06.15. Is Jonah Historic?

Chapter 14 Is Jonah Historic? In the preceding chapter a further word was promised concerning Zechariah before treating of the prophet Jonah, the reason for which was that some critics hold to two authors in that book as in Isaiah, the dividing line following Zechariah 8:1-23. The style of the latter half of the book is as different from the first as in the case of the other prophet. Moreover, the evangelist Matthew (Matthew 27:9-10), ascribes Zechariah 11:13 to Jeremiah. This latter apparent discrepancy may be explained by what was said in an earlier chapter about various readings and the errors of copyists; and as to the difference in style, what was said in our treatment of Isaiah applies. Zechariah may have varied his style according to his subject, and those who remember the present writer’s treatment of this book in Synthetic Bible Studies, “Zechariah,” will recall the great difference in subject between the first part and the last. In the first, the prophet’s mind rests mainly on the rebuilding of the temple after the captivity and the reestablishment of the Jewish state at that time, while in the last, he is treating of Millennial conditions for the most part. Then, too, there is only one introduction to the book as in Isaiah’s case.

However, when all is said in favor of a single author, it is still well to keep in mind the words of an old puritan divine that the latter chapters being joined to the prophecies of Zechariah, proves no more that they are his than the like joining of Agur’s proverbs to those of Solomon proves that they are Solomon’s, or that all the Psalms are David’s because they are in the book with his. I do not quite agree with this because in the case of Proverbs, Agur’s name is mentioned as an author which is not the case here, but I give the quotation for what it is worth.

One thing we do know, however, that whether there were two authors or one, the New Testament quotes both parts of the book as alike authoritative and divine, as may be seen by even a cursory comparison of the marginal references. It is interesting to note, too, that next to Isaiah no Old Testament prophet contains so many foreshadowings of the Person and work of our Lord as Zechariah. We do not undervalue the importance of knowing the human authorship of each of these books, and as we have already seen, in some cases the testimony to this authorship is closely related to that of the authority and infallibility of the Bible itself, but it is not so in every instance. Nor is it in the present one, and we should be careful not to give the opponent of the truth the advantage of using such an argument against us. The late D.L. Moody once said at Northfield, in his hard common sense way, that it was “more important to know what Isaiah said than how many Isaiah’s said it,” a remark which has a wider application than to that particular prophet. For myself, I always go back in the last analysis to Jesus Christ. A Bible that he believed in and used is a good enough Bible for me. Was the Zechariah of the twentieth century that of the first? Was Jesus Christ affected by the question whether it had two authors or one? Were any of the apostles in doubt on this point? All these questions were, I trust, satisfactorily answered in the preceding chapters, and while as we now go into details as to some of them for the sake of broader information, let us rest our faith nevertheless on the main postulates which were there seen to be established. And now as to Jonah. There is only a single reference to any prophesying of Jonah in connection with his own people, and that is found in 2 Kings 14:25. It is a prediction he had made concerning the restoration of the coasts of Israel fulfilled in the reign of Jeroboam II somewhere about 800 B.C. showing that Jonah must have flourished at an earlier date, though how much earlier, no one knows. Of his personal history nothing more can be told than that recorded in the same verse with the exception of what we find in his book. That book contains the record of his special mission to the great Gentile city of Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, a story as familiar as that of any of the old patriarchs. Everyone knows how Jonah refused to comply with the divine command, the punishment which befell him, the repentance which followed, his subsequent obedience and the result of his commission both on Nineveh and on himself. Of course, the question will not down. Is this historic? And this is asked not only by those who would fain destroy the Bible and all belief in it, but by others who are solicitous for its claims as truly as anyone can be. These latter insist that the moral uses of the story are not infringed upon if we suppose it, as to its supernatural part, to be a parable. For one, however, I can no more believe this in the case of Jonah than in the almost similar case of Job.

It is not denied by any objector that God could, had he so pleased, have brought it all to pass just as it is recorded. No one will rise up to say that he who made the fish and the man, could not have caused the man to remain alive within the fish. The greater includes the less, and it is not at all a question of God’s power in the premises, but solely a question of his will. Did he will to do this, and did this actually occur? The evidence for the actuality of the whole transaction is found (1), in the way in which it is recorded, there being not the slightest intimation in the book itself, or anywhere else in the Bible, that it is a parable. (2), In the almost unbroken evidence of tradition, the whole of the Jewish nation practically, accepting it as historic. (3). But especially in the testimony of Christ as recorded in Matthew 12:38, and parallel places. There are those who are able to read these words of the Savior in the light of the argument of which they form a part, and say that they allude only to what he knew to be a parable, or an allegory, or a myth, but I am not of their number. Jesus would not have used such an illustration in such a connection, in my judgment, if it were not that of a historic fact.