PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Pulpit Commentary — Jonah
William J. Deane [1853-1943] · 94,170 words · 105 reading sections
The Pulpit Commentary — Jonah — Section 1
THE PULPIT COMMENTARY, Jl:DITED BY TBll VERY REV. H. D. M. SPENCE, D.D .• PB.AN OJ' GLOt10Blrl'IIIB , A1'ID BY TD REV. JOSEPH S. EXELL, M.A. JON A H. Gxposftfon BY REV. W. J. DEANE, M.A., UO'l'OB OJ' ASBlllll'. l!1omfletfcs BY REV. PROFESSOR J. R. THOMSON, M.A. ~omilfes b!'.1 Ftttfous ~utbott. REV J. E. HE…
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fice, and make vows unto him. So, in this view, the history is leveller! against the bigotry and exclnsiveness of the Jews which come fot'Wa.rcl so prominently in later times. God has compassion on all men; " In every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteo11BneBB, is accepted with him'' (.Acte x. 85) . .An…
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this design; it gives e. sketch of that picture which was one de.y to be filled up to perfection. By it, on the one hand, the Gentile learned some- thing of the attributes of the true God-his omnipotence, justice, e.nd mercy; e.nd, on the other, the Jew was t.aught tolerance e.nd charity, and the rigid spirit of pr…
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the candour of the history shows it to have been written by the person whose story it relates. It is true that the book does not profess to have been written by Jonah himself; but surely a Jewish writer, imbued with the national respect for the prophetical character, would never have allowed himself to exhibit a. seer …
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R.nnals. Among them he mentions the conquest of the land of the Hittites, Phrnnicia, the cities of Tyre and Sidon, the land of Omri, the kingdom of Israel, Edom, a.nd the Philistines. These probably merely acknowledged his superiority by the payment of an annual tribute. His successor, Shal- maneser III. (B.C, 781-…
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Jonah. The details are quite in keeping with the localities and the date of the narrati,e. This will appear in the course of the Exposition. The mention of the size of Nineveh and the extent of its population is proved by recent investigations to be perfectly correct. Could our blessed Lord have referred to Jonah's in…
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Pl\rt IV. (Ch. iv.) Jona.h's displeasure, and it.a correction. § 1. (Cb. iv. 1-4.) Jonah is grieved at this result, and complains of God's clemency. § 2. (Ch. iv. 5.) He makes a hut outside the city, and we.its to aee the lsaue, § 8. (Ch. iv. 6, 7.) God causes a plant to spring up in order to shade him from the su…
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1thuttC"d on the w<"stern wall of the city, mrtde him loth to interfere in Gentile whil'h was ~om<' two 1rnd a half miles in businl'ee, nnd partly, as he bimeelf says (oh. l<"n,;-th. AnciC"ntly it ~ePms to lmvo imme- iv. 2), bccau~e he feared God'e oompnaaion diately ovel'hung the Tigris, but the river would epnre t…
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'' Pol minume miror, n&vis Bi fracta eet tibi, 6, for the fom1er uee; and for the lnttor, Soe\us te et soelestc partit qulll vexit bona." Gtln. xl. 15; Exod. ii. 7; iii. 18). Con- "Little I wonder if the ship is wreoked vinced that God hnd miraculously pointed Which oarries thee and thy ill-gotten him out as the culp…
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That the sea may be oalm unto ua; literally, cuting the sentence upon him. Usually it may be Bilent from upon us, so as no longer takes some time for tho swell to cease after to bea.r down upon us (comp. Mark iv. 39). the wind has snnk: here there was suddenly Wrought, and was tempestuous; literally, a. great en.Im …
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IIOMILETICS. Ver. 2.-.A city's sin. Dy its very nature sin is individual, personnl; for it is the estrangement of the spiritual being and life from God. Yet, as men live in communi- ties, and as these communities possess moral qualities and habits determined by the character of the component units, there is such a t…
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their amenability to the tribunal of an Omniscient and Almighty Ruler. There is too little of this frank and fearless treatment of social corruption; the pulpit is to blamo for this; and it is to be desired that Christian preachers should hear the Word of the Lord bidding them go and "cry against" the wickedness of gre…
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Ver. 6.-Danger and devotion. The conduct of the seamen, who themselves, when encompassed by danger and when threatened by death, both ea.lied upon their gods and besought Jonah to imitate their prayers and vows, may have been superstitious in its accessories, but it was certainly right in principle. L DANGER REMINDS…
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to devote one's self to deRth for the country's weRl; and the highest exercise of benevolence, when cRlled upon by duty, to die for the welfare of humanity. Ill. BoTH THESE PRINCIPLES ARE MOST OONSPICUOUBLY EXEMPLIFIED IN THE BAORJ- FJCE OF OUR DIVINE REDEEMER, 1. 'l'he sins of men brought Jesus to the cross of Cnh-e.…
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clone, nor the feelings which prompted it have found a home in his heart. To fly from God's service btcrmse H involved the helping of men is a course consistent it may be with grace, but only with grace alloyed, inchoate, and overlaid with the mind or flesh. J. lN GoD'B ARMY IT 1B F.ITHER DESERTION OR DUTY. "Jonah r…
