preting it wholly as a didactic fiction, are both intelligible, though perhaps equally unjustified, positions; but it is a vain endeavour to bring the story within the bounds of probability even by straining the words to the utmost; as, for instance, by asserting that Jonah, though dying in the monster, was brought to life again after having been vomited out, which, as is maintained, 'would enable us to suppose a much simpler miracle' (Eichhorn, Einleitung, iv. 334); or that it was just as possible for Jonah in the whale's belly to breathe, or at least to inhale as much air as he required, as it is possible for an embryo to live and grow in the mother's womb' (A. Pfeiffer, Lavater, etc.); or that the frequent cases. of asphyxia prove that men may really be alive for days though the pulse does not beat and the lungs do not act (Preiswerk etc.) which uncertain analogies, taking no account of Jonah's consciousness and praying, may well be classed under Theodoret's avóŋтоs поλUπраɣμorúvn. Much more worthy of ἀνόητος πολυπραγμοσύνη. respect is the energetic consistency which declares: 'How God converted the Ninevites, how He sustained Jonah's life in the fish's belly, the author tells not; he mentions only the great facts themselves, and leaves them in their mysterious greatness' (Pusey 1. c. p. 257; comp. p. 273). Strenuous efforts have especially been made, for apologetic reasons, to render it probable that the 'three days and three nights' (ver. 1) mean here in reality not much more than one full day. It is averred that those words are a proverbial statement of time without claim to literal exactness (with doubtful reference to 1 Sam. xxx. 12, 13, and Hos. vi. 2); or that even a part of a day was counted as a 'civil day' or as 'night and day' (výμɛpov; comp. Esth. iv. 16 and v. 1), and that, in this sense, Christ was in the earth three 'civil days,' which actually amounted to no more than one full day with small portions of the previous and following one, and two nights, or not much above thirty-six hours. But who can affirm that this is equivalent to 'three days and three nights?' In 1 Cor. xv. 4, it is stated quite generally that Christ 'rose again the third day according to the Scriptures' (τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ κατὰ τὰς γραφάς), that is, probably, with reference to Isa. liii. 9, 10, and Hos. vi. 2; comp. Gen. xxii. 4; Ps. xvi. 10 (see also Luke xxiv. 46, оûтws yέyρаптAI παθεῖν τὸν Χριστὸν καὶ ἀναστῆναι ἐκ νεκρῶν τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ; Acts xvii. 3); although it has been admitted even by zealous typologists that the application of Gen. xxii. 4 is 'somewhat precarious;' that Ps. xvi. 10 falls short;' and that Hos. vi. 2 'cannot be regarded as distinctly predictive, but only as faintly allusive' (Huxtable 1. c. p. 577).—We have above (p. 175) pointed out the different views implied in Luke's and Matthew's account with respect to 'the sign' of Jonah; but we must add that the passage in Luke also has frequently been understood to refer to Christ's resurrection as the sign analogous to that of Jonah's rescue from the fish's belly. This opinion, excluded as it is by the clear context, disregards the main point that this rescue of Jonah was no 'sign to the Ninevites,' with whom our author brings it into no connection whatever, and who, as far as this Book is concerned, need not even have heard of it at all (see infra on iii. 4—9); though the reverse, as may be expected, has also conveniently been assumed (as by Nägelsbach, Baumgarten, Kleinert, etc.), and has even been elaborately adorned by the help of further conjecture (so e. g. by Pusey 1. c. p. 273: the mariners 'were doubtless enrolled among the people of God, first-fruits from among the heathen... Perhaps, they were the first preachers among the heathen,' etc.). As an illustration of typical exposition we may quote a few sentences from a Commentary of the seventeenth century: 'Ut is fuit Jonas i. e. columba, filius Amitthai seu veritatis, ita revera et Christus filius veritatis coelestis i. e. patris, columba fuit ȧréparos, quae proderat omnibus, nocebat nemini, suoque gemitu apud aeternum patrem pro nobis intercedit... Spiritus quoque sanctus in forma columbae super ipso visus est ad Jordanem... Quin etiamnum hodie, quam primum nos in navem Christi, hoc est Ecclesiam, ingredimur, statim oritur oritur afflictionis tempestas et ipse videtur dormire. Porro quemadmodum haec procella maris tranquillari haud poterat nisi Jona in id projecto, ita'. . . etc. (Jo. Tarnovii in Prophetas minores Commentarius, pp. 805, 806; Friedrichsen 1. c. p. 20); comp. Carpzov, Introd. iii. 361, 362, Fatis suis Jonas non minus quam effatis verum se Numinis prophetam comprobavit; ex more enim omnium prophetarum . . . testimonium Christi