1:1, 2 Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD; and he went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. But the LORD sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken. Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god; and they cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it unto them. But Jonah was gone down into the innermost parts of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep. 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. And they said every one to his fellow, Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah. Then said they unto him, Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us; what is thine occupation? and whence comest thou? what is 9 thy country? and of what people art thou? And he said unto them, I am an Hebrew; and 10 I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land. Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, What is this that thou hast done? For the 11 men knew that he fled from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them. Then said they unto him, What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us? for the sea 12 grew more and more tempestuous. And he said unto them, Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this great tem- 13 pest is upon you. Nevertheless the men rowed hard to get them back to the land; but they 14 could not: for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. Wherefore they cried unto the LORD, and said, We beseech thee, O LORD, we beseech thee, let us not perish for this man’s life, and lay not upon us innocent blood: for thou, O LORD, hast done as it 15 pleased thee. So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased 16 from her raging. Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly: and they offered a sacrifice 17 unto the LORD, and made vows. And the LORD prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah; 18:1 and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Then Jonah prayed 2 unto the LORD his God out of the fish’s belly. And he said, I called by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, And he answered me; Out of the belly of hell cried I, And thou heardest my voice. 3 For thou didst cast me into the depth, in the heart of the seas, And the flood was round about me; All thy waves and thy billows passed over me. 4 And I said, I am cast out from before thine eyes; Yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. 5 The waters compassed me about, even to the soul; The deep was round about me; The weeds were wrapped about my head. 6 I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; The earth with her bars closed upon me for ever: Yet hast thou brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God. 7 When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the LORD: And my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple. 8 They that regard lying vanities Forsake their own mercy. 9 But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that which I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD. 10 And the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.

ALL that is known of Jonah’s origin is that he was the son of Amittai, of the village of Gath-hepher (in the tribe of Zebulun), about six miles northeast of Nazareth. From 2 K. 14:25 we learn that he predicted the successes of Jeroboam II., the son of Joash of Israel. He must have uttered this prediction during the reign of Joash, probably soon after the death of Elisha. The story of his mission to Nineveh is the only other reference to Jonah. This brief Scripture of four chapters is a narra- tive rather than a prophecy. In this book Is- rael is not mentioned, though referred to in every other prophetic writing. Only Nine- veh, a heathen city, is spoken of. And a chief purpose of the record, as well as of the Divine mission it narrates, was to reprove and to warn the chosen people of God at a period of solemn crisis in their history. Here was a heathen people ready to hear and heed God’s warning, at its first and only utterance by a stranger of a scorned race. But Israel, though often be- sought by God, for centuries distinguished by His peculiar favors, under circumstances of miraculous supply and deliverance, with mul- tiplied agencies of instruction and guidance— Israel had long refused to heed God’s call to re- pentance.

The strange character and conduct of the actor, the singular mixture of self-will and petulance with real consecration in the man’s spirit, his effort to get away from God while conscious of the futility of that effort, his prayerful submission and obedience after God’s inflicted chastening, and his inconsistent repining at the repentance of the Ninevites, which he himself has urged upon them—all reveal Jonah as a paradox in character and conduct. But our Lord asserts the truth and expounds the meaning of the story. He tells us that the wonderful experience of Jonah was designed as a type of his own death and burial and resurrection. And He emphasizes the purpose of the record, already referred to, by applying to his own generation the lesson conveyed by the repentance of the Ninevites at the single preaching of so imperfect a man.

Coming after Elijah and Elisha, in comparison with their grandly effective lives, this prophet of Gath-hepher presents very little that is attractive. His fretful, repining spirit and boldness with God at the last, remind us of Elijah’s one defection. And we must do him this justice, that he tells the story of his defection and his infirmities of spirit with the utmost frankness, and that he tells us nothing besides of all the good and true work God gave him to do. His history may have included many bright and happy obediences.

Chaps. 1, 2. From the first Divine bidding to go to Nineveh he flees in an opposite direction, thinking thus to escape from the spirit of prophecy (or the presence of the Lord), by going beyond the bounds of Israel. Not having enough of faith or courage or humility to comply with the prophetic impulses given him, he sought a strange and heathen locality that he might be freed from them. How God followed him, and set various miraculous agencies at work to check his self-willed flight, chastening him into reflection and return of prayerful, contrite spirit, and bringing him back to his own land, Jonah faithfully records in the first and second chapters. B.

Chap. 1. Jonah is commissioned to go to Nineveh and forewarn them of their destruction (verses 1, 2). He attempts to flee away to Spain instead (verse 3); a tempest from the Lord arrests the ship (verses 4-11); he is thrown overboard and caught up by a great fish (verses 11-17). H. C.

Who fails to see here a vivid display of the power, the justice, and the purpose of God? Every little detail—Jonah’s flight and seeming security, the storm, the distress of the mariners, the casting of lots, the unavailing efforts to escape, the reluctant pitching into the sea, and the quiet that followed—concurs to heighten the picture of Jehovah’s control of the winds and the waves, of His power to rebuke and chastise under all circumstances, and of His inflexible purpose that grace shall be shown to the godless heathen of Nineveh. Chambers.