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fact is with it an axiomatic truth. Loving its neighbour as itself, its moral ntlitudo inspires its active one--'' do good to all." It regards life as wasted if not lived for men a.nd the time as lost in which it does not "save some." ' III. hmLORIOU8 DUTY IS MOST IN DANGER OF DEING LEFT UNDONE, Jonah had nn idea h…
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Thon there ie no epiritnal haH-way house. God in his mercy may arrest him on the way, but tho renegade starts fur Tarshish, the spiritual remotest point. A stone detached from the honse-top has no stopping-place short of the ground. Tum your back on God and heaven, and Satan and hell a.re, humanly speaking, your destin…
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them might pass unnoticed. A le.rge proportion of the heterodoxy extant origin11toe in or is exaggerated by II desire to ca.tch the public eye. The evil it does to the souls of men will go on so long as there a.re nominal servants who he.ve a private intorcst dearer to them than the Master's work. And the persona.I …
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before repentance there is an interval of unnatural insensibility, ancl in this interval Jonah's sleep was taken. H is a horrid sight to see judge and jury and the court affected to tears, and the criminal as bard as iron. Yet that is the analogue of a state into which we have only to defy God in order to fall. IV. A …
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t111r judgment so highly recommended by the fact, tb&t few questions aro asked. No one supposes th!lL t.he drunkard takes the moral, economic, or hygienio measure of hie disastrous habit before he forms it. He has a lively feeling that it is please.nt and Fuits his taste, and he waives the consideration of other poi…
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Hence, on occRsion of sin, Aaron (Numb. xii.11), and Saul (1 Sam. xv. 24), and David (2 Sam. xii. 13), and Josiah (2 Kings xxii. 11, 13, 19), and Rehoboam (2 Chron. xii. 6, 7, 12), and Manasseh (2 Chron. xxxiii. 12, 13), and Hezekiah (2 Chron. xxxii. 26), and Peter (Mark xiv. 72), o.ncl others whose sincerity Scripture…
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mind, or body, or estate, or social relations, but leaves it inevitably somewhere. The wood from which a nail has been drawn can never be as if the nail had not been driven. 'l'he nail-hole is there, and there remains, do what we will. When, as witc Jonah, the sin is against God directly, it has no physical concomit…
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not be eaten (Exo<l. xxi. 28). Even the man who slew another by misadventure made his life forfeit to the avenger of blood if he were caught outside the city of refuge (Deut. xix. 6). Blood, in fact, according to Scripture, muat have blood (Gen. ix. 5, 6). There is no other satisfaction for it. The value of it cannot b…
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The conformity is there, and in the highest sense; it is only the tyro who oannot eeo it. So with actionH done in the highest moral plane. The actor is too intent on doing whet God says to look after the minor congrnitiee. Ilut the thing ho does has an essential and fundamental rightness which lifts details into a n…
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freely. We woniler at the propriety and fitness of the sailors' entire action.· They had no Bible. They learned nothing from the prophet. Yet they took a distinctly. scriptural course. They remlered Goel service in God's appointed way. Does it not seem as if they were somehow taught by bis Holy Spirit; their minds enl…
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After that everything 8poke of goodness. There are qualities in God fitted each in its own way to move men to hie service (2 Cor. v. 11; Rom. xii. 1). They moved Jonah. His humble, believing, thankful prayer in the monster's maw is a revelation of their effect on his moral nature. And godly lives the world over nnd …
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the gate to a new life. The life of Jonah after his virtual resurrection was a new one, and greatly higher than the old. He emerges from the sea a new man, in a new relation to God, with a new purpose of heart, and a new life-career opening out. "His old life is cancelled; all its guilt obliterated; all its evils in…
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Vers. 1-3.~onah's call and flight. "Now the word of the Lord came \lllto Jonah the son or Amittai, saying," etc. I. THE Mill. Jonah is introduced without a word of explanation, except(implicitly) that he was a prophet of the Lord. So also Elijah (1 Kings xvii. 1). 'l'heir previous history is assumed. God's servants ar…
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Son of mnn was three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (H. Martin, D.D.). 4. Its purport. "Cry against it; for its wickedness i8 come before me." " He m11s~ cry ngainst Nineveh, not whisper in the ear as if it were to one, not speak softly as to a few, but cry as unto all: this is a general proclamation.…
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by me1ms of a sword, David through a parable, Peter by a look, the Philippian jailor by an earthquake, Jonah by a storm. .All nature is at his command. "'l'he whole world full of invisible couriers, robed and ready for their service," I. THE STORM SENT OUT BY Gon. Connection between the physical and moral world is …
