time, He would be safe. The one danger was lest the day should lie prolonged ' beyond God's appoint- ment.' So prolonged, the day would be as night, in which the traveller stumbles. With both these pa.ssages Lk 22^^ should be compared. Night stands also for the close of the day of grace in the life of Judas (Jn 13^"). Judas went out, 'and it was night.' Tiie darkness is his place. Across the darkness ' less deep than his own soul ' he moves from the light of Christ. Night stands for the new ernironinent m hich he has chosen, ' loving darkness because his deeds were evil.'
((•) In the AjwstoUc writings the night stands for the waning order, which will be ended by tlie coming of Christ. The day was at hand ; the disciples must put ott' the garments of night, and put on the armour of light (Ro 13'^ etc.). The diflerence in the metaphorical use of the night may be seen by a comparison of the word of Jesus, 'the night cometh,' with St. Paul's 'the night is far spent.' For those who are of the fellowship of Christ the darkness is already past (Eph 5^, 1 Th 5*, I P 2") : ' Some daylight it is, and is every moment growing.' The darkness and the light are alterna- tives, and contemporary.
' But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts, Benighted walks under the midday sun.'
Night has other associations for the modern mind. It is still the emblem of peril and evil, but it speaks also of quietness and peace ; this value it has had for poets from Milton to Whitman.
' Dear night ! This world's defeat ; The stop to busie fools ; care's check and curb ; The day of spirits ; my soul's calm retreat,
Which none disturb ! '— {Vaughan).
It is important that the reader should not carry such associations into the study of the NT. There, night has always a sinister suggestion. It speaks of all that is hostile to God, who is light, and in whom there is no darkness at all. The word has changed its value in the commeixe of ideas. It is with the night as with the sea. In the OT and NT both are emblems of fear and evil : in tlie City there will be no night (Rev 21'-^), and the sea is no more (21'). But in the modern mind they awaken other thoughts of attraction and kindliness The writers and teachers of the NT use the coinage of their age ; and though we may conjecture that Jesus had other memories of night than those of fear, yet He did not depart from the customary usage, in which the men of His time took night as significant of terror and evil.
Literature. — W. R. Nicoll, Ten Minute Sermons, 103 ; W. C. E. Newbolt, Counsels of Faith and Practice, 62 ; J. Parker, Studies in Texts, vi. 89 ; W. J. Dawson, The Evangelistic Note, 133; W. T. P. Wolston, Night Scenes of Scripture.
Edward Shillito.
NINEYEH, NINEYITES. — The great city of Nineveh was on the eastern bank of the Tigris, opposite the modern city of Mosul. (For account of it .see art. in Hastings' DB iii. 553 f.). In Mt 12 and Lk 11 are grouped several logia of our Lord, short pithy passages, each of which appears to be a whole in itself. Two of these contain references to Jonali and the Ninevites.
1. Mt 123«-*u II Lk ir-'"- 3«. It would seem that on two occasions, the second of which is narrated in these passages, the Pharisees asked for a sign. Christ's preaching and miracles were not enough for them. They wanted Him to prove His Divine mission by some overwhelming marvel that would force them to believe in it, if it were truly Divine. The first occasion is in Mk S'"- || Mt W'^, where they asked for ' a sign from heaven.' This He met with a definite refusal (Mk.). St. MattheAV, how- ever, adds to the answer words which really be- longed to the second occasion — ' except the sign of Jonah.' The answer on the second occasion con-
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tains this exception in both Gospels. (In St. Matthew the Pharisees are addressed, in St. Luke tlie multitudes ' when they were coming crowding up,' iiradpoi'goixevuiv). But the meaning of the ex- planation which our Lord adds is somewhat ob- scure : ' for as Jonah became to the Ninevites a sign, so shall also the Son of Man be to this gen- eration' (Lk.). It is important to notice that the ' sign ' did not consist in the preaching of Jonah and of the Son of Man. Jesus had been preaching already, whereas the sign was still future ('shall be"). And the story of Jonah in the OT does not, of itself, throw any light on the difficulty. Jonah started from Joppa to sail westward (Tarshish), and the storm occurred near enough to the shore to make the sailors tiy to row back for safety. When Jonah, therefore, was vomited up by the fish on to the dry land, it was presumably near Joppa. Then he received the second command to go to Nineveh. According to the story, therefore, Jonah was in no sense a sign to the Ninevites. One of two conclusions is inevitable ; either that there was a ciu'rent Haggadic tradition about Jonah and Nineveh which was known to our Lord and His hearers but has been lost to us, or that the word ' Ninevites ' has supplanted some other word in the original text of St. Luke, having been introduced by the influence of v.^-. St. Matthew obviates the difficulty by omitting the name alto- gether ; but he (or some later writer, cf. Sanday, Bampton Lectures, p. 433) represents our Lord as teaching that 'as "Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale" ( = Jon 1"), so shall the Son of [Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.' The ' sign of Jonah ' is thus the sign of the resurrection. That, and that only, will be the supreme vindication of Christ's Divine mission. [In St. Luke's passage, after v.^** D and some Latin MSS add the har- monistic statement Kal /ca^ws '\wva.s ev rrj KoiXia tov KTjTovs eyevero rpeis rj/tepas /cat rpeh vvKras ovtus Kal 6 vibs TOV dvOpuiTTov ev ttj 75, 'and as Jonah (was) in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so also (is, or shall be) the Son of Man in the earth.' It is conceivable that this was the more original form of the words in St. Matthew]. The question whether this passage necessitates the belief that our Lord accepted the story of Jonah as historic- ally true is dealt with in art. JoxAH.