2. Nineveh, on the eastern bank of the Tigris, opposite the site of the modern Mosul, for many ages past in ruins, has been discovered and its ruins somewhat thoroughly explored in the present century. It was the capital of ancient Assyria, one of the oldest cities since the flood (Gen. 10:11, 12), long celebrated for its size, wealth, and magnificence. At this time its wickedness had come up before God, and He mercifully sent to them a prophet from Israel to forewarn them of impending ruin and exhort them to repent. H. C.

The Jews were tempted to think of God as bound by a special covenant to one chosen race, and leaving the rest of the world to perish. Nothing could more signally rebuke such ignorance and prejudice as the mission of Jonah to Nineveh. Go and tell that people that there is a righteous God in heaven, who will by no means clear the guilty, whose eyes are in all the earth; but tell them also that what He is to His chosen, covenant people of Israel, He will be to all mankind—a God passing by iniquity, transgression, and sin to all those who truly repent and turn from their wickedness.

This universality of the religion of Israel is the substance of the message sent by Jonah, and it is sent through him to all nations and all times. The God who cares for Nineveh is the God who cares for the world. Redford.

3. Jonah resolved not to obey God’s voice. What a glimpse into the prophetic office that gives us! The Divine Spirit could be resisted, and the prophet was no mere machine, but a living man, who had to consent with his devoted will to bear the burden of the Lord. One refused, and his refusal teaches us how superb and self-sacrificing was the faithfulness of the rest. So we have each to do with God’s message entrusted to us. We must bow our wills, and sink our prejudices, and sacrifice our tastes, and say, “Here am I; send me.” A. M.

Joppa. Japho, or Joppa, now Jaffa, or Yafa, has a continuous history in both sacred and profane story to the present, caused chiefly by its being the seaport of Jerusalem. In the monotonous line of coast, one elevated knoll rises about half way between the Desert and Carmel, covered with buildings, the solitary existing landing-place for Judea. Joppa has been often destroyed, but rebuilt after the same old fashion, with curious beehive-shaped little domes for roofs. Its houses still fill the extent of the old walls, while a single gate opens on the road to Lydda, the first stage toward Jerusalem. Tristram.

It is now quite settled among critics that “Tarshish” was the city Tartessus, in Spain, with which the Phoenicians kept up an active trade by sea. Jonah thought to escape the responsibility of his unwelcome commission to Nineveh by taking ship at once to Tarshish. The narrative is particular to state repeatedly that this was “fleeing from the presence of the Lord”—as if there would be no God in Tarshish to make him trouble! or at least, as if God could not object to his laying down his prophetic office, and going abroad to foreign lands. H. C.

Jonah tried to get away from his conscience by starting for Tarshish instead of starting for Nineveh—that is, by doing something else instead of doing the one thing which he knew God required. Most of us have tried the same experiment. Jonah found that Jehovah has infinite resources, both natural and supernatural—in his case, the winds, the sea, the hearts of heathen sailors and of Jonah himself, the fall of the lot, the great fish—to prevent our thus escaping His call to duty. Other men have had the same experience. Jonah found, further, that Jehovah has also boundless resources—in this case, including the whole history and organization of the Assyrian empire—for helping one who, in His fear, attempts a discouraging duty. It would be well for us all to learn this lesson better. Jonah was reminded that it is not worth while to discredit what God says, for fear of injuring God’s reputation. The book teaches that God is merciful, and accepts the repentant. For illustrating and enforcing these and other like truths, the Book of Jonah is peculiarly rich and edifying. We should not allow our attention to be diverted from these truths by discussion concerning other matters. W. J. B.

There is nothing to show that Jonah was constitutionally a coward. One would rather think, from his conduct at sea, that he was what the world might have called a fearless man. But he shrank from Divine duty. He was afraid of executing God’s commission in Assyria for this reason, as he afterward explains it himself: “I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that Thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest Thee of the evil.” Strange reason, indeed! showing that he was afraid of being disgraced in Nineveh by the denunciation he was to utter not being fulfilled; afraid lest

God should change His mind and leave His servant, as he fancied, covered with dishonor, and stigmatized as a false prophet. He could not trust himself and his reputation and influence to God. He was watchful over these, and afraid of these, as many people are; fearing to pursue the clear path of duty lest their credit should suffer, lest they should sink in human estimation. They have not courage to trust in God, therefore they trust in themselves; as though they fancied they were in better keeping when self-kept than when Divinely kept. P. Fairbairn.

Jonah represents the national feelings which he shared. Why did he refuse to go to Nineveh? Not because he was afraid of his life, or thought the task hopeless. He refused because he feared success. God’s goodness was being stretched rather too far if it was going to take in Nineveh. Jonah grudged that heathen should share Israel’s privileges, and probably thought that the gain to Nineveh would be loss to Israel. It was exactly the spirit of the prodigal’s elder brother. There was also working in him the concern for his own reputation, which would be damaged if the threats he uttered turned out to be thunder without lightning, by reason of the repentance of Nineveh. A. M.

