TTttrrij, and bLKaioavv-q rov OeoO. Secondly, it is the
great fvaeffttat fivarriptoii (1 Ti 3") of the Person of Christ that He was as much true man as true God. He advanced in wisdom (Lk 2*-'-), He learned {(imSey, He 5'), He did not know the date of His irapawla. (Mt 24", Mk l.^i'^) ; cf. Ph 2"-. These data of the NT must be taken into account, even by a believing Christian. But J. Kennedy (op. cit. p. 57 f.) mentions none of these actual testimonies
of the NT. Thirdly, we have to observe that
the Evangelists ditl'er in their report of what Jesus said about the Book of Jonah. In Mt 12^-" it is recorded that the Nivfi'^Tai iirrevfrqaav els rh KiipvYfia 'lufo. It is not said in Mt tliat Jonah was a aT\iJidov for the Xinemtes, a statement which oct-urs only in Lk 11**, ^^v^ro'luvai toIs ^ivtviTtui aniuXov. Matthew's account, however, mast be the original one, for Luke also adds afterwards (v.*-') that the Ninevites repented in consequence of the preaching of Jonah. Matthew's report, further, corresponds exactly to the narrative in the Book of Jonah, in which all that is said is that Jonah was U> preach (rr^y (fjF, 1' 3'), and that by his cry, ' Yet forty days,' etc. (3*), he awakened the faith of the Ninevites. But in the Book of Jonah there is not a word to the effect that Jonah exercised any influence upon the inhabitants of Nineveh by the strangeness of his garb or the wonderful experi- ences he had passed through. All this, again, is silently passed over by J. Kennedy (pp. 27, 60 f.), and yet lie assumes as beyond question that Jonah did not come to Nineveh as ' an unknown stranger,' but that ' his entombment in the body of a great fish, and his deliverance from that pri.son, was known to the people.' If that was so, the narrator of the history of Jonah has omitted a niostes-sential point.* This is not the only instance in which * The iiame ludi^ment mutt b« p*Med od the le&med caaay of H. CUv Truiilbuli. Jonah in Sinevrh (Phll»iiclphl», I802>. He •tArt« rightly with tiie quoetion, ' Where in the OT or the NT except in tne Book of jDiuih Is there such a ■eemiiij^ly iin- oeceManr mlncle ai the Mvin^ of « nian'e life br haviti|C him ■wnttnwed in a flah, tnet4*iul. My, of hA%-inK the veKK*! that cnrntsl him driven liA*^k by contrary winds to the pl*c<' of its startiiiffT' (p. 0X But ' it is well to uk if there Is anything Id the modem diadosures of Aatyrian life and history that would seem to render the niirmciitoiis element in the stnry of Jonah more reasonable and the mar^ ellnus effect of his pn-achin^ at Nineveh more expli.-able and natural " (p. 7). Tnipjbwll reminds lis that ' prominent ainoni; the di% tnitles of ancient Assyria was ItBk'an, a creiturc |Mirl man j»art flah ' (p. 7X and 'a^>}nlin|[ to Iten-iun, the very IteK^ntnnif of civilisation InChaldaia was under the dirc-tion of a per»<>na*;e. |iart man anti part flsh, who came up out of the sea (p Vti. Tminhulj n'»w nuif^.-vsts tliat Jonab ap(H>arcd to tlie Ninevitea as one of Uio 'Avatars or Incam* tloDs' of D*CM> (P- ">). But this b at inilio inipiobabi*, tot
lOZ
JONAH
JONAH
.T. Kenned)- makes alterations on the contents of the Hook of Jonah. AccoiiUnj; to the hvtter, God naid to Jonah, ' rreach the preacliiny that I bid thee' (3"'), and this preacliing was, ' Yet forty days and Nineveh is overthrown ' (v.^''). But Kennedy says, ' Tlie prt-achiii^ of Jonah was not a mere H-ild monotone, " Yet forty days and Nineveh thtli be destroyed." lie eoiild find a fresh text ia every street and thorou;;hfare.'
7. The idea of the bwjic. — Wliatever view one takes of the formal character and origin of the book, tlie ideas embodied in it are the same.
(«) The main idea is tlie following. Israel has been intrusted by God witli llie mission to call the guijiin also to moral amendment, and is not to look askance or be jealous if the ij('i/iiii manifest repentance and if God takes back the threatenings which He had pronounced against them. With this principal idea the book opens, whether one regards ' Jonah the son of Amittai ' as the repre- sentative of his nation or as an iudi\'idual, and the .lame idea is reflected also in the whole course of the narrative an<l in the closing words of the book. The story of Jonah thus gives expression to tlio.se lofty thoughts which are uttered also in Is 40-66. For the 'Servant of J" (Is 42") must be the same who in 41' is expressly called naj; h><-p'_, and of this Servant of J" it is said, ' I have made him for a light of the goytm' (42^' «'• 49'-« etc., cf. also Zee 8^, Sir 24'"' iKipavCj airrd. [the contents of the v6/io!] ?us C15 fiaKpdy, see above, p. 747'). The Book of Jonah was meant, then, to proclaim the universality of the Divine plan of salvation, and to serve as a protest against the particularist tendencies which now and then led many members of the people of I.=rael to strive to narrow the boundaries of the Divine kingdom of grace. The book is thus a brilliant example of the diametrical opposite of the spirit which condemned the foreign wives (Mai -2", Ezr 9'«- lO'"-, Neh IS^O"-, cf. Est 9''), and exhibits a lovely dawn preparing the way for the