Jonah 1:6 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

So the ship-master Who had the conduct of the vessel, and from whose mouth such a reproof was seasonable; came and said to him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? A just and necessary reproof this. We cannot but pity Jonah, who needed it: as a prophet of the Lord, if he had been in his place, he might have been reproving the king of Nineveh; but, being out of the way of his duty, he himself lies open to the reproof of a sorry ship-master. See how men, by their sin and folly, make themselves mean! Yet we must admire God's goodness in sending him this seasonable reproof; for it was the first step toward his recovery; as the crowing of the cock was to Peter. “Those that sleep in a storm,” says Henry, “may well be asked what they mean.” Arise, call upon thy God We are here crying every man to his god, why dost thou not get up and cry to thine? Art thou not equally concerned with the rest, both in the danger dreaded, and in the deliverance desired? If so be that God will think upon us With pity, care, and favour; that we perish not That the ship, goods, and men also may not be lost. The word rendered God being in the plural number, and the ship-master, the mariners, and others in the ship being, it appears, idolaters, and knowing nothing of the one living and true God, this clause should undoubtedly be rendered, If so be that the gods will think upon us, &c.