6. “Arise, call upon thy God!” And to think that a prophet of the Lord should be the only one in the company that could not, dared not, do this! Observe, there is no situation more pitiable than that of a religious man who has disabled himself to take the benefit of his religion. His associates had various gods; but they could all pray earnestly to their objects of adoration. He could not; he, who knew the real Lord of the land and the ocean. J. F.—This rousing call must have stung the sleeper, especially when, having fully awakened, he saw that God had met him in his guilty way, and had brought such peril upon others for his sake.

7. The “lot” was practically an appeal to God to decide a pending question by His providence. In this case the Lord took the disposal of the lot, according to Prov. 16:33: “The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.” It put the finger of God upon Jonah. H. C.

8. That the shipmen do not at once act upon the result of the lot by throwing Jonah overboard, but set themselves first to search out the real circumstances of his case, exhibits in a very favorable light their fairness and humanity. Possibly, also, the gravity and decorum which marked the prophet’s demeanor had moved their respect. B. C.

8-10. The alarm felt by those sailors was greatly increased when Jonah told them that the God whom he feared and worshipped was that great God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land. They could not help rebuking him. How couldest thou offend such a God? See what comes of it! Didst thou think to escape the wrath and the reach of so great a God? H. C.

12. Cast me forth. There can be no doubt that Jonah is here speaking under a prophetic impulse. That he should be thrown overboard and saved in a fish was the very course of things contemplated, as it should seem, by God in this part of Jonah’s history; and it was the drawing of the Divine will working inwardly upon the prophet’s soul, as well as his penitential and yet sublimely heroical self-surrender thereto, that led him to propose to the shipmen that they should dispose of him in this particular way rather than in any other. I know. He speaks as a prophet, both in confirming the strong surmise they had themselves formed, and also in promising that the sea should be calm to them when they were no longer burdened with his guilt. B. C.

Under God, and at the mouth of God, Jonah becomes judge in his own case; and he judges even in his own case with all the relentless righteousness which the sternest judge in any case could exhibit. No half measure, no compromise, no delay, no alternative; the one clear, immediate, complete, irrevocable, final doom: “Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea.” Now, try and conceive of the height of true moral grandeur to which Jonah at this moment rises. He is clearly and consciously facing eternity; and he “fears God.” He has been a regular, habitual fear of God; and he truly fears God still. He has offended the Most High of late. He has fled from Him. At this very moment he has terrible experience of the power wherewith his Almighty God can prosecute an offence against His honor and bring the offender to punishment. Yet Jonah quails not; he denies not his own guilt. He denies not the Lord’s righteousness. R. P. S.

Jonah’s conduct in the storm is no less noble than his former conduct had been base. The burst of the tempest blew away all the fog from his mind, and he saw the stars again. His confession of faith; his calm conviction that he was the cause of the storm; his quiet, unhesitating command to throw him into the wild chaos foaming about the ship; his willing acacceptance of death as the wages of his sin—all tell how true a saint he was in the depths of his soul. A. M.

Jonah stands there on the tossing deck, self-condemned indeed, but his whole attitude is noble. His fault has risen upon him at once in its full magnitude. He neither denies nor extenuates it; he confesses it fully, and he offers himself in atonement therefor. He betrays no unmanly terror in his own behalf, and displays a sweet concern for the saving of those upon whom he has brought great peril. There is something truly sublime in the figure which at this moment he presents to us as he stands among the mariners while the sea foam breaks around him—self-abased, yet noble with the dignity of a reawakened spiritual manhood—and calmly devotes himself to death: “Take me up and cast me forth into the sea. So shall the sea be calm for you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.” No wonder that the sailors, profoundly touched by the act, struggled to the verge of hope ere they could find heart to sacrifice this man. McCook.

13-16. The behavior of the heathen sailors, or “salts,” as the story calls them, is part of the lesson of the book; for, heathen as they are, they have yet a sense of dependence, and they pray; they are full of courage, battling with the storm, jettisoning the cargo, and doing everything possible to save the ship. Their treatment of Jonah is generous and chivalrous. Even when they hear his crime, and know that the storm is howling like a wild beast for him, they are unwilling to throw him overboard without one more effort; and when at last they do it, their prayer is for forgiveness, inasmuch as they are but carrying out the will of Jehovah. They are so much touched by the whole incident that they offer sacrifices to the God of the Hebrews, and are, in some sense, and possibly but for a time, worshippers of Him. All this holds the mirror up to Israel by showing how much of human kindness and generosity, and how much of susceptibility for the truth which Israel had to declare, lay in rude hearts beyond its pale. This crew of heathen of various nationalities and idols were yet men who could be kind to a renegade prophet, peril their lives to save his, and worship Jehovah. “I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel,” is the same lesson in another form. We may find abundant opportunities for learning it; for the characters of godless men, and of some among the heathen, may well shame many a Christian. A. M.

