CRITICAL NOTES.]
Jonah 1:8. Tell] How urgent and earnest this examination! Fit questions for our own hearts!
Jonah 1:9. Hebrew] A name by which an Israelite was known to foreigners (Genesis 40:15; Exodus 3:18). The God] Heathens had distinct gods for heaven, earth, and sea.
Jonah 1:10. Afraid] They had heard of, now they felt the power of Jehovah.
HOMILETICS
URGENT QUESTIONS.—Jonah 1:8
Most admirable is the dealing of these heathens with the prophet of God. They are in great danger, but press not his ruin; do not condemn him without opportunity to clear himself. They inquire concerning him—(a) mildly, (b) minutely, (c) briefly, and (d) urgently. Their patience was greater than many Christians would have displayed in similar circumstances.
I. Apply the questions to Jonah. “These questions must have gone home to Jonah’s conscience. What is thy business? The office of a prophet which he had left. Whence comest thou? From standing before God as his minister. What thy country? Of what people art thou? The people of God whom he had quitted for heathen; not to win them to God, as he commanded; but not knowing what they did to abet him in his flight” [Pusey].
II. Apply the questions to ourselves. Pause amid the excitements, hurry, and concerns of life, and ask what is our present business—the work of God, or the service of Satan? What our country—the world, or the kingdom of Christ? Are we content with earth, or do we seek “a better country”? Of what people? Of the people of God, or those living without God? Some live in holiness and others in sin; some by faith and others by sense. Whom dost thou join now, for they are thine, and with them thou shalt have thy portion? And whence comest thou? Trace thy origin from God as a holy being, from thy parents as born in sin. If saved, thou comest out of darkness into light, from the power of Satan unto God. But whither goest thou? What is your aim, and what will be the end of your life?
CONFESSION OF FAITH AND OF GUILT.—Jonah 1:9-10
I. Jonah confesses his faith. A confession as unreserved as his guilt was aggravating.
1. He was a Hebrew. A name designating Abraham’s descendants, and indicating great privileges and advantages. One of the peculiar people. We have been adopted into Israel’s position. To us belong the oracles of God. Our sins are more dishonouring to God than those of Pagans.
2. He was a servant of God. “I fear Jehovah.” He distinctly avows his religion besides his nationality. He thus confirms the light and condemns the practice of the sailors; candidly confesses his own guilt, and puts to shame many professors, who hide their light and disown their Master. He feared; though his conduct belied his profession, yet he reverently feared and worshipped Jehovah.
(1) His God was the Creator of heaven and earth. He exalts him above the local deities of heaven, sea, and land; directs the mariners’ thoughts from their own lying vanities to the living and true God. His God did not partition the universe into provinces, but governed all things and could help them in the storm.
(2) His God was Jehovah. The great and significant name by which God (according to his own use of it) revealed Himself as the covenant-making and covenant-keeping God of a chosen people. One God and only One, Maker and Ruler of the universe; Guide and Saviour of men. Thus he invites all to come and put their trust under the shadow of his wing (Exodus 6:2-8; Psalms 68:4; Romans 3:1-2).
II. Jonah confesses his guilt. What a change in the prophet.
1. He makes a bold confession. He shrank from distant danger at first, now lays himself open to reproach, contempt, and death.
2. He makes a full confession. He has no reserve, but severely condemns himself in the presence of the crew. “It is easy to keep the flag up when it is nailed to the mast; but to hoist it in the face of the enemy after we have been sailing with him, yard-arm and yard-arm, under false colours, is hard—so hard that many surrender—are long led captive by Satan at his will, and delivered only through severe affliction or deep disgrace.”
3. He made a difficult confession. He had neglected his duty and hid his religion; he had refused to help the crew and told them that he was in conflict with Jehovah; that his conduct was wicked, not a revolt against the arbitrary rule of a local divinity, but against his Maker and theirs, and had involved them in contest with his infinite power and truth. This was hard, but he did it, and proved the sincerity of his penitence and the reality of God’s gracious work in his heart. “Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God: which made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: which keepeth truth for ever.”
AGGRAVATIONS OF THE GUILT OF BACKSLIDING.—Jonah 1:9-10
Are you a true worshipper and servant of God? Are you like Jonah overtaken by Divine displeasure in a course of disobedience? And are you at last humbled to own your guilt? Then you will acknowledge these three things in the exceeding sinfulness of your sin—the three elements which appear in the guilt of Jonah and expressly owned by himself.
1. Against what God is in himself. Jonah owns that he has sinned; against “Jehovah, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land.”
2. Against what God has been to him. Jonah confesses that he has sinned; “I am an Hebrew:” a member of the people whose God Jehovah is, for whom Jehovah hath done great things; to whom he hath given “the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the law, and the service of God, and the promises, whose are the fathers,” &c.
3. Against what he himself has been to God. Jonah owns that he had sinned: “I fear Jehovah;” I am one of his servants; I have been enrolled among the true Israel—a true child of the covenant—a messenger of it also, standing in the counsel and in the secret of the Most High; for “the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him.” By all these three considerations Jonah ought to have been restrained from sinning and retained in his loyalty to God. The glory of God—the God of heaven, of the sea, and of the dry land—ought to have restrained him. The graciousness of God towards himself ought to have restrained him. And the grace of God in himself ought to have restrained him. And when, in the face of all these three considerations, his disobedience breaks forth and carries him impetuously away, do they not all go to aggravate the guilt which he contracts [Hugh Martin]?
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Jonah 1:8. Public insight into private life [Exell].
Jonah 1:10. Feared. By receiving Jonah, they had opposed God, whose power and supremacy they now perceived. Notice that God glorifies himself above idols, and often constrains men to render homage,—that the more men see of God’s judgments for sin, the more they should fear him; that “such fear is the beginning of conversion, when men turn from dwelling on the distresses which surround them to God who sent them.”
Why hast thou done this?
1. Words of amazement. The worshipper of Jehovah thinking to escape by flight! Convinced sinners often marvel at the inconsistencies of professed believers.
2. Words of humanity. They expostulate instead of punishing him.
3. Words of rebuke. None injure us so much as those who bring us under the wrath of God. Let us not add the blood of others to the guilt of our own sin.
The question for the backslider. “Why hast thou done this?” Did you not like the work God gave you to do? Did not religion answer your expectations? After trial, have you found that the world is better than Christ? Let all take the warning against disobedience, and learn that happiness consists only in walking with God and obeying his commands. “If his anger be kindled, yea, but a little, blessed are all they that put their trust in him.”
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 1
Jonah 1:8. How natural the questions!
“Say, strangers, for what cause
Explore your ways unknown? or whither tends
Your voyage here? Whence come you? From what race
Derived? And bring you hither peace or war?” [Trapp’s Virgil.]