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courtesy, charity, kindliness, large-mindedness, liberality, self-denial, any virtue what- soever? "Why Rhoukl there be one single department of what is good-good in any ephore, morn!, physical, social, scientific, concerning which the world can with any show of fo.irness profess to school the Church, or ea.y, St.and a…
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H. TRF. LOT FAJ,1,~ U'l'ON JONAH. l'ictnro his anxiety while the lot was being cMt- his despair wh~n it fell on him. '!'his seems to hnve brought him to a sense of his sin: i~ was God's voice, " T~ou ~rt the man ! " Jonah now broke ~own, prostrated by the little arrow from Gods quiver. In walking through a hospital …
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tbo question, in reference to his sins, "Why bast thou done this?" Sinned against God and man, and against thine own soul, and against thine own children? Better we should put tho question and answer it in time, than wait till God puts it in the day of judgment.-W. G. B. Vera. 11-17.-The c,ffender sacrificed. "Then sa…
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1V. THE MAJUNERH PRAY •.ro Gon. "Wherefore they cried unto the Lord and 1111,id W c beseech thee, 0 Lord, we beseech thee," etc. The tender conscience a~d devout feeling of the mariners are very remarkable. Observe: 1. Vehemence of their prayer: "They cried "-they beseech God once nod again. 2. They appeal to God's …
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biography. All the powers of nature, all creatures rational and irrational, men, devils and angels, are subject to him; and now subject to Christ: God" ha.th put a.11 thing~ under his feet, and given him to be Head over all things to the Church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all."-W. G. B. …
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V. WITII ALL HIS BIN, JONAH WAS A SERVANT OF THE LORD. The" root of tho matter" was in him. We have gleams in this dark narrative of the better naturo within him. Pleasant to believe that his later life (of which we have no record) was calm 'll'ith a patience and beautiful with a charity unknown before; that II at the …
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against the first stepe, however secret, that lead from God. Among the thin1;1s that wrongly influenced him to flight we may suppose: 1. The novelty of the work. To be o. prophet too. heathen people, to go to them as God's messenger, was striking into a new line of duty. How different from work in Israel amid famili…
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day of time. But not without reproving storms, of los8, trouble, affliction, bereavement. It is well that the man suffer loss that he be not lost. The voice of circumstances is the voice of God. II. THE EXAMPLE OF THE SAILORS REPROVED JONAH, They, each man of them, prayed. E11eh to his favourite god. Earnestly, wit…
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"Why hnst thou done this?" Once you tasted tha.t the Lord wa.s gracious ; now you are far out on the godless, reckless deep, where there Ml no peace. Why iR this? "Speechless" you must be. For such guilty flight reason there can be none.-G. T. C. Vere, 11-16.-The s0111ors' conduct. Look at those swarthy sailors. They …
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rray anywhere. Jeremiah could pray in the miry pit, Daniel in the lions' den, and Jonah in the fish 11mid the paths of the seaB. I-le was in sad and extreme cBSe. Ho was aB II dead man out of mind; yet he can pray. What distress is ours? Our hopes may be" ready to perish." But think of Jonah I He could have recourBe…
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II. JONAH, IN ms BURIAL, WAR A SIGN OF CHRIST. Very unlike was the sea-monster bearing away the prophet to the rock-tomb that received the body of our Lord; yet in this they were alike, that they had been unused as tombs before. Prepared were both for the event that has made both eternally memorable. "The Lord had prep…
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courage is required by those who rebuke popular sins. But an Eastern mob would be likely t.o handle very roughly any foreigner who dared to threaten their city for Ha si111,. JonRh had no fear of this, however, and so far sets a noble example of heroism. 2. The sphere was uncongenial, These Ninevites were dreaded and h…
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tho rising power of the United State&, would not have lifted a finger to avert its destruc- tion in the late civil war, so Jonah felt a.bout Nineveh. He determined that he at least would not be the messenger to avert its destruction; 80 be fled as far as he could from the appointed sphere. Examples of similar condact a…
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tives, the failure of business, have been employed \1y God again and again to arouse moral thoughtfulness, and save the soul from destruction. Let us learn the lessons which such tempests can tea.eh us. "What mrancst thou, 0 sleeper? Arise, and call upon thy God, if so be th11t God will think upon us, that we perish…
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two things worthy of attention-God speaking to man in mercy, and man fleeing from God in disobedience. I. Gon SPEAKING TO MAN IN MERCY. 1. Here be speaks. "The word of the Lord." His word to Jonah, lilco his word to all men, was clea1·, brief, weighty, practical. 2. Hero he speaks to an individual. He speaks to all…
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the tempest raged Jor.ah was asleep, "fast asleep." So the shipmaster came to him and said unto him," What meanest thou, 0 sleeper?" etc. Mural indifferentism ie the curse of the world. Three practical appeals to the morally indifferent are suggest.ed. I. JoNAH WAB IN IMMINENT PERn.. So are you. It is said that the s…
