“The sign of Jonas the Prophet.”
All that I desire to do upon the Book of Jonah the prophet is, to suggest a few things which have struck my own mind with interest, leaving the subject to the further meditations of my brethren, trusting withal, that to whatever measure of knowledge we may, any of us, attain, it may prove to be the nurture and strength of the kingdom of God within us.
Jonah prophesied about the time of Jeroboam II. king of Israel. He was the witness that “mercy rejoiceth against judgment,” for he foretold of gracious, things to Israel, though the people were still a guilty and rebellions people. As we read in 2 Kings 14:2323In the fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of Joash king of Judah Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel began to reign in Samaria, and reigned forty and one years. (2 Kings 14:23), “In the 15th year of Amaziah the son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel began to reign in Samaria, and reigned forty and one years; and he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord; he departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat who made Israel to sin; he restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain, according to the word of the Lord God of Israel which He spake by the hand of His servant Jonah the son of Amittai the prophet, which was of Gath-hepher.”
But in the book which bears his name, there is no notice of this prophecy. It opens, however, with something that is in character with it. It opens with the Lord giving Jonah a commission to go and preach against Nineveh, and Jonah's refusal to do so, because, as he tells us himself afterward, he knew that the Lord was “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repented Him of the evil” (Jonah 4:22And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore 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. (Jonah 4:2)). He had been taught to know that this was the way of the God of Israel, by his experience of His late doings in Samaria, and he thus suspected that such would be Him way now in Nineveh. But his Jewish temper, so to call it, was strong in him. He could not consent to be the bearer of mercy to the Gentiles. He had, without reserve, published the good tidings in Samaria, but he could not consent to do the same now in Nineveh of the Gentiles.
All this disclosure of the hidden springs of the prophet's °disobedience is very significant. He had fled from the presence of the Lord, but enmity to the Gentiles was the real cause of it all. And thus we may say, Like prophet, like people. Jonah's sin is Israel's sin. Israel has always refused the thought, that the Gentiles Could stand in the favor of God; and in delineating their sin, “forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles” is noticed by the apostle as the last great feature in the full form of their, sin (1 Thess. 2:1616Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost. (1 Thessalonians 2:16)). Then the wrath came upon them to the uttermost, as now upon the prophet. He refuses to go to Nineveh, believing that God would turn the curse into a blessing; but turning his back upon the Lord, goes down to Joppa, and there takes a ship to Tarshish. The wrath, however, comes upon him to the uttermost. Vengeance suffers him not to live. A wind from the Lord lies heavily upon him, and upon those who sail with him, and the ship was like to be broken.
I need not here speak particularly of the excellent conduct of his shipmates towards him, or of his own indifference, for a time, to the fact that his back was turned upon the Lord. Both however are remarkable: He was fast asleep, while they were crying out for fear. But he is soon made to hear not merely the roar of the wind, but the voice of God in the wind, and the sentence of death against himself. It was the voice of the Lord that was then upon the waters, and the sleeper is awakened from the sleep of a blunted conscience; he bows his head under the righteous judgment of the Lord, and will have himself offered as a sacrifice for the safety of those who were sailing with him. He takes the sentence of death unto himself. He now knows that he was the Achan in the camp, the ὁ κατέχων, that which letted the mercy of God from reaching the mariners. They were suffering; but his sin, he now sees, was “the accursed thing” that caused it all, and must be taken away. “Take me up,” says he, “and cast me forth into the sea, so shall the sea be calm unto you, for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.” It was a sin unto death and must not be prayed for. The mariners, in their kindness, may row hard, and harder still, but all will not do. The sea cries, “give, give.” The fire on the altar demands the victim. A sin unto death has been committed, and all struggle or rowing for life is vain. Joshua in such a case may lie on the ground, and cry, to the Lord all the day long, but it will not do (Josh. 7). The accursed thing must be taken away. Jonah must be cast overboard, into the belly of hell, as Achan must be stoned; and then, and not till then, Ai, the city of the enemy, shall fall, and the haven, the desire of the mariners shall be reached.
