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, 781-770),'had great difficulty in maintaining his position against the rising power of Armenia, though he found time for one attack on Syria. The following period, during the reigns of Asshur-danil and Asshnr-nirari, or Asshur-lush, np to B.o. 750, was one of internal commo- tion and distress, and allowed no leisure for foreign conquest. It is very probable that Jonah's mission was executed towards the close of Jeroboam's reign, when the Assyrian monarchy was weakened by revolt, and the country was suffering from plague and famine. Both king and people were thus more disposed to listen to the warning of a man of God, and to endeavour to avert imminent ruin by timely, though superficial, repentance. Possibly, too, the preaching of Jonah may have synchronized with the famous eclipse which happened on June 15, B.O. 763, as mentioned in the Assyrian records, and which was regarded as a very evil omen. Some critics, who cannot away with the miraculous portion of this book, have endeavoured to throw discredit upon it by assigning to it a date later than Jonah's time, some giving it a post-exilic origin, others assigning it to the Maccabean age. They seek for proof of this assertion in the language employed, and in the use made of the Psalms in J onah's prayer. The complete refutation of this hypothesis may be seen in Keil's and Dr. Pusey's commentaries. We here need only say that the so-called late Ara.ma.isms cannot be proved to be unknown to the earlier Hebrew, and the only non- Hebraic word, ta(J/111,, is a Syriac expression which Jonah heard at Nineveh in the sense of " decree," and in trod need into his own narrative. The· phrases in the prayer (eh. ii.), which are also found in the Psalms, are either taken from those written by David and his contemporaries, which, of course, were well known long before Jonah's day, or (in the case of the two in ver. 7 and ver. 2) may have been borrowed by the authors of the Psalms (Ps. cxlii. 3; cxx. 1) from Jonah. And as to the statement in eh. iii. 3, that "Nineveh was an exceeding great city," from which Kuenen deduces the inference that the book was written after its destruction, we need only remark that the observation is introduced parenthetically, to explain the reason for the time that the prophet took in traversing it, and that it merely asserts that, at the period of Jonah's visit, Nineveh was of large extent. Such criticisms have no weight, and, as Dr. Pusey says, per- haps somewhat too harshly, "are founded, not on the study of the language, but on nnbeliet" § IV. GENERAL CHARACTER. The Book of Jonah is a history, not a prophecy; it is inserted among the prophel,s, partly because its author bears this title (2 Kings xiv. 25), but chiefly because of its didactic and symbolical purpose. But in it there is THE BOOK OF JON AH. ix
no moralizing, no reflection; it is simple narrative, verging here and there into poetry, as in the prayer from the fish's belly, and where the subject suits en.eh variation, The tale is told graphically, and has quite a dramatio interest, advancing in regular stages to tbo conclusion, and leaving an impression upon the mind as though its various scenes had been enacted before the eyes of the reader. There is not a word too mncb; all that is essential to the understanding of the transaction is said, and nothing more. There is no trace of additions, interpolations, various authorities. The prayer (eh. ii.) bears the stamp of genuineness, being not a cry of repent- ance or a petition for preservation, which a forger or romancer won.Id ha.ve introdn.cecl,.bn.t a thanksgiving, an expression of hope and trust, which alone suits the prophet's character (Schegg). There is a wonderful simplicity in the narrative, though it deals largely with the supernatural. The miracles of the fish and" the gourd" are introduced naturally. Such inter- positions of God need no explanation in J onah'e view ; they are the not unusual workings of Providence, such as he had heard of in the case of Elijah, en.eh as happened often to the great Prophet Elisha. All is unforced, uniform, plain; vivid, indeed, and picturesque, but without effort, and effective rather from its truth, reality, an.d naturalness, than from elevation of language or rhetorical artifice. The miraculous element in the book has led many critics to doubt its historical character, and to consider it as romance, allegory, or parable. The miracles, they say, are so prodigious, so wanting in sufficient motive, as to be utterly incredible, and to prove that the writer manifestly intends hie work to be regarded as a fiction with a didactic purpose, like some of those writings which are preserved in our Apocrypha. Others see in it only a dream ; others, again, regard it as a Jewish adaptation of a Greek or Babylonian myth; others explain away the supernatural portion of the story, as e.g. that Jonah was saved by a vessel which was called, or bore as its emblem, a sea-monster. Against all these suggestions we must place the fact that the work comes before n.s as history; and we need very strong arguments to dislodge us from this position. Sn.eh, however, are not pro- duced; and we should have heard nothing of them were it not for the unbelief in the supernatural which underlies all such criticism, or a tendency to reject, prima facie, all narratives which do not meet the standard of evidence which modern critics set up and worship. Of course, there is in itself nothing repugnant to reverence in considering the book e.s an inspired allegory intended to set forth certain great spiritual truths, 11,s, for instance, the temporary death of the Jewish nation and its resurrection e.new to a national existence (Wright, 'Biblical Essays,' p. 70); but does the work confirm such view P We think not. In the first place, it is plain that the Jews themselves regarded the book e.e historical. Tobit (xiv. 4-6, 15) bases his advice to his eon upon the certainty of the fulfilment of Jonah's prediction. Josephus (' Ant.,' ix, 10. 1, 2) recounts the story as containing all that is known of the Prophet X INTRODUCTION TO