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EXPOSITION. .OHAPTER II. acknowledges Jehovah ae bis God. He had proved himself bis by inspiration, by cl.ms- Vers. 1-10.-Part II. JoNAR's PBAYBB tisement, and now by mercy (Pnsey). The AND DELIVEBANOE, following prayer contains ample remini- scences of the Psalms, which would be Vers. 1-9.-§ I. Jonah, in the bell…
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corde maru. This defines more olosely the The Vulgate gives pelagua, whioh is pro- previous expression. The floods; literally, bably derived from the fact of the Red Se11 the rioor. This may mean the current (as being called " the Sea of Suph," the term in Ps. xxiv. 2), which in the Mediterranean being thence applied t…
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HOMILETICS. Ver. 1.-" Out of the depths." Never surely was prayer offered in so strange a place as this I Men have often prayed upon the sea, but Jonah is represented as praying from the ocean depths. I. No PLACE IS UNSUITABLE Fon PRAYER. It is well to pray in stately cathedrals and in consecrated chapels, in the hum…
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, crs. 2, 3.-.A.ffeictioo afld prayer. Doubtless the language of this psalm of the.nke- g_i dnf' 1Yas tl!e re~ult of subsequent meditation, for it is evidently a studied composi- tion, resembling m passages several of the sacred Hebrew odes. But the sontimonts \\We those actually experienced by the prophet when in t…
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surely do this upon bis behalf. There is no depth from which he cannot lift us; no recess from which he cannot draw us forth ; no sorrow of which he cannot relieve us; no sin which he cannot pardon. Of how many of God's people may it be said, "'l'hey looked unto him, and were lightened, and their faces were not ashamed…
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HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vers. 1--4.-...4. t1,nique oratory. "Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God," etc. The key-note of this passage is struck in the first verse. It is the fish, by God's hand made Jonah's preserver instead of his destroyer, that inspires the praise- prayer of the whole chapter. God did no…
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neither, probably, would the goodnese, bad not the severity gone before. The effect does not flow from the last of the series of its causes, but from the series ae e. whole. 11. How A REVIVING FAITH CAN TRIUMPH OVER BENSE, To sense the prophet's case we.e despere.te. On the platform of natural laws the circumstance…
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no longer prophet of God, or servant, or companion. His punishment l'ises on him in the likeness of his sin. He has fled from God, and now he complains of the separation, "I am ca~t out of thy sight," i.e. banished from covenant territory, the l'lphere cf God's protection and care. So with Peter. He says, " I know n…
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" 0 Saviour, precious Bn.viour, Whom yet unseen we love ; 0 No.me of might n 11d favour, All other names above : We worship thee, we bless thee, To thee alone we sing; We praise thee and confess thee, Our holy Lord and King." J.E. H. Vere. 5-10.-Deliverance waiting on the aBB11,1'ed hope of ie. It is 11.n obvi…
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could dictate I\Sl!Ured and triumphant language like this, but marvellous, miraouloua faith? His deliverance is not yet come; yet faith speaks of it as if it were, 0 noble fniLh I it is in thy power to bring in the deliverance that is still future, with tbo ~we~t-nesA of that which is already present, and the sureness …
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God, in fact, bring up each other. And not only is the fact of sin, but the extent anrl evil of it are revealed in the revelation of God. Contact with the plumb-line betrays the curve in the bowing wall. So, side by side with God's ideal holiness, sin looks itself and looks its worst (Job xiii. o). When a man sees h…
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Yers. 1-7.-" JJc 111·(!/undis:" distress and pt"4'!fet', "Then Jonl\h pmyed unto tlm Lord his G,1<l out of the fish's belly," etc. UnexRmpled position of Jonah-no detRile given, and hints somewhat obscure; evidently he retl\ined measure of coneciouenes111, but for how long "'e know not-seems t.o have been conscious …
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See bore rm encoungement to spirit of faith-in Jonah all lights extinguished except faith-in lowest depths," let Israel hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy, and wHh him is plenteous reclempt.ion." Even when we are the authors of our own troubles, when we nre in the depths by r~"eon of sin, ni'Z desperand…
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God ln connection with them. Jonah is disentombed (ver, 10), "Aud the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.'' At length tho purpose of the chastisement is served, therefore it is removed, The great fish continues under God's control, and having carried Jonah safely through the deep, d…
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Public domain historical Pulpit Commentary. Source page identifies the volume as Public Domain; text extracted from its historical PDF.
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Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.