Jonah 1:6 - John Trapp Complete Commentary

Bible Comments

So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not.

Ver. 6. So the shipmaster came unto him] God might have come himself with his drawn sword (as Baanah and Rechab did upon sleeping Ishbosheth) and taken off his head, or have sent an evil angel to arouse him in a fright, or have thrown him into the burning lake, as Agrippa did his dormouse a into the boiling caldron; but such is not God's manner of dealing with his people, though he be deeply displeased. Correct them he will, but with judgment, not in his anger, lest they be brought to nothing, Jeremiah 10:24. Instruct them also he will ("Corrections of instruction are the way of life," Pro 6:23) by one means or other, as he did here Jonah by a rude mariner, and as long before he had done Abraham and Sarah by Abimelech, a heathen prince, to shame them.

What meanest thou, O sleeper?] Heb. what is come to thee? Genesis 20:9. What a senseless stupidity hath seized thee! Are we all in danger, and dost thou sleep? as the philosopher (in danger likewise of shipwreck) said to one that made light of it, - Do we all stand upon our lives, and dost thou play the fool? ημεις παντες κινδυνευπμεν. και συ παιζεις; The spiritual sleeper, in like sort, may he be but warm in his own feathers, regards not the danger of the house. He is, saith one, a mere mute and cipher, a nullity in the world, a superfluity in the earth, Jeremiah's rotten girdle, good for nothing, or like the branches of a vine, Ezekiel 15:3 .

Arise, call upon thy God] For our gods will do nothing for us. The gods of the heathen are "silver and gold, the work of men's hands; they have mouths, but speak not," &c., Psalms 115:4. But if God's Israel trust in the Lord, he will be their help and their shield, John 1:9. Forasmuch as there is none like unto him, Jeremiah 10:6; neither is "their rock as our Rock, our enemies themselves being judges," Deuteronomy 32:31 .

If so be that God will think upon us] The Chaldee hath it, will be merciful unto us; the Hebrew word signifieth will clear up, and behold us with a serene countenance; granting us a calm, and taking care that we perish not. So shall we acknowledge him to be Haelohim, that God by an excellency. Queen Elizabeth (that Regina Serenissima most unruffled Queen), for her merciful returning home certain Italians that were taken prisoners in the 1588 invasion, was termed Saint Elizabeth by some at Venice; who also affirmed to the English ambassador there, that though they were Papists, yet they would never pray to any other saint but that Saint Elizabeth.

a A sleepy or dozing person. ŒD

Jonah 1:6

6 So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not.