophet, the house of correction and prison of safe keeping was the whale, and the accuser was the angry sea.— - Kalisch. Tell us, we pray thee. A diligent inquiry, as all efforts to detect wrong-doing should be; lazy indifference, or so-called charity, which waits for the crime to unfold itself, is but mockery of right. Exell. What is thine occupation? They inquired about his occupation, which might be disreputable, and objectionable to the gods, and especially about his land and people, that they might be able to pronounce a safe sentence upon his crime. Keil. These ques tions must have gone home to Jonah's conscience. What is thy business? The office of prophet, which he had left. Whence comest thou? From standing before God as his minister. What is thy country? and of what people art thou? The people of God, whom he had quitted for heathen. As always, however, the shame was in the commission, not in the confession.

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9. And he said. He does not refuse, or prevaricate, or deny. The better part of his character now comes out. His conduct is dignified and manly, worthy of a servant and prophet of Jehovah. - Perowne. I am a Hebrew. The name by which foreigners knew Jews. I fear. Worship. To be afraid of God is not to fear him. To be afraid of God keeps men away from him; to fear God draws them nearer to him. Pusey. The God of heaven. Thus Abraham speaks of God to his servant, Jonah to the mariners, Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar. So Cyrus, and Darius, and Artaxerxes in their proclamations. He was the God of the Hebrews. Which hath made the sea. The heathen had distinct gods for the "heaven," the "sea," and the "land." Jehovah is the only God of all. He had sinned against (1) the glory of God, the ruler of heaven and earth; (2) the graciousness of God to himself, one of the chosen people; (3) the grace of God in his own experience. Martin. And now his secret sin was set in the light of God's countenance, and there he saw it. And the result was, RUIN OF SELF-Respect.

IO. Then were the men exceedingly afraid. "They feared a great fear." Hitherto they had looked upon Jehovah only as a god, with whom they had no concern (comp. Pharaoh's contemptuous question, Ex. 5: 2). Now they knew him as the Omnipotent, and at the same moment he was revealed to them as a holy God, whose wrath was kindled by one disobedience of his prophet. How must he regard them (Rom. 2:9; 1 Pet. 4: 17, 18)! Why hast thou done this? Rather, "What is this that thou hast done?" An exclamation of surprise and horror. If professors of religion do wrong they will hear of it from those who make no such profession. Pocket Com. The inconsistency of believers is the marvel of the young Christian, the hardening of the unbeliever. Faith without love, knowl edge without obedience, conscious dependence and yet rebellion, are the strangest marvels of this mysterious world. - Pusey.

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II. What shall we do unto thee? An appeal to the true God and the true man. Raleigh. May be calm. "May desist from troubling us." Calm. Except in this chapter, the word thus translated occurs only in Ps. 107: 30 and Prov. 26: 20. Wrought, and was tempestuous. "Was going and whirling." Its waves, battalions pursuing and demanding God's runaway slave. - Pusey. Frank confession and unfeigned repentance did not remove divine anger. Martin.

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12. Cast me forth into the sea. True repentance leads the penitent to "accept the

13. Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring it to the land; but 1they could not for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous against them.

14. Wherefore they cried unto the LORD, and said, We beseech thee, O LORD, we beseech thee, 2 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 3 offered a sacrifice unto the LORD, and made vows.

1 Prov. 21: 30.

2 Gen. 9:6. Rom. 2: 15.

3 Ps. 116: 16-18; 69: 30, 31.

punishment of his iniquity" (Lev. 26: 41, 43). So shall the sea be calm unto you. He fled as a man; he exposed himself to death as a prophet. · Chrysostom. I know that for my sake. "Was the Lord angry against the rivers? or was thine anger against the floods? or was thy wrath against the sea?" No; it was against the sin of Jonah that all this came as vengeance, and that God so sent his messengers of wrath and of displeasure. - Abbott.

OTHERS SHARED HIS RUIN. Let him who is nobody's enemy but his own, whose , doings are nobody's business, remember that others besides themselves suffered for the disobedience of Jonah, and Achan, and David (2 Sam. 24), and that because ten men were lacking Sodom was destroyed. · - B.

III. Disobedience is Helpless.

Vers. 13-15.

The very elements war against Friendly effort did not avail. 13. Nevertheless the men rowed hard. They answered selfishness by unselfishness (Prov. 27: 19).

him. Confession had not availed. Prayer had not availed.

Be noble, and the nobleness that lies in other men

Sleeping, but never dead, will rise in majesty to meet thine own. — - Lowell.

