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great fish, which, after three days, casts him forth, uninjured, upon the land. Again the prophet receives the commission to preach at Nineveh. This time he proceeds thither; but at his preaching the Ninevites repent, and God rescinds the decree which he had passed against them. Displeased at the seeming failure of his mission, Jonah sits down outside the city, and asks to be allowed to die; but a gourd quickly springing up and sheltering him from the sun, and as quickly dying and leaving him exposed to its rays, by exciting his sympathy, is made the means of justifying in his eyes God's merciful change of purpose with respect to Nineveh.'

Such is the story. Before we ask what is its meaning and moral, it will be best to listen to the words of it from the beginning to the end.

§3. The tale of Jonah.-Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 'Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.' But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish away from 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 away from the Lord.

But the Lord cast a great wind upon the sea, so that a mighty tempest arose on the sea, and the ship was like to be broken. Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god, and cast forth the vessels that were in the ship into the sea, to win them ease. But Jonah was gone down into the lowest part of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep. 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.' 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. Then said they unto him, 'Tell us, we pray thee, what is thine occupation? and whence comest thou? what is thy country? and of what people art thou?' And he said unto them, 'I am an Hebrew; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who hath made the sea and the dry land.' Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, 'What is this which thou hast done?' For the men knew that he had fled from before the Lord, because he had told them.

And they said unto him, 'What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us?' for the sea grew more and more tempestuous. 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.' Nevertheless the men strove hard to bring the ship to the land; but they could not: for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. Wherefore they cried unto the Lord, and said, 'We beseech thee, O 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.' Then they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging. But the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord, and made vows.

And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly, and he said,

'I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me;

Out of the heart of Sheol cried I, and thou heardest my voice.

For thou didst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about:

All thy billows and thy waves passed over me. Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight;

How shall I look again toward thy holy temple? The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: The depth closed me round about,

The weeds were wrapped about my

head.

I went down to the foundations of the mountains;
The bars of the earth were about me for ever;

Yet thou hast brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God.

When my soul despaired within me I remembered the Lord:

And my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple. They that observe lying vanities

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But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving;
I will pay that that I have vowed.
Salvation is of the Lord,'

And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.

And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, 'Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach against it the preaching that I bid thee.' So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was a great city before God of three days' journey to pass through. And Jonah began to enter one day's journey into the city, and he cried, and said, 'Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.' And 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. And the matter 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. 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: 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. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?' 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.

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, 'I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my thought, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I hasted to flee unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great lovingkindness, and repentest thee of the evil. Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.' Then said the Lord, 'Doest thou well to be angry?'

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, till he might see what would become of the city. And the

Lord God appointed a gourd to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to save him from his pain. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. But God appointed a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a sultry east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished that he might die, and said, 'It is better for me to die than to live.'

And God said to Jonah, 'Doest thou well to be angry because of the gourd?' And he said, 'I do well to be angry, even unto death.' Then said the Lord, 'Thou hast pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night and should not I have pity on Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?'

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§ 4. Explanation of certain difficulties. Still postponing what I have to say on the moral and purpose of this exquisite tale, I will first attempt to explain certain difficulties in various places of the narrative.

(1) Their wickedness is come up before me.' The wickedness is purely moral. It is no question of idolatry. For the tale is written for the Jews, with whom, in the days of the author, idolatry was no longer a present sin. For the author's purpose the wickedness of the Ninevites might have been as unhistorical as their repentance. The city itself, when he wrote, was no longer great and populous. In describing it he uses the past

tense.

(2) Jonah rose up to flee.' At the time when Jonah was written, there was no longer any localized conception of God. Jonah simply seeks to get as far away as possible from the discharge of the duty and mission which God had laid upon him. His duty was to travel to the far east; he therefore flies westward, as far as a ship's sails can take him. The actual words, 'to flee away from before, or from the presence of, the Lord,' imply a past when the activity of God, or the operation and energy of the Divine Spirit, were believed to be concentrated within a favoured earthly area, but in the mouth of our author they are a mere metaphor. To him God is not nearer to Palestine

than to Assyria,

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What is the motive of Jonah's flight? He himself reveals it later on. He was afraid that God might have pity on Nineveh, even after the doom had been uttered and the fiat gone forth. As Dr. G. A. Smith says: 'Jonah never doubts that his word came from Jehovah, nor dreads that other men will doubt. There is absolutely no hint of anxiety as to his professional reputation.' Jonah is the type of that section of Israel who longed for the destruction of its foes. So it was not the length of the road, nor the danger of declaring Nineveh's sin to her face, which turned him, but the instinct that God intended by him something else than Nineveh's destruction; and this instinct sprang from his knowledge of God himself. Jonah interpreted the word which came to him by the character which he knew to be behind the word. He had the foreboding that Nineveh would be spared.'

An old Jewish explanation is quaint and suggestive. Jonah, it is said, foresaw by his prophetic inspiration that Assyria would overthrow the kingdom of Israel. He foresaw, moreover, as he himself explains, that Nineveh would repent and be spared, and that he would therefore be a sort of agent in Israel's ruin. Anxious for the honour of the son, but careless for the honour of the Father, he sought to escape his charge. For Israel the son would be dishonoured by defeat and captivity, but God the Father would be honoured by Nineveh's repentance.

(3) 'The lot fell upon Jonah.' The author need not be supposed to favour the casting of lots. He merely tells a story. The issue of the lot may usually be the issue of chance: in this case God makes his will known through a heathen device.

(4) Then were the men exceedingly afraid.' They are impressed by Jonah's manner. The lot seems to have told the truth. His immediate confession of a great and simple faith thrills them with a holy awe. The next words are rather confused. If the text be right, Jonah must be supposed to explain to the mariners that he is seeking to escape from this World-Creator; they then question him as to what he has done in order to necessitate so perilous a flight. Jonah's answer is not given.. Wellhausen, however, supposes that the words, 'because he had told them,' are a gloss, and he translates what proceeds thus: 'What is this which thou hast done? For they realized that he was fleeing from before the Lord,' i.e. When he told them who he was, whence he came, and whom he served, they, applying this information to the facts of the case-the storm and the answer of the lots-realized that his journey upon their ship could have only one reason. It must betoken a flight from his God.

(5) 'And made vows.' What were these vows? One old Jewish