II. S!i/le, Date, etc.- The book of Jonah is a simple narrative, with the exception of the prayer or thanks- giving in chaji. ii. Its style and mode of narration are uniform. There arc no traces of compilation, as Nachti- gall supi)osed ; neither is the prayer, as De Wette {Ein- Idt. § til) imagines, improperly borrowed from some other sources. That prayer contains, indeed, not only imagery peculiar to itself, but also such imagery as at once was suggested to the mind of a pious Hebrew pre- served in circumstances of extreme jeopardy. On this priniiple we account for the similarity of so"me portions of its i)hraseology to Psa. lix, xlii, etc. The language in both places had been hallowed by frequent usage, and had become the consecrated idiom of a distressed and succored Israelite. Perhaps the prayer of Jonah might be uttered by him, not during his mysterious imprison- mont, l)ut after it (ns'rfri ''VT2^, (mf, i. e. wlien out of theph's hdbj ; comjj.lob xix' 20 ; xi, 15). The hvmn seems to have b<.,i, ,„,n],nsc,l afr.r liis deliverance.' and the reason why bis ,l.li\ cian.-,. is ii,,i..,l after the hvmn IS recorded may he I.. >linw the ,,,v,-,si„n of its composi- tion. " The Lord had spoken unto the fish, and it had vomited Jonah on the dry land !" (See further Hau- ber, in his liM. JMnic/ilitw/cn, Lemco. 1753 ; also an ar-
ticU on the sulyect in the B/it. Thcul. .Hay. i, 3, p. 18.)
There was little reason either for dating the compo- sition of this book later than the age of Jonah, or for supposing it the production of another than the prophet himself. The Chaklaisms which Jahn and others find may be accounted for by the nearness of the canton of Zebulon, to which Jonah belonged, to the northern ter- ritory, whence by national intercourse Aramaic pecul- iarities might be insensibly borrowed. (Thus we have njiEp — a ship with a deck — not the more common Hebrew term ; 3"^ — a foreign title applied to the cap- tain; n3T3, to appoint — found, however, in Psa. Ixi, a psalm which Hupfeld without any valid grounds places after the Babylonian captivity; "ipX, to commmul, as in the later books; fi?I^, comviand, referring to the royal decree, and probably taken from the native As- sjTian tongue; ^rn, to rati; a nautical term; and the abbreviated form of the relative, which, however, occurs in other books, etc.) Gesenius and Bertholdt place it before the exile ; Jahn and Koster after it. Rosenmiil- ler supposes the author may have been a contemporary of Jeremiah ; Hitzig postpones it to the period of the Maccabees. The general opinion is that Jonah was the first of the prophets (Rosenmilller, Bp. Lloyd, Davison, Browne, Drake) : Hengstenberg would place him after Amos and Hosea, and, indeed, adheres to the order of the books in the canon for the chronology. He, as well as Hitzig, would identify the author with that of Oba- diah, chiefly on account of the initial " and." The king of Nineveh at this time is supposed (Usher and others) to have been Pul, who is placed by Layard {Nin. and Bah. p. G2i) at B.C. 750 ; but an earlier king, Adramme- lech II, B.C. 840, is regarded as more probable by Drake. — Kitto; Smith; Fairbaini. The date above assigned to Jonah would seem to indicate the husband of the famous Semiramis. See Assyria.
HI. Commentarifs, — The following are the special exegetical helps jexpressly pn the whole Itook, the most important of which we designate by prclixing an aste- risk: Ephraem Syrus,/«./o?i«7« (in "///■. iii. ."iCii': transl. from the Syriac by Burgess, //o;/i////. Lduil. l^o:i, r2mo) ; Basil, In Jonam (in C^yv*. fi. GG) ; Tertullian, Carmen (in 0pp. p. 576); Theiipliylact, Coinmiiitarius (in 0/;jo. iv); BTiim\\i^,Co>n)nenturins: (in Ojip.iv) , hiither,Ausle(/iinff (Wittenb. 152(J, 4to and Svo; Erf. 1526, 1531, 8vo; also in ]Verke, Wittenb. ed. v, 310 ; Jen. iii, 214 ; Alt, iii, 351 ; Lpz. viii, 516 ; Hal. vi, 496 ; in Latin, by Jonas, in 0pp. Yitemb. iv, 404 ; and separately by Opsopaeus, Hag. 1526, 8vo; and Lonekei, Argent. 1526, 8vo); Artopoeus, Com- mentarius (Stet. 1545, Basil, 1558, 8vo) ; Bugenhagen, Expositio (Yitemb. 1550, 1561, Svo); Hooper, Sermons (London, 1550, 12mo ; also in Writings, p. 431) ; Ferus, Commentarius (Lugd. 1554, Antw. 1557, Yen. 1567, Svo; also in German, Coin, 1567, Svo) ; Willich, Commenta- rius [includ. sev. minor proph.] (Basil. 1566, Svo); Sel- necker, Auslei/im;/ [iiuliuling Nalium, etc.] (Lpz. 1567, 4to); Tuscan, ('ciihik utariiis (Yen. 1573, Svo); Calvin, Lectures (trans, by llaxtcr, Lond. 1578, 4to) ; Pomarius, Ausleffun/j (:Mau(lVb. ir.TK. Lpz. 1599, 4to; Stettin, 1664, Svo);' Baron, I'm /,,■/;,„„ .-! (ed. Lake, Lond. 1579, folio) ; Grynsens, Jinarri It in (IJasil. 1581, Svo); Schadffius, Sy- nopsis (Argent. 1588, 4to) ; Junius, Lectiones (Heidelb. 1594,4to; also in 0/);). i, 1327) ; *Kinf^, Lectures (Lond. 1594, 1600, 1611, 1618; Oxf. 1597, 1599, 4to) ; Feuardent, Comwn,i„rlu>< (Colon. 1594, folio; 1595. 8vo).> Abbott, Kxpnsit;,,,, (Lon.l. 1600, 1613, 4to; 1845, 2 vols. 12mo); Wol.krus. l)i,.ro,his [includ. Joel] (Yitemb. 1605, 4to) ; Krackewitz, Commentarius (Hamb. 1610, Giessen, 1611, Svo) ; W\ley,E>-Iddrunf/ (Heidelb. 1614, 4to) ; Tarnovius, Commentarius (Rost. 1616, 1626, 4to) ; Schnepf, Com- mentarius (Rost. 1619, 4to) ; Quarles, Poevi (Lond. 1620, 4to) ; Treminius, Commentarii (Oriolae, 1623, 4to) ; Myli us, Commentarius (Francof. 1624, Regiom. 1640, 4to ; also in his Sylloge, Amst. 1701, fol., p. 976 sq.) ; Urven, Commen- tarius (Antw. 1640, fol.) ; Acosta, Commentarius (Lugd. 1641, fol.) ; Ursinus, Commentarius (Francof. 1642, Svo) ; Paciuchclli, Lezzioni (Yen. 1650, 1600, 1664, 1701, folio;