When I consider the hindrance to their journey, the loss of their wares, the endangering of their lives, and his unworthiness, I can but observe their marvellous offwardness and unwillingness to the shedding of blood. - - Abbott. Rowed hard. Literally, "digged with the oars." "Broke through the waves." They could not row in good and orderly manner, but they desperately tugged at the oars, which the towering waves rendered useless. Sinners, tossed upon the sea of conviction, make desperate efforts to save themselves. is hard for the soul to drop its dependence on works and forms, and simply obey God. They could not. Wind and tide-God's displeasure and God's counsel were against them. And against them God will be so long as the offending sinner shall rest with them. Abbott. Works did not avail.

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14. And said, We beseech thee. The energy which they have put into their work goes into their prayer. The prayer is now to the Lord. Doubtless while they were rowing Jonah was praying. Let us not perish. Without the_law, they knew by nature that the blood of man was precious in God's sight. Calvin. For this man's life. That is, in exchange for, or for taking it away. - Perowne. Lay not upon us innocent blood. "Do not impute his death to us as blood-guiltiness deserving death." They were less foolhardy than the Jews (Matt. 27:25). For thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased thee. This is no doing of ours. That Jonah betook himself to this ship, that the tempest was raised, that Jonah was taken by lot, that he passed this sentence upon himself, all comes of thy will. Rosenmuller. More than heathen fatalism, - a recognition of an overruling providence. Raleigh. They pray thus, not because they have no true conception of Jonah's guilt, but because they dare not lay hand upon the Almighty's prophet (Ps. 105:15). Keil.

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15. They took up Jonah. Lifted with respect. And cast him forth. Every effort had failed. The sea ceased from her raging. God spares the prayerful penitent. A truth illustrated now by the sailors, presently by Jonah, thirdly by Nineveh. - Pocket Com. Ceased. "Stood still," like a servant. Raging. Anger," as in Ovid and Horace. And thus died Jonah. To them, at least, thus died Jonah, a criminal pursued by justice, yet a repentant and righteous man, in death triumphing over death. Here would the mariner's story end; the story does not thus end. Beneath the surface is deliverance, forgiveness, marvels of grace and prayer, and love and joy, and communion with God. · Martin. IV. Unmerited Mercy. Vers. 16, 17. 16. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly. Yet God had removed all human cause for fear. It was the fear which made

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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.

1

1 Matt. 12:40; 16:4. Luke 11: 30.

Peter pray, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man." It was the fear which came upon Israel when God's power was manifested in Pharaoh's host. Offered a sacrifice. On board ship. That merchantman would undoubtedly have animals suited for sacrifice. This, however, was not enough for their thankfulness, and they made vows. "Vowed vows" of - Keil. They were doubtless enrolled among God's people, first fruits from among the heathen, won to God, who overrules all things, through the disobedience and repentance of his prophet. - Pusey.

further sacrifice on their safe arrival.

17. And, having now humbled Jonah, God intended hereafter to employ him anew in his service, and send him to Nineveh to perform the very work from which he had so shamefully run away. He prepared for him, therefore, a temporary but safe lodging, a lodging such as had never been occupied by living man before. - - Exell. As appears from his thanksgiving, he sank first to the bottom of the sea, where he seemed already buried. — Pusey. The Lord had prepared. That is, assigned or appointed (see chap. 4:6, 7, 8). Creation for the purpose is not implied. A great fish. The Greek of the Septuagint, which our Lord quoted (Matt. 12: : 40), is a generic term applying to any great fish. It was not a whale, which is extremely rare in the Mediterranean, but a shark or sea-dog. We have it on authority of Couch, Darwin, and others, that the formation of the jaws and throat renders it easy for the white shark (carcharias vulgaris, sometimes 36 feet long), to swallow enormous objects, and that they not unfrequently cast up their prey whole and alive. Blumenbach mentions a whole horse found in one; Ruysch, a man in armor; and Dr. Baird, of the British Museum, saw one swallow a bullock's head and horns. Entire men have been found in the stomachs of these creatures. - Dr. Crosby. See also Pusey, Smith's Bible Dictionary, et al. - B. There were in the sea fishes enough to serve the turn, and the Lord had one of them at hand to fulfil the design. The sun, the earth, angels, noisome insects, the Red Sea, a king's daughter, the jaw-bone of an ass, so admirable is the Lord in the assistance of his saints that one thing or another shall be borne to do them good in their bitter extremity, as if made only for that. Abbott. It is impossible to explain these facts by natural means. - Geikie. Three days and three nights. At this point the transaction becomes clearly miraculous. The swallowing of Jonah by the fish may have been in the course of the ordinary working of divine providence. His preservation within it for so long a time plainly belongs to that other working of Almighty God which, though it be no less after the counsel of that will which is the highest and only law, appears to us extraordinary, and which we therefore call miraculous. Perowne. Tradition has marked the place of Jonah's escape from the fish on the shore north of Sidon, and not far south of the river Tamyras. - Howard Crosby.

LIBRARY REFERENCES.