Surely the scene that followed is far too touching and beautiful, too deeply significant and impressive, to be fiction. Only the inspiration of God could suggest such facts, and God would never inspire a mere fiction for a place in His word. “Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring it to the land; but they could not: for the sea wrought and was tempestuous against them. Wherefore they cried unto the Lord, and said, We beseech Thee, O Lord, we beseech Thee, let us not perish for this man’s life, and lay not upon us innocent blood: for Thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased Thee.” There is nothing in all fiction to compare with this. The influence of Jonah’s lofty self-surrender had its effect, no doubt, on the men, and they were under the impression of the nearness of God and the solemnity of the crisis. “Those men, rowing hard, are preaching with every stroke the deepest Gospel they know—working up to their last energies on behalf of a fellow-creature in great and awful straits, and hoping that it may be the will of the Most High at length to favor their endeavor.” Then it is very remarkable that they are led on to prayer—a very beautiful and suitable prayer—before they put themselves, as it were, in the hands of God by casting out Jonah into the deep. Rolford.

They did what they could. They were true to the best instincts of the human mind. They did not know God, and therefore could not call upon Him. They knew, however, that there was a Providence, and that there were powers—ruling powers—above men, laws and forces. They believed in gods, and to the gods they cried. Honor their honesty, while you deplore their ignorance; reverence their worship, while you turn away from the objects of it. Raleigh.

17. The Lord prepared a great fish.** That is, literally, “assigned” or “appointed.” So, farther on, “prepared a gourd,” “prepared a worm,” “prepared a sultry east wind.” There is nothing to indicate that the great fish was or was not specially created for the occasion. The Jews were no naturalists, and were not familiar with the monsters of the deep; and the word does not imply “a whale” in the restricted sense in which we apply it. The Greeks used the word rendered “whale” in the Gospel for all great sea monsters, and included expressly sharks, dolphins and tunisies. The cavil about the small throat of the whale rendering the swallowing of a man impossible applies only to an incorrect rendering of modern versions. Sea monsters of such a size that they can swallow a man whole, and which can only swallow their prey whole, are found in the Mediterranean. The white shark, for ininstance, which has simply cutting teeth, or incisors, has no choice between swallowing its prey whole or cutting off a portion. It cannot hold its prey or swallow it piecemeal. There are many instances on record of this shark having gulped down both living and dead men without mutilating them. Even a horse has been found whole in the stomach of one of these sharks. Müller, a most trustworthy naturalist, relates an instance which occurred in A.D. 1758, in the Mediterranean, of a sailor seized by a shark, which had him in its throat when the instant discharge of a gun struck it, and forced it to disgorge the man alive. The sailor afterward went about Europe exhibiting the monster from which he had been delivered. In 1877 one was washed ashore near Sidon which measured sixty feet in length. The spermaceti whale, which has also been found in the Mediterranean, has a throat capacious enough to receive a man. After all, the fact is to be accepted as an extraordinary intervention of Divine power, and as standing on the same footing as the other miracles of Scripture. Tristram.

The word which our Lord adopted from the Septuagint version, cctos, though now it gives its name to the whole class of Cetacea, whales, dolphins, etc., was used by the ancients in a much wider sense, and Photius expressly classes under it the white shark, Canis carcharias, common in the Mediterranean. There is not the slightest doubt that this creature can swallow a man with ease. The miracle remains the same, that Jonah was preserved alive beneath the waters for the same length of time that our Lord lay in the grave—viz., one whole day and a small part of two others; but it does not involve the necessity of the creation of a fish specially for this purpose. R. P. S.

There was nothing miraculous in Jonah’s being swallowed up, alive and whole, by a fish; but that he continued alive in the fish for three days and was then yielded up alive was altogether miraculous. It is indeed professedly as a miracle that the fact is exhibited to us in Scripture; our Lord repeatedly called it “the sign” (i.e., the miracle) “of the prophet Jonah” (Matt 12:39; 16:4). The fact is, therefore, to be accepted as an extraordinary intervention of Divine power, and as standing on the same footing as the other miracles recorded in Scripture. It is not more difficult to believe than many others; not more difficult, for example, than the “sleep” and “awaking” of Lazarus. And its typological bearing may reasonably be regarded both as its raison d’être and as evidence of its especial credibility.