Accordingly our prophet is now cast into the sea. But the sea will not be allowed to be the pit of destruction to him, but he shall find rather a city of refuge, or hiding place for a season there. The belly of a fish is prepared to receive him from the sea, and there he abides. Like every city of refuge, the whale's belly was Jonah's shelter in the midst of judgment—the place of life to him in the region of death. And there he talks of salvation. “Thou hast brought up my life from corruption,” says he, “O Lord, my God...salvation is of the Lord.” He had before, when in the ship, heard the thunder of judgment, but now in the fish's belly, it is the still small voice of mercy. He looks to God's temple, the appointed place (2 Chron. 6), and he knows that grace and salvation are God's way in His sanctuary. There by faith he surveys the brazen altar for the guilty sinner, and the golden altar for the accepted sinner, and the mercy-seat for the Lord to sit on. And then he knows that sacrifices of thanksgiving and the payment of his vows are before Him, and he can talk of life in the midst of death. “I am cast out of thy sight, yet I will look again towards thy holy temple. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains, the earth with her bars was about me forever, yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord, my God.” With as much certainty of heart, though not with the same comfort, he knows salvation as well as though he were on dry land again. As secure he is, though not as happy, by this distant sight of the temple by faith, as though he had been in Jerusalem. “How say ye to my soul,” in spirit he says, “flee as a bird to your mountain?...The Lord is in his holy temple” (Psa. 11). This was his joy.
And this is the manslayer's joy in every city of refuge. The avenger of blood is on the foot, it is true, but the gates of the city have closed upon him, and there he tastes and knows his full salvation, with the sure prospect of his home and kindred again. And every city of refuge which we trace in scripture, has thus its peculiar joy as well as safety.
Noah in the ark was in a city of refuge, and there he was as safe as though he had been in the new world. But he had his peculiar joy there also, as well as safety. He opened the window, and let out the raven and the dove, and the dove returned to him with an olive-leaf, the pledge that the new earth should soon be his in peace and fruitfulness. He could not, it is true, go forth till the Lord gave him leave—he could not open the door, but he might the window of the ark, and from thence he looked out and saw the uncovered land again; and this was his joy and the exercise of his heart, though still amid the desolations of judgment. The blood-stained door was a city of refuge to the Israelite, while the angel of death was passing through Egypt. But there, he fed upon the Lamb, every morsel of which told Lim of his full security; and he might have looked at the staff in his hand, and the shoe on his foot, as the token that the time was short. The wilderness was another city of refuge to all Israel. For judgment was before and behind them. In the midst of death they were in life as in every city of refuge. Egypt behind had just been judged, and the Amorites before were just about to be judged—the waters were rising to cover the one land, as they had already covered the other. But Israel was in their refuge in the wilderness, as safe as though they had been in Canaan, and there learned wonders of grace and glory. Rahab's house with the scarlet line in the window, was another blood-sprinkled door, or city of refuge; but there though Jericho was the accursed place, she knew her safety, and to the joy of her heart (for she had loved and counseled for them) she might have looked on her kindred and known them to be as safe as herself. And so at the end. Their chambers will be a city of refuge to the remnant, while the indignation passes by. “Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee, bide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast” (Isa. 26:2020Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. (Isaiah 26:20)). But then also they will have large exercise of heart. The Psalms give us much of this, I believe. In the 29th we see something of it. There the voice of the Lord is abroad, full of power and majesty, falling upon the waters and upon the cedars, and dividing the flames of fire. But the remnant all the while have found their sanctuary in God, and there in His temple, like Jonah, they thus in spirit sing— “the Lord sitteth upon the flood, yea the Lord sitteth king forever; the Lord will give strength unto His people with peace” (Psa. 29:10, 1110The Lord sitteth upon the flood; yea, the Lord sitteth King for ever. 11The Lord will give strength unto his people; the Lord will bless his people with peace. (Psalm 29:10‑11)).
(To be continued.)