T[ I have read the Book of Jonah at least a hundred times, and I will publicly avow, for I am not ashamed of my weakness, that I cannot even now take up this marvellous book, nay, nor even speak of it, without tears rising to my eyes, or my heart beating higher. This apparently trivial book is one of the deepest and grandest that was ever written, and I should like to say to every one who approaches it, " Take off thy shoes, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." 1
I.
Jonah's Hard Exclusiveness.
1. At the court of Jeroboam the Second, Jonah prophesied success against Syria, and his prediction was fulfilled, for Jeroboam 1 C. H. Cornill, The Prophets of Israel, 170.
JONAH iv. 10, ii 341
recovered Damascus and Hamath and restored the borders of Israel. The word of God now came to Jonah to go against the great city of Nineveh and pronounce its doom, unless it repented of its sins. The prophet was in an evil case. His patriotism forbade him to reach out a hand or foot to serve that great nation which would one day swallow up his own people, while his fear of God was a strong motive in his breast to obey. Before his eyes passed a vision of the time when the armies of Asshur and the fierce warriors of Chaldaea would swoop down from the northern plains upon that little nation and carry them away captive, planting the deserted villages and lands of Samaria with the people of Arva and Cutha and Sippara. These strange people with their strange gods would hold their riots in the halls that were once blest, while the Hebrews would be placed in Halah and Habor, cities by the river Gozan, separated from all they held dear, and surrounded by a proud idolatrous race. Such a night- mare hovered over Jonah, and compelled him to fly far from his homeland. In Balaam we have the case of a prophet who wished to carry a message contrary to the will of God. Here we have the instance of a prophet who wished to avoid performing a duty the Lord had laid upon him. In the long run, conscience proved stronger than fear or patriotism. But the battle was fiercely contested and protracted within the prophet's soul. Loth to convey a message that might prove the salvation of his national foes, he took ship for Tarshish, a port in Spain, with Phoenician merchants. But his purpose was frustrated by the storm, and he was cast into the waters, and then from the depths of Sheol he cried with a bitter cry to Jehovah to save him from his peril. The Lord had mercy upon him, and, after an experience which we need not discuss now, he was cast out upon the shore. There, as he lay helpless on the beach, the word of the Lord came to him and bade him hasten to Nineveh and deliver his message.
The original opportunity indeed was now gone. The prophet had lost the honour of at once obeying the Divine commands ; he had tasted the agony implied in preferring his own inclinations to the will of God. But God had brought good out of evil, had taught him the beauty of repentance and the greatness of His mercy. And, surest proof of all that he was quite forgiven, the Divine Spirit had come back, the great impulse arose, which
342 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY
formerly he had fought against and beaten down, " Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it." With a heart purified by repentance and softened by pardon, Jonah was now able to enter into the mind of God, to comprehend the feelings with which He looked down on a vast community of human beings who had forgotten His name and His nature. He him- self had experienced the unfathomable pity that was in the Divine heart, God's earnest desire to show mercy, His unwilling- ness that any should perish. He had discovered that the heathen were not necessarily destitute of every human virtue, and that they were not completely averse to the worship of the true God. So wonderful indeed are God's ways of dealing with the hearts of men that Jonah was probably a fitter messenger to Nineveh after his attempted flight than he had been before. By our very failures, God educates us to do His will.
Tj It seems hard that we should often be left to exert ourselves for things that fail — that even with the best intentions we do things which turn to harm, and leave us to self-reproach. But let us ask ourselves how we could construct a moral world other- wise than by concealing results. And what again if successful results were always to reward sincere effort ? Would not this be antedating the judgment ? The failure may be a success as a part of our training, and not so great a failure in its direct object as it seems. When our aim has been pure, we may save ourselves self-reproach, while we gather wisdom in the use of means. There is always responsibility in action, but responsibility also in inaction. The one may be unsuccessful, the other must1
2. But the evil spirit was not yet exorcised from Jonah's heart. When the Ninevites took him at his word and repented, and God spared them, he was bitterly disappointed. In the depth of his heart there lurked all along the secret hope that either they would not repent or repentance would come too late, and that in any case he would have the pleasure of seeing the great city destroyed. Was this feeling an unnatural one ? We can hardly say so when we consider the past history of religion, and the feelings which have filled the hearts of undoubtedly religious men. We know that religious zeal has often been accom- panied by atrocious cruelty, and that men have burned one another