Our Lord pointed to Jonah’s entombment in the belly of the fish as furnishing a likeness to His being “three days and three nights in the heart of the earth;” while He also repeatedly spoke in more general terms of the “sign of Jonah” being reproduced in His own person (Matt. 12:40; 16:4; Luke 11:30). To this Christ must also be supposed to have referred when, after His resurrection, He showed to His disciples that “thus it was written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise again the third day” (Luke 24:46); as likewise must Paul, when, as he was plainly wont to do, he taught that Christ “was buried, and rose again the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:4). For there is no other passage in the Old Testament Scriptures which could serve as a basis to this particular designation of time. It follows that Christ and His apostles were accustomed to point to Jonah’s entombment in the fish, not merely as an occurrence to which His own entombment might be compared, but as a prediction so definite as to require to be verified by such fulfilment; so definite that it therefore “behooved Christ to rise again the third day.” And this is an important fact for estimating this particular of Jonah’s history. For we may in all reverence infer that this most strange and otherwise utterly unaccountable circumstance was ordered by Divine Providence for the very purpose of furnishing a typical prediction, in which both the Lord Jesus Himself (Luke 18:31, 33), and His Church as taught by Him, should recognize the distinct foreshadowing of His preordained death and resurrection. Those who seriously believe in the vast significance for mankind of those great events, will find it reasonable to suppose that, if any events at all were to be typically foretold in the Old Testament, these should be; and, on the other hand, if this part of Jonah’s history wears to our minds the aspect of being beyond all measure strange, we must consider that any typical representation of events in themselves so beyond all parallel marvellous could not fail, if viewed apart from such typical meaning, to wear just this very aspect. The all but consummated sacrifice of Isaac by his father is a piece of history which stands in this respect by the side of Jonah’s three days’ burial in the fish. Either narrative, if regarded by itself, shocks all the sense of probability; either, when regarded as typical, is seen to be in strict accordance with the main purpose of Divine revelation, which is the exhibition to the world of Christ. B. C.

Jesus used the Gospel to interpret the facts occurring before the Gospel day. The literal incident of the raising of the serpent is to Him more than a historic fact. It is penetrated with a Gospel light to one standing in the new dispensation. So is the narrative of Jonah. No mere Jew saw the resurrection of the Lord in it, as did the Lord Himself, and as we all do now. And Paul flashes back his Christian sunlight on passage after passage of the Old Testament prophecy, which now to us has its Christian interpretation by his authority. The truth seems to be that certain great thoughts throb all through the Old Testament, and we are not only warranted in finding this great outline Gospel there, but we do not interpret correctly if we fail in seeing this on its pages. It is the life and spirit of the whole. The interpreter needs the spiritual as well as the inductive method. But when we see how broadly and along what large lines of great fact and incident Jesus uses this spiritual method, we shall be helped to avoid alike the mistake that makes every detail to carry an immense religious meaning, and that other extreme which sees only the literary history of coarse material events in the Old Testament. D. W. Faunce.

In the discussion of the question of the historicity of the Book of Jonah, two seemingly grave and weighty objections have been urged against its genuineness: (1) The seeming lack of a sufficient reason for so unique a miracle; (2) the essential improbability of the instant, reverent heed of an entire people to the simple religious message of an unknown visitor from an enemy’s country. In face of these arguments against the authenticity of the asserted miracle, it is well to ask if there is anything in the modern disclosures of Assyrian life and history that would seem to render the miraculous element in the story of Jonah more reasonable, and the marvellous effect of his preaching at Nineveh more explicable and natural.

Prominent among the divinities of ancient Assyria was Dagan, a creature, part man, part fish, and which, it is clear from the monuments, was an object of reverent worship. According to the various fragments of Berosus, preserved in later historical writers, the very beginning of civilization in Chaldea and Babylonia was under the direction of a personage, part man, part fish, who came up out of the sea. His language was articulate and human, and he instructed them in agriculture, in science and the arts. Berosus also records that, from time to time, ages apart, other beings of like nature with the first great teacher came up out of the sea with fresh instructions for man-

kind, and that each one of these orators or incarnations marked a new epoch, and the supernatural messengers bore a new name. Such beliefs being current among the Assyrians during all the period to which the Book of Jonah can be ascribed, there is an appreciable reasonableness, or logical consistency of movement, in the asserted miracle and the marvellous success of the fish-ejected Jonah in the Assyrian capital. He could have had no better heralding as a Divine messenger. It would certainly seem to be true that if God desired to impress upon all the people of Nineveh the authenticity of a message from Himself, while leaving to them the responsibility of personal choice as to obeying or disregarding His message, He could not have employed a fitter method than by sending that message to them in a way calculated to meet their most reverent and profound conceptions of a divinely authorized messenger. And this Divine concession, as it might be called, to the needs and aspirations of a people of limited religious training, would be in accordance with all that we know of God’s way of working among men. H. C. T.

1:1 THE word of the LORD that came to Micah the Morashtite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. 2 Hear, ye peoples, all of you; hearken, O earth, and all that therein is: and let the Lord 3 GOD be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. For, behold, the LORD cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth. 4 And the mountains shall be molten under him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before 5 the fire, as waters that are poured down a steep place. For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? is 6 it not Samaria? and what are the high places of Judah? are they not Jerusalem? Therefore I will make Samaria as an heap of the field, and as the plantings of a vineyard: and I will pour down the stones thereof into the valley, and I will discover the foundations thereof. 7 And all her graven images shall be beaten to pieces, and all her hires shall be burned with fire, and all her idols will I lay desolate: for of the hire of an harlot hath she gathered them, 8 and unto the hire of an harlot shall they return. For this will I wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the jackals, and a mourning like the ostriches. 9 For her wounds are incurable: for it is come even unto Judah; it reacheth unto the gate of 10 my people, even to Jerusalem. Tell it not in Gath, weep not at all: at Beth-le-Aphrah have 11 I rolled myself in the dust. Pass ye away, O inhabitant of Shaphir, in nakedness and shame: the inhabitant of Zaanan is not come forth; the wailing of Beth-ezel shall take from you the 12 stay thereof. For the inhabitant of Maroth waiteth anxiously for good: because evil is come 13 down from the LORD unto the gate of Jerusalem. Bind the chariot to the swift steed, O inhabitant of Lachish: she was the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion; for the transgressions of 14 Israel were found in thee. Therefore shalt thou give a parting gift to Moresheth-gath: the 15 houses of Achzib shall be a deceitful thing unto the kings of Israel. I will yet bring unto thee, O inhabitant of Mareshah, him that shall possess thee: the glory of Israel shall come 16 even unto Adullam. Make thee bald, and poll thee for the children of thy delight: enlarge thy baldness as the eagle; for they are gone into captivity from thee. 2:1 Woe to them that devise iniquity and work evil upon their beds! when the morning 2 is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand. And they covet fields, and seize them; and houses, and take them away: and they oppress a man and his house, even 3 a man and his heritage. Therefore thus saith the LORD: Behold, against this family do I devise an evil, from which ye shall not remove your necks, neither shall ye walk haughtily; 4 for it is an evil time. In that day shall they take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, and say, We be utterly spoiled: he changeth the portion of my 5 people: how doth he remove it from me! to the rebellious he divideth our fields. Therefore 6 thou shalt have none that shall cast the line by lot in the congregation of the LORD. Prophesy ye not, thus they prophesy. They shall not prophesy to these: reproaches shall not depart. 7 Shall it be said, O house of Jacob, Is the spirit of the LORD straitened? are these his doings? 8 Do not my words do good to him that walketh uprightly? But of late my people is risen up as an enemy: ye strip the robe from off the garment from them that pass by securely as 9 men averse from war. The women of my people ye cast out from their pleasant houses; 10 from their young children ye take away my glory for ever. Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest: because of uncleanness that destroyeth, even with a grievous destruction. 11 If a man walking in wind and falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink; he shall even be the prophet of this people.

12. I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah: as a flock in the midst of their pasture, they shall make great noise by reason of the multitude of men. The breaker is gone up before them: they have broken forth and passed on to the gate, and are gone out thereat: and their king is passed on before them, and the LORD at the head of them.

Introduction.

MICAH, a name abbreviated from Micaiah, which signifies “Who is like God?” was of Moresheth gath, a city near Eleutheropolis, and not far from the country of the Philistines. His introductory verse states that he prophesied in the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. As the two former reigned each sixteen years and the latter twenty-nine, the entire duration of his ministry possible within this statement is sixty-one years. He was contemporary with Isaiah, who dates one vision “in the year that King Uzziah, the father of Jotham,” “died” (6:1), and who was certainly in active service as a prophet under Hezekiah. Interesting collateral evidence that Micah prophesied in the reign of Hezekiah is found in Jer. 26:17-19. While some of the priests, princes and false prophets demanded that Jeremiah should die for the alleged crime of speaking against the royal city, certain of the elders rose up to defend him with this plea: “Micah, the Morasthite, prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and spake to all the people of Judah (very publicly), saying: ‘Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, Zion shall be ploughed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest.’ Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah put him at all to death?” etc. See the original passage (Micah 3:12). Micah spake bold and fearless words for God and righteousness. He spake concerning both Samaria and Jerusalem, mostly the latter, exposing and rebuking their sins. He predicted the destruction of both cities. He expatiated on the final glory of Zion, the real kingdom of the Messiah, in words of great beauty and power. It is important to a full understanding of the work of these prophets that we think of their relations to the throne, stemming the tide of wickedness under such reigns as that of Ahaz; powerfully aiding the work of reform under such good kings as Hezekiah. Contemporary with these two kings were Micah, Hosea, Isaiah and Nahum. H. C.

The Book of Micah resembles in many particulars that of Hosea. It is a summary of an extended prophetic activity in Judah, while the Book of Hosea summarizes a lengthy ministry in Israel. Like Hosea, it is abrupt in its transitions, sharp in its contrasts, abundant in its imagery, often obscure in its details. Like Hosea, it also commingles, in a striking manner, severity and tenderness. For these reasons its comprehension appears, at the outstart, difficult to the student. But patient labor in its study will meet a sure reward. Its unity, as an organic whole, is much more marked than in the case of Hosea. The prophet Micah was the contemporary of Isaiah. These two, laboring together in Judah, in the Assyrian period, have much in common in their historical situation, in their mission, in their ideas and their expression of them. The study of the prophecy of either casts much light upon that of the other. The peculiar glory of the Book of Micah is its Messianic prophecy, especially that regarding the person of the Messiah. In the description of the Ruler from Bethlehem the book finds its culmination. The positive, explicit and personal character of its Messianic prediction places the Book of Micah in a central position in the development of prophecy in Judah. Burroughs.

His prophetic visions and, in some places, his style of recording them, have a strong resemblance to those of Isaiah. He foresaw what would be the issue of the Assyrian invasion, which Isaiah lived to record as historical fact. He foretold the destruction of Samaria, the approach of the enemy, in a later invasion, to the very gates of Jerusalem, with the laying waste of the fenced cities of Judah. (Cf. Micah 1:9 with Isa. 36, 37.) It was revealed to him that a time of grace would yet be granted to Jerusalem, but that a day would come when the whole race of Judah should be swept out of their own land into captivity. He saw, with not less clearness, that a day would come when the remnant of Israel would be restored. He never lets his people forget that their sufferings were the proper fruit of their evil deeds. They had become debased and dishonest in their common dealings with each other; mutual confidence had perished in the nearest relationships of human life; the magistrates were open to bribes; the nobles were recklessly cruel and rapacious; the priests had become hirelings; the prophets were greedy traitors to their sacred calling; idols and witchcraft had usurped the worship of Jehovah. He deals less than Isaiah with the sins of the national government. His references to the social condition of the people would fit the state of things under Ahaz, and under Hezekiah at the very beginning of his reign, before his reforms had taken effect. But in contemplating this utterly poisoned condition of society, he was never permitted to lose sight of the Divine promises. Again and again he abruptly turns to take a glance at the vision of good things to come. The promises made to Abraham and Jacob (7:20) were safely treasured in his heart as his ever ready source of comfort.

But he also never fails to keep us in mind that the restoration of the old chosen race is but a type of the reign of the Messiah. What he says of the temporal kingdom is ever connecting itself with the kingdom to come which is not of this world. In no one of the prophets is this peculiarity more marked. But he and Isaiah stand alone in the distinctness with which they bring forth the facts of our Saviour’s life on earth. It was given to Micah to see that He, whose goings forth were from everlasting, was to come into the world in a village as humble as Moresheth, his own birthplace. Still it was Jerusalem, “the flock-town” (4:8), which was to be the centre from which the Divine teaching was to stream forth to cover the earth as the waters cover the seas. And it was thither the “many nations” were to rush, and Judah and Israel were to return again to become one people, the nucleus of the universal Church of God (chaps. 2:12, 13; 4:2, etc.).

When speaking of their great common subject, the sublime eloquence of Micah may well be compared with that of Isaiah, except that its flights are less sustained. It is a striking point in the relation in which the two prophets stood to each other, that one notable passage is common to them (Isa. 2:2, 3, 4; Micah 4:1, 2, 3). A great weight of authority ascribes the original authorship of the passage to Micah. But the question is not satisfactorily settled.

Perhaps no one of the prophets, not even excepting Jeremiah and Hosea, affords us such a marked impression of his own temper and disposition, little as he expressly tells of himself. When he is not rapt into the glories of the Messiah’s kingdom, his style in almost every line is full of character. He shows himself to be tenderly affectionate, sympathetic and excitable. Something of the warm familiarity with which he regarded his own neighborhood seems to be exemplified in the very peculiar style of the passage in which he predicts the fate of the nine cities of the Shephelah, with a play on the name of each one of them (1:10-15). His fervid sympathy prompts him to put himself into the guise of a captive waiting for the strokes which were to fall upon Israel (1:8); to roll himself in dust on account of the woe to come upon Beth-aphrah (1:10); to see with the intense excitement of an eye-witness the progress of “the Breaker” who was to force a way for the crowd of His people to escape from their captivity (2:12, 13). B. C.

The whole divides itself into three sections: the first (chaps. 1 and 2) beginning with, “Hear, all ye people;” the second (chaps. 3-5) beginning with, “Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob;” the third (chaps. 6 and 7) beginning with, “Hear ye now what the Lord saith.” In these there is not merely a reference from time to time to what has preceded, but a progress of thought. In the first part the corruption alike of Israel and Judah is traced to the capitals, Samaria and Jerusalem (chap. 1:5); and judgment is therefore to begin at Samaria, the very stones of which are to be poured down into the valley. But it will not stop there, but will sweep up to the very gate of God’s people, even to Jerusalem (verses 6-9).

In the second section the capture and destruction of Jerusalem are foretold with increased energy. It is in this portion that we find the prediction which wrought so powerfully upon the mind of the king and his princes, and also of Isaiah, the great counsellor of Hezekiah’s reign. But Micah does not rest content with general denunciations; he predicts that not Nineveh, the then dominant power, but Babylon should be the place of Judah’s captivity (chap. 4:10), thus forestalling in a remarkable way Isaiah’s prophecy spoken after the visit of Merodach-baladan’s ambassadors. Yet everywhere else it is the Assyrian who is described as Judah’s enemy (chaps. 5:5, 6; 7:12), just as we should expect in Hezekiah’s reign. Lastly, in the third part, the prophet turns to exhortation, in which threatenings and promises alternate with extraordinary vividness and force.