perhibuit, ejusque mortem ac resurrectionem hoc volumine delineavit;' Bailey, in Smith's Dict. of the Bible, i. 1120, 'The history of Jonah was highly symbolical; the facts contained a concealed prophecy;... exclude the symbolical (typical) meaning, and you have no adequate reason to give of this history' (comp. however, notes on iii. 10); Kleinert, Jonah, p. 18: 'Jonah is the antitype of Israel, and Israel the antitype of Christ, whence the typical relation between Jonah and Christ is clear;' and again, 'All the voluntary efforts of the sailors to reach the shore are of no avail (i. 13), and there is no rest till the expiatory offering singled out by God has fallen;' Pusey 1. c. pp. 264, 271, 272, 277, 'Man was tempest-tost and buffeted by the angry waves of this perilous and bitter world; Christ, as one of us, gave His life for our lives, the storm at once was hushed, there is a deep calm and inward peace, and our haven was secured ... He who had heretofore been the prophet of Israel only, was, after a three days' burial, restored through miracle to life, and then the heathen were converted;' etc. But no one, as far as we are aware, has proceeded in the same direction so resolutely as one of the most recent English writers who has put forth the following theory: 'that most strange and otherwise utterly unaccountable circumstance of Jonah's entombment in the fish' was brought about by God 'for the very purpose of furnishing a typical prediction in which both Jesus himself and his Church should recognise the distinct foreshadowing of his preordained death and resurrection; therefore, when Jonah requested the sailors, 'Cast me forth into the sea' (i. 12), he was 'doubtless speaking under Divine impulse;' like the all but consummated sacrifice of Isaac, Jonah's three days' burial in the fish is 'a piece of history which, regarded by itself, shocks all our sense of probability; while either, when regarded as typical, is seen to be in strict coherence with the main purpose of Divine revelation, which is the exhibition to the world of Christ (Huxtable 1. c. pp. 577, 578, 589). What is the motive that prompted this theory? Evidently the desire of explaining 'that most strange and otherwise utterly unaccountable circumstance of Jonah's entombment in the fish,' which 'shocks all our sense of probability.' How is it explained? By a principle which would lead to the most questionable, nay the most offensive inferences. For the ill-treatment, the persecution and murder of the prophets, which are, for instance, described in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, and have, above all other incidents of the Old Testament, ever been deemed typical of Christ and his suffering, were, according to that principle, 'preordained by God for the very purpose of furnishing a typical prediction in which Jesus and his Church should recognise a foreshadowing of his death and resurrection;' nay the Hebrews, in committing those deeds of blindness and iniquity, were 'doubtless acting under Divine compulsion.' Who would not recoil from such a conclusion? In order to account for a miracle, which is admitted not to be stranger than many others recorded in the Scriptures, not only the whole course of history is read in a light utterly confusing to reason, and defying all intelligible laws of regular progress, but the common typological method is almost entirely reversed; for according to the latter to adhere to the instance quoted—the Hebrews had, from their natural and unconquerable perverseness, outraged and massacred their prophets, and Christ, to fulfil this type, endured the same degradation and fate from his own contemporaries; although even this view hardly involves a 'vindication of the ways of God to man;' for in order to fulfil the type, God allowed Christ's contemporaries to act in the evil and violent manner they did. Could He employ no guiltless means to bring about dispensations meant to pour out the spirit of kindness and goodwill over all mankind? 7. THE PRAYER. II. 3-10. 3. And he said, I cried out of my affliction to the Lord, and He listened to me; Out of the depth of the abyss I called aloud, and Thou didst hear my voice. 4. For Thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the heart of the seas, And the floods surrounded me; All Thy billows and Thy waves passed over me. 5. Then I said, I am driven away out of Thy sight; Yet I shall look again upon Thy holy Temple. 6. The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: The depth surrounded me, weeds were wrapped about my head. 7. I went down to the extremities of the mountains; The earth had closed its bars behind me for ever: Yet hast Thou brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God! 8. When my soul fainted within me, I And my prayer came into Thy holy |