Among the best Commentaries on the minor prophets are those of Canon Cook, Keil, and Delitzsch, Henderson, Pusey, and Cowles. The writers on Jonah are many, including Archbishop Abbott, Archdeacon Perowne (in Cambridge Bible), R. A. Redford, H. Martin, A. Raleigh, J. S. Exell, and Dr. Fairbairn; Sermons are found in Payson's and in Spurgeon's (series eighth); The Sunday School Times for May 5, 1877, has some excellent articles on Jonah; on Nineveh and the chronology, see Rawlinson's Ancient Monarchies, 21: 176, and Layard's Discoveries in Nineveh, 98.

LESSONS FROM THE DISOBEDIENCE OF JONAH.

I.

God often gives his servants hard and disagreeable work to do. The harder the work, the greater the honor conferred in assigning the task.

2. It is impossible to succeed in running away from God and duty.

3. The way of attempted escape is the way to punishment. The angel of death stood by Solomon, and looked sharply at one of his servants. The frightened man begged to be sent to India. Then the angel said to Solomon, "I was surprised to find that man here, for

I was bidden to take his life in India."

4. Sin always raises a storm.

5.

Sinners often sleep in the storm of God's wrath.

6. They often dream of wealth and happiness even on the verge of destruction. 7. They will be destroyed unless they repent.

8. "See how the tempest finds God's runaway; the lot binds him, the sea receives him, the beast encloses him."

9.

All the forces of nature of every kind are under the control of God.

10. True repentance leads us to accept the consequences of our wrong-doing so far as not to let them fall on others.

II.

God's servants are of like passions with other men.

SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS.

This chapter is so full of positive teaching as to forbid much lingering over trivial speculations upon open questions, Jonah's parentage, the kind of fish, the exact date. If the question arises, Is it to be regarded as a veritable history? very probably the internal evidence and geographical allusions, references in Scripture and history, and certain typical foreshadowings of the Messiah, are to your own mind conclusive proofs of the literal view; yet if another mind more satisfactorily grasps the allegorical view, time will be less profitably spent in argument than insisting upon the great truths which, from the allegorical view, are the only object of the Book of Jonah. Deferring, too, our Lord's use of the story, and the interesting study of types (Israel charged with the conversion of the heathen, proudly refusing and sadly repenting), we find lessons intensely practical for Christians, who find in success a temptation to choose their own place and method.

SUBJECT,THE WAY OF DISOBEDIENCE.

I. JONAH GOES Downward (vers. 1-3). (1) By one act of disobedience his whole moral standard is lowered, like a mill-pond with a broken dam. He loses too (2) in purse. He must travel at his own charge when he goes away from God. (3) In company. He to whom God has spoken is herding with a motley crew of alien unbelievers.

II. JONAH GOES STUPIDLY (vers. 4-6). Genuine goodness is not stupid. The Holy Spirit quickens and enlarges all the faculties. On the contrary, nothing is so bewildering, so stupefying, so exhausting as sin. God himself calls the sinner "fool."

III. JONAH GOES IN DISGRACE (vers. 7–10). Picture the solemn scene of the lot. Jonah's indifference, it may be, until he finds the guilt coming home to him, or catches a glimpse of his comrades' horror. Then it dawns upon him that he, this eminently respectable and useful man, is standing before the gaze of God and the world, a shivering, sinful soul, and he sees his secret sin set in the light of God's countenance. He has come where every man must come, to a judgment day.

IV. JONAH GOES TO DESTRUCTION (vers. 11-15) and involves others in ruin. Neither penitence, nor honest confession, nor good works, nor friendly sympathy, has power to remit the penalty of a broken law.

İllustration. Many families are suffering in health or estate, the consequence of a reformed man's former errors.

In the sailors' futile efforts we have a striking example of that misdirected zeal which sets works or self-denial in the place of simple obedience.

Illustration. A picture of self-righteous undertaking is found in the old myths of the daughters of Danaüs, who were always filling a bottomless tub from leaky buckets. Spurgeon.

V. JONAH A WARNING (ver. 16). He who has lost the opportunity of calling his heathen comrades to repentance has been put to shame by their prayers, vigilance, and unselfishness, and failing conspicuously in his duty as example, he now becomes a dreadful warning against disobedience.

VI. SCARCELY SAVED (ver. 17). Where then shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?

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EFFECT OF JONAH'S PREACHING. - JONAH 3: 1-10.

GOLDEN TEXT. - The men of Nineveh shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall comdemn it: for they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and behold, a greater than Jonas is here. — LUKE 11:32.

TIME AND AUTHOR. -See Lesson VI.

ASSYRIA. This great country, lying about the Tigris and Euphrates, receives geographical mention in Gen. 10: 14; but does not enter Jewish history until the 8th century

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