And so, too, as regards the promises. The first section ends with a general prediction of future happiness: “I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel.” But the second section is full of the most direct Messianic predictions. The mountain of the Lord’s house is to be established as the centre to which all the world shall flock (chap. 4:1). The law is to go out from

Zion, that it may be the possession of the Gentiles (verse 2). Universal peace is to prevail (verse 3). Zion is to thresh all nations, that the wheat may be gathered in for God (verse 13). Bethlehem Ephratah is mentioned by name as the birthplace of Him whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting (chap. 5 : 2) ; and the remnant of Jacob is to be as dew for sweetness and gentleness in preaching the Gospel, but as a young lion among the flocks of sheep, to tear down the strongholds of wickedness, and to trample the licentiousness of heathenism and its false gods under foot (verses 7, 8).

In the last section the prophet speaks chiefly of the peaceable fruits of the religion of Christ. If men wish to be accepted they must come unto God, not with Jewish sacrifices ; still less with those blood-stained Moloch rites, in which men gave their firstborn for their transgression, the fruit of the body for the sin of the soul. God must now be sought by doing justly, by loving mercy, and by walking humbly with Him (chap. 6 : 6-8). The penitent soul must now look to Jehovah, and wait for the God of its salvation (chap. 7 : 7). So will it raise the anthem of praise, saying, " Who is a God like unto Thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage ? He retaineth not His anger forever, because He delighteth in mercy." Dr. Pusey speaks of him as " the mighty prophet, who wrought a repentance greater than his great contemporary Isaiah ;" and yet, as the same authority has with great labor proved, the Book of Micah is a finished poem, smooth and measured in the flow of its words, and with every cadence carefully attended to. But even more noble is the prophet’s moral teaching. No book of the Old Testament strikes deeper chords in our nature, or strikes them with a more masterly hand, than that of Micah, the villager, but withal the meet partner of Isaiah in revealing to mankind the richness of evangelic truth. R. P. S.

First Section, Chaps. 1 and 2.

In a series of vivid pictures of the horrors of invasion, connected by word-play with the names of a number of provincial towns, the course and completeness of Judah’s ruin are portrayed. Reverting to the authors of this impending judgment, he attacks the privileged and powerful classes for their fraudulent oppression of the poor and their merciless rapacity, threatening them with retributive humiliation and extirpation. Their sneer against himself and his God he retorts, defends the justice of

Jehovah, once more pillories the heartless cruelties perpetrated on the weak and defenceless, declares the very land is sick of it, and must purge itself of them and their abominations, and taunts them with their besotted trust in lying prophets, that promise them physical prosperity in spite of moral wrong. Then in swift recoil from the dark prospect he turns to the brighter future beyond, and pictures the nation’s restoration to God’s favor, and to happy enjoyment of the land of promise. Etmslie.

1 : 1-4. The prophet summons all the nations of the earth to hear. Practically, they are supposed to be convened for a great judgment scene, and the Almighty God comes down from His throne in heaven to appear as a witness against them for their sins. His coming down is portrayed with wonderful grandeur. " See ! the Lord comes out of His place : He comes down : He treads on the high places of the earth," as if His glorious footsteps rested only on the mountain tops ; and " the mountains are molten" under the touch of His feet ; new valleys are cleft ; the solid hills melt as wax before the fire, and flow as water leaping down a precipice. Such convulsions of nature betokm the majesty of nature’s God ! H. C.

The judgment inflicted upon His covenant people is held up by the Lord as a warning to the heathen. Jehovah, as Judge of His people, is a witness against the heathen, Micah 1 : 2 ; compare also as chief passage, Jer. 25 : 29 sqq. : " Do I begin to bring evil on the city which is called by My name, and should ye be utterly unpunished ? Ye shall not be unpunished, for I will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth." And then is described the manner in which evils shall pursue one nation after another like a whirlwind, until the slain shall lie from one end of the earth to the other. The judgment inflicted on the heathen is frequently so connected with that poured out upon Israel, that the arrogance with which the heathen, as the Lord’s instruments, have treated Israel, the contempt which they have even shown for Israel’s God, is represented as calling forth the Divine vengeance. O.

5. This judgment of Judah and Israel is of most vital concern to all the nations of the earth, since in it and from it they may learn the ways of God’s reign over all nations, and the doom which awaits them unless they repent. " What is the transgression of Jacob ? Is it not Samaria ?"—that is, is it not found in Samaria, concentrated, embodied, developed there—viz., in her idolatry, her violence, injus-

tice, pride and general corruption of morals? So also Jerusalem had taken the lead in the idolatries and corruptions of Judah. From this point forward through the chapter, the doom of Samaria and her kingdom is the main subject.