CRITICAL NOTES.]
Jonah 1:7. Lots] A heathen mode of decision, often permitted by God. “Lots were for
(1) dividing;
(2) consulting;
(3) divining” [Pusey]. Fell upon] Proverbs 16:33.
HOMILETICS
IS THERE NOT A CAUSE?—Jonah 1:7
When great judgments happen there must be great guilt. When a nation, city, or family is brought into danger, it is wise to inquire into the cause. Here we notice—
I. Social danger caused by individual sin. Nature teaches a connection between sin and suffering. They are bound together under God’s government. The connection is not casual. All misery is the result of sin. But while each individual stands for himself, he is also related to others. Nations suffer for the sins of rulers; families, for the sins of parents; and the crew for the sins of its passenger. “This man perished not alone in his iniquity.”
II. Social danger prompting social sympathy. “They said one to another, Come.” Great calamity begets great sympathy. Common sufferings knit kindred feelings and hearts in one. “There was no independent member, no mutinous spirit amongst the crew,” says Mr Exell; “no one suggested another way of relief; all, as though animated by one common impulse, at once accept this test of innocence.”
III. Social danger removed by the providence of God. “Nature forces on our heart a Creator, history a providence,” says Richter. In this narrative we discern the power of God over the elements of nature and the destinies of men.
1. Providence over the phenomena of nature. The storm—no ordinary one—was traced to a cause. The mariners, though not true believers, were not atheists. Their gods could do nothing; perhaps Jonah’s God could help them, whom they called “the God.” Jonah is reproved for want of devotion to him and lackness of duty to his fellow-passengers in peril. Among heathen nations there was a general admission of one supreme ruler over earth and sea; a remnant of the primitive knowledge by which Jehovah left not himself without a witness.
2. Providence over the conduct of men. There must be a cause for this evil; they must find it out, and if possible remove it. They believe some one is guilty, and do not expect that the culprit will tell of himself. They appeal to the higher power, in the only way they know, by lot. The evil is thought of, and not so much the storm. Behind natural phenomena, law, sequence, or cause, they discern moral designs. Man cannot escape his God—(a) In discovering their guilt. Jonah expected to escape, but was found out and his guilt made known. No darkness nor distance can hide the sinner. Murder will out; and it is true in a measure with all sin. Sin tries to deceive with secrecy and then betrays to others. “There is nothing that shall not be revealed.” “God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing.” (b) In deciding their destiny. No event can escape the eye of God, and no step in life be taken without his permission. God overruled the lot, and it fell upon Jonah. How completely are we in the hands of God. Believers trying to forget neglect of duty, and unbelievers refusing to follow Christ, can hide nothing from his all-searching eye. “My times are in thy hand.” “The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.”
CASTING LOTS.—Jonah 1:7
The mariners have now recourse to other means of safety than their exertions or prayers.—Observe in their conduct, First, both the power and defectiveness of conscience. They saw themselves deserving of Divine anger; yet each thought himself less guilty than his fellow. The lanthorn light of conscience in a natural man, gives a general view of some prominent truths sufficient to cause him to pass sentence of condemnation on himself, but it searches not the soul’s recesses, so as to show sin in its extent and sinfulness. Ignorance and pride are impenetrable, and these effects are produced by the powerful aid of the Spirit. When that shines into the soul, a man will make St Paul’s confession his own. Secondly, the light of nature. As conscience shined inwardly, so this outwardly, testifying to a connection between guilt and punishment (Acts 28:4). They saw in the tempest an extraordinary judgment, and surmised (rightly) an extraordinary cause. Perhaps herein the light of nature was aided by that of tradition and some faint glimmerings of Scriptural truth. We are very slow to admit a connection between sin and suffering. We are apt to lay the blame of the latter anywhere but where it should be, on our own transgressions. Thirdly, the influence of superstition. Lots have sometimes been used by Divine appointment. Here is a far less clear warrant for them. Yet we may admit some right principle among these sailors, of referring to a higher Being what seemed beyond the reach of human knowledge to decide. But among the heathen Satan abused them (as other things of a similar kind, such as divination) to an execrable superstition, and the establishment of his own dominion (Esther 3:7; Ezekiel 21:21; Isaiah 20:3). Both in ancient and modern times they have been abused to serve the avarice and evil passions of men, and have proved the source of misery, contention, and bloodshed (Joel 3:3; Obadiah 1:11; John 19:23). We are seldom if ever warranted to have recourse to lots. We have a full and sufficient guide in the Scriptures, and can never be justified in using this guide, as some do, in the way of a lottery [Sibthorp].
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
This evil. Suffering, penal and social.
Guilt disowned and discovered in the lot. “In this procedure, there are two things to be attended to:—First, the fact that each man by making this proposal and going into it disowns the guilt: and second, the method by which they propose to discover it [Martin].
Upon Jonah
1. Who is to be pitied for his guilt and humiliation.
2. Rejoiced over, because stopped in his wandering from God and about to be restored.
God’s controversy is sometimes greater with his people and more severely prosecuted than against Pagans and gross idolaters. For—
1. Rebellion is idolatry (1 Samuel 15:23), and so much the grosser as it is in a child.
2. Though they worshipped that which was no god, yet none of them had so behaved towards a supposed Deity, as he had done towards the true God.
3. God may wink at sins in Pagans, but will not let his own children go on unreclaimed (Amos 3:2), it being mercy to pursue them for their folly and amend them [Hutcheson].
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 1
Jonah 1:7. Lots. Religion, even in its rudest forms, has always been faithful to its general principle thus far, that when the anger of the Divinity has been apprehended, it has been understood to be against sins and crimes; and also that the Divinity was believed to know who was the criminal. The mariners, therefore, referred it to the avenging Power to point out the criminal by a common ancient practice. A reference this not to chance, but to a superior intelligence. Could our prophet have any doubt where. the lot would fall? No: his conscience must have been a prophet